We don’t just
make our beer.
We grow it.
Crafting fresh-off-the-farm brews from the middle of a hop field, Bale Breaker is a family-owned brewery located in the Yakima Valley. Backed by four generations of hop farming experience, Bale Breaker started in 2013, and has grown to become the fourth largest independent craft brewery in Washington.
I collaBEERated (and celebrated) with brewery owners Meghann Quinn, Kevin Quinn, and Kevin “Smitty” Smith, who generously welcomed me into their hoppy family. We drank beers. We crafted things. Then we drank more beers and crafted more things. Here’s what we brewed up!
CLIENT
Bale Breaker Brewing Company
Services
• Branding
• Creative Direction
• Packaging
• Collateral
• POS
• Strategy
Recognition
Drawing from
their history
Another focus of the redesign was to bring each beer's namesake more to the forefront. For a brewery uniquely located in the middle of their family hop farm, the farming equipment is a big part of their story. These custom illustrations created by Chad Gowey helped pay homage to Bale Breaker's history and location.
Leota Mae IPA
For the woman
who started it all.
Bale Breaker may only be five years old, but their story really began in 1932 when the owners’ great-grandparents first planted hops in the Yakima Valley. The matriarch of the family, Leota Mae, worked sunrise to sunset cultivating the land they still farm today. Given this beer’s unique backstory, a remarkable woman like this deserved something special and I wanted the owners’ love for her to be clear. This heritage-inspired design pays homage to the woman who paved the way for the brewing ventures of future generations. On its own, this can stands as strongly as its namesake. But, utilizing Bale Breaker’s familiar field-inspired color palette, it also looks right at home with the rest of the lineup.
Fresh Off The Farm IPA
The Official Beer of Seattle Beer Week 2017
I was thrilled to design the official beer of Seattle Beer Week for the third straight year. I created a can that would serve as the star of the week, but also fit right in with the existing Bale Breaker lineup. Their familiar field-inspired color palette is carried over, with more of a vector art approach to the graphics. Bale Breaker has a huge presence in Seattle, but reside 150 miles away. So, their being tapped for the official beer of Seattle Beer Week was noteworthy. I wanted to help bridge those miles graphically. The label’s illustrations harmoniously merge the hop fields that birthed this beer with the cityscape that would host its debut.
Dormancy Stout
Who says Bale Breaker only does hoppy?
Conditioned on locally-roasted coffee beans, this rich, dark brew reminds us that good things still happen while hop fields lay dormant in the off-season. Knowing that this beer was a departure from the core system in style, it only made sense to change up the design as well. Embracing the iconic gold that Bale Breaker is known for, this beer has become a great hit in a market so full of IPAs.
Citra Slicker
It’s all about those fresh farm-grown hops!
A collaBEERation between two of my favorite breweries, both notorious for their hop-forward beers. Made with wet hops picked fresh from the fields that travel just four minutes from farm to kettle. Each hop harvest, the big city brewers from Cloudburst Brewing make the trek from downtown Seattle over the Cascades to team up with the farm brewers from Bale Breaker to brew Citra® Slicker Wet Hop IPA. I referenced lots of vintage western movie posters as inspiration for this design.
