When Brendan at Liquid Gravity gave me a preview of the base for this sour, I knew it was going to be something special. Not because sours are one of my favorite styles of beer, not because of how “drinkable” all of the beers coming out of their lines are, but because it felt incredibly balanced for the fruit he had planned to pair with it.
When he told me the name… Wicked Razz… an image immediately came to mind. I’ve found that whenever that happens, it’s usually a sign that the work will be something special. I knew I had to ask if he had plans to can it… He didn’t, it was planned for the taproom. So I told him my concept, and a week later we sent off the label.
There wasn’t a lot of time with this one, I had to be quick and concise. I wanted to do something a little more raw, resembling skate deck art. It had to be bright, and graphic, it had to capture the feeling of name. I took my initial idea pretty far before making the hard choice to throw it out and start again. I used really rough vector brushes in clip studio paint, I worked directly in color instead of black and grey. The font for “razz” was a whole other story, I ran through five or six different “hand-drawn” versions before settling on the one I used. While a shortened timeline and self imposed anxiety is never fun, the end result was worth the extra work. As was the beer!
