CookChick leads St Austell beers redesign

A new look for St Austell Brewery’s bottled beers has been unveiled.

Revamped bottles of Tribute, Korev and Proper Job will start appearing first, and the other permanent beers in St Austell Brewery’s range will be launched in the coming weeks.

As well as bold changes to the labels, which celebrate St Austell Brewery’s knowledge, innovation and heritage, the beers are also in new shape 500ml bottles designed specifically for the company. The bottle is taller, and ‘St Austell’ is embossed around the neck.

The new lightweight bottles celebrate the company’s history. St Austell Brewery, which is still family owned and run, is Cornwall’s largest independent brewery and one of the county’s oldest businesses, founded in 1851.

Jeremy Mitchell, marketing and communications director, St Austell Brewery, says: “As part of the design process, we looked at the brewery’s history and wanted to celebrate what makes St Austell Brewery so unique. To help create standout, the new branding encapsulates all the attributes that we’re proud of: passion, heritage, independence and quality ingredients. 

“To create stronger shelf presence, the new bottles are higher, and each beer has a bespoke label around the top which eludes to the characteristics of the brand. The bottles celebrate our history at the same time as carrying a bold new contemporary look.”

After a competitive pitch, Brighton-based CookChick was appointed as the lead design agency to undertake the brand and packaging overhaul.

Lee Cook, CookChick director, says: “This has been a really great project for us to be involved with. St Austell Brewery is fiercely proud of its Cornish origins and brewing history – and quite rightly so. Our approach was to galvanise this knowledge and integrity and bring out a more innovative approach on the new labels. We’re thrilled with the end result,”

The new bottles have started to appear on supermarket shelves and in pub fridges across the country.

The overhaul of the bottles follows the launch of the biggest marketing campaign for its flagship beer Tribute. Launched this summer, and designed to bring to life the brand’s strong provenance and taste credentials, all activity communicates the proposition – Quality that speaks for itself.

The redesign
CookChick were commissioned to undertake three parts of a brand and packaging overhaul: St Austell Brewery brand identity refinement, creation of a highly individual 500ml bottle and revitalization of the beer branding across their core and craft beer portfolio.

St Austell Identity
The brand identity for St Austell has been simplified back to the key elements whilst still retaining its immediate recognition. This has contemporized a very traditional looking logo into a more flexible rendition along with a short hand version for use on the bottle crown caps and small use applications.

The underpinning ‘-’ within ‘ST’ has been reintroduced from an earlier depiction of the branding found in the company’s historical documentation.

Bespoke Bottle

Inspired by a heavily embossed ‘Hamilton’ style bottle discovered in the brewery archives, “we wanted to create a distinctive point of difference in a sea of mundane brown bottles”, explains Lee. “The very pronounced St Austell shoulder embossing provides a nod to the past whilst increasing the bottle height provides stature and strong shelf visibility. With clever engineering, all of the above has been achieved within a very lightweight 500ml glass weight.”

Beer Branding

Focusing initially on the hero brand Tribute, CookChick have defined a celebratory badge that encapsulates St Austell Brewery’s values of ‘Knowledge and Innovation’ in brewing whilst reinforcing the relationship between brewer and brand.

Lee Cook adds “The aim here was to imbue St Austell’s flagship brand with a stronger sense of pride and confidence…a tribute to Cornish brewing”.

Each brand has a bespoke neck label statement alluding to the individual characteristics of each beer.

This approach is now being applied to their full permanent range along with the introduction of a portfolio of bottled craft beers due to be launched over the coming weeks.

Pictured below: Rob Orton, brewing team leader, Roger Ryman, head brewer and Jeremy Mitchell, marketing and communications director at St Austell Brewery

24 August 2017 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor in chief