12 Acres Craft Beer – Branding & Packaging

Take a barley farm in Laois, malt the crop from their 12 acres field, add some water from a spring on their land too, then leaf through the family album to find a pic of great great grandad… sounds like all the ingredients for designing a great new craft brew… and we enjoyed creating the branding for this a lot!

When we met Patrick and heard about the beer origins, we figured a family brand story warranted a family identity too – enter great grandad, the man who bought the 12 Acres Field in the 20’s, his bowler and full mustache in tow. With a great old style photo like this in the family album, we couldn’t leave it behind and so we chose to dress the Pale Ale bottle with it. We created a clean sharp logo for 12 Acres to sit on top, and the two marry nicely. We also designed a little graphic for the 12 acres ingredients, which can be used independently. We armed them with logo, packaging, web page and some print and POS materials too, so they are now tastefully dressed to start selling their delicious pale ale. Follow their activity on Facebook and  Twitter and watch this space…

Comments
“Just to say I’m blown away with all the designs, there are none I don’t like!… great work…thanks a million”
Paddy McDonald (after viewing stage 1 presentation)

“Penhouse demonstrated a lot of creativity from the early stages of their design process with us. After several meetings where both parties got to know each other and the background of each other’s business, we were asked to complete a very detailed ‘brief’ questionnaire which enabled us to draw on our own design preferences in a very detailed and specific way. I think this was the basis for how Penhouse were able to design our brand so well.

We were then presented with 5 different brand and packaging designs all of which had their own creative and distinctive look. One particularly stood out for us and it was an easy choice in the end. I really feel that it was Gill and the girls ability to understand and interpret our own vision for the brand, coupled with their creativity and design flare, which enabled them to design a brand that really fits our story, products and business.

The fact that Penhouse is a small local rural based business was one of the reasons we choice to work with them. We felt they had a better understanding of our story and vision. Small businesses have empathy with other small businesses. The fact that Penhouse is located on a tillage farm like our own was an obvious advantage and selling point for us.

Branding design is such an important factor for a new drinks business like ours. We needed to stand out from all the other bottles on the shelf. I feel that value for money is a relative concept and for the quality of the branding and design work that Penhouse provide I know that they definitely provided us with value for money. Our branding has without doubt contributed to our success so far, as customers continuously comment on the quality of our branding and how it stands out from the crowd.

I find the gang at Penhouse a pleasure to deal with. Always courteous, efficient, polite and very helpful.”
Paddy McDonald

“Their label design is certainly one of the best I’ve seen in the Irish Craft Beer sector. ”
PJ Kavanagh, Publican