Slapping these guys on a bottle makes about as much sense as a lot of what's out there.

Considering we're a beer retailer that offers hundreds of different beers, it should come as no surprise that we see a lot of different labels. Now, this isn't a commentary on a brewery's particular branding strategy, the logos they've chosen, or even on those breweries who think a woman's cleavage is the best way to sell a beer. No, this is a commentary on the amount of nonsense that's put on the side of the bottle.

That's right: nonsense.

There are some breweries out there (who shall remain nameless) that appear to have gotten drunk, grabbed the largest thesaurus they could find and strung together all the big words in a loosely-structured sentence. Just what is a customer supposed to take away about a beer when the label references the size of "Zeus's ass" and tells you to sleep late and have fun? Ummm...guess it tastes delicious?

Brewers of the world, please respect your customers. Only put on the outside of the bottle what is actually on the inside (or put nothing at all.) If you're going to tell a customer that they will be absolutely assaulted by hops, they damn well should be. Of course we're not advocating that breweries should simply list the flavours the customer should be tasting (that's impossible anyway!) but one doesn't read a label in order to find out how "historically accurate" or "intellectual" or "punk" the marketing department of that particular brewery is.

Feel free to wax-poetic about goddesses, or monks, or just how fashionably hipster one would be if they were to just take a sip of your delicious nectar. But much like a bag of crisps or a sandwich, people actually want to know what's inside. Please don't forget to talk to us about the beer. Please.

With that said, check out these new labels (click on the Diablo picture) from Summer Wine Brewing Co. as they have been brought to us by Yorkshire beer author and blogger, Leigh Linley. They definitely straddle the line between fun beer information and silly nonsense--which side do you think they fall on?

(To clarify--we dig the Summer Wine labels! We didn't mean to single them out--just thought they were a good example of straddling the line and will leave the rest up to you. It was also coincidental that they've recently revamped them.)

--Maggie

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