2019 CAN EVOLUTION

We’ve been hard at work over the last few months giving our can designs a bit of a refresh. Take a look at their fresh new look and read why we thought it was time...

These new designs will be hitting the shelves in April. The new designs went to manufacture last month but you’ll still see some of the old designs alongside new ones as we run down existing can inventory of certain beers. We’ll have some of the old Cwtch cans still at the brewery waiting to fill, but we’ll be printing new Peaches & Cream cans for the first time, for instance.

We like to freshen things up with our design every now and then. It’s part of our process of evolving and constantly improving, because we know there’s always room to get better.

One of the things we’d noticed is that our can designs had become a little bit too different from one another. We like to give our Creative Designer Taz total freedom and we enjoy creating a visual identity for each of our brews. As a result of our approach - brewing whatever we want to when we get an exciting idea - beers come out throughout the year as standalone products. The downside of that is that they end up being standalone in visual terms too.

We wanted to inject a bit of consistency into our artwork so that there was a similar thread running through the design work. This would enable anyone - whether they be familiar with craft beer or complete novices to this wonderful world - to spot a Tiny Rebel beer and to see which beers are part of the TR range.

So we tasked Taz with a spot of redesign. Like everything we do, we kept this fully internal. There were no design agencies or any form of outsourcing at all. It’s our work and we’re proud of it, so we keep everything in-house so we can keep full control of the final product.

It also ensures that we still retain Taz’s creativity on every single can. The designs are still unique for each can, but they’re designed with each other in mind and feature a few elements in the same place, like the Tiny Rebel logo and the beer description at the bottom of the can, just to capture that consistency. They’re still as colourful and vibrant as ever, and our beloved bear has returned to the front!

Each of the beers now has a very distinguishable colour of its own. We’re hoping this will emphasise the difference in this range, showing that we brew beers of a huge variety, each very different from the last.

One of the things you will probably notice is the relatively drastic changes to Cwtch and Cali. Here’s why we’ve decided they’re in need of change.

Cwtch

First, Cwtch. This is the most major edit to Cwtch since it launched nearly seven years ago. Since then it’s won major awards and became something of a flagship for us. So we kind of let it be - if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and all of that. However, evolution is important, and we felt that having left Cwtch be for so long, it was time to apply that spirit of evolution to it. The psychedelic feel remains, but the swirls and bubbles have been replaced by wavy, colourful concentric circles. A bit of shadow behind the name makes it jump off the can and into your face, just like the aroma does when you crack open a can.

Cali

Secondly, Cali. This is the most drastic change of the lot, because not only have we changed the design, we’ve tweaked the beer itself. If we’re improving the design, we may as well improve the beer when we’ve identified how we can.

We’ve felt that the branding on Cali never quite did the beer justice. But not only that, we felt that a juicy pale ale at 5.6% was simply overshadowed by our uber-fruity tropical IPA Clwb Tropicana, at 5.5%. With not much between them in ABV, and one being more pronounced in its fruity flavour, we felt that Cali simply wasn’t getting a fair outing. So, rather than scrap it completely, we thought we could rework it a little, as it’s still a very good beer in its own right. So Gazz and the brew team got to work.

Clwb Tropicana

The result is a beer with the same flavour profile but with a reduced ABV. Taking it down to 5% differentiates it enough from Clwb Tropicana and the flavour differences are now given a fairer distinction. We’ve tweaked the name to “Cali Pale” to point out the difference, and the colour has changed too, to a much warmer Tiffany blue, that evokes more of the beachfront spirit we’ve tried to capture in the beer.

Just like our 7th Birthday Collab Cans, Taz will still be designing much more complicated, detailed artwork for our specials and one offs, that won’t necessarily conform to the same consistent patterns of these cans which will be available more permanently. But for these beers which you’re likely to see year-round, there’s a clear pattern between them while they keep their own distinct identities. We’re chuffed with how the range looks! Keep an eye out for the new-look cans in the coming months!