Quick answer
Our brewery logos cost £129, and that includes every layout. For a microbrewery it is the one fixed mark across a changing line-up of beers: it has to sit at the top of every pump clip, find the same spot on every can, print in one colour on a keg collar and look right etched on a taproom glass.
This page is for microbreweries, brewpubs, taprooms and cuckoo brewers who make their beer on someone else’s kit. If you run a bar or a cocktail venue that sells other people’s beer, our bar logo guide fits better. Here the product is the beer, and the brand travels to pubs, bottle shops and festivals you may never visit.
The brewery mark and the beer artwork are two jobs
Craft beer is known for bold can art, and it is easy to confuse that with the logo. They are different layers:
- The brewery logo stays the same for years. It identifies who made the beer, wherever it appears.
- The beer artwork changes with each beer: a core range with a stable look, and specials or one-off releases with their own illustration.
- The system between them fixes where the logo sits on every format, how the beer name and style are set, and where the legal text goes.
Brewers who skip the system often end up with a shelf of cans that share nothing but a small logo in a different corner each time. Fix the logo position and the type for the beer name, and even wildly different artwork reads as one brewery.
That fixed position has to hold across very different formats, from a pump clip a drinker reads across the bar to a keg collar a cellar manager reads in the dark. Here is where the logo goes on each, and the version that suits it:
| Format | Where it is seen | Logo version | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pump clip (cask) | On the bar, among other brewers’ clips | Stacked or icon, top of the clip | Read from a metre or two in pub lighting |
| Keg font badge or lens | On the bar, often round and small | Icon | Circular crop, sometimes backlit |
| Can, 330 or 440 ml | Bottle shop fridge, online listing | Stacked or horizontal near the top | The seam, the curve and the fridge shelf edge |
| Bottle label | Shelf and gift packs | Stacked | Narrow front panel on a curved bottle |
| Cask or keg collar and label | Pub cellar, delivery | Horizontal, one colour | Printed in black, scuffed, wet |
| Glassware | Taproom, festivals | Icon or short wordmark | One colour, etched or printed |
The pump clip: a few seconds at the bar
A drinker standing at a busy bar reads a row of pump clips from across the bar, often in low light, and chooses in seconds. The clip needs three things in this order: the beer name, the style and strength, and who brewed it. Your logo sits at the top or the bottom of the clip in the same place every time, so a drinker who liked your last beer spots the next one. Fine detail is lost at that distance, so a logo with a bold silhouette and solid letters does better than an intricate badge. Our guide to print-ready artwork covers the file checks a label printer will make.
The can: seam, curve and the fridge shelf
Cans are often where small breweries spend most of their design effort, and the logo has to work with the can’s shape. The front panel the shopper sees is only about a third of the circumference, the seam of a wrap label or sleeve runs down one side, and in a bottle shop fridge the bottom of the can is often hidden by the shelf edge. Put the logo in the top third of the front, keep it clear of the seam, and test the artwork on a real can rather than a flat print. Small runs often use printed labels on plain cans, which also suits a one-colour logo on a coloured label.
What the label carries beside your logo
Beer labels carry legal information as well as the brand. GOV.UK’s guidance on food labelling says drinks over 1.2% alcohol must show the alcoholic strength, and that it must sit in the same field of vision as the name of the drink and the net quantity. The same page says drinks over 1.2% ABV do not need an ingredients list, that mandatory text needs a minimum x-height of 1.2 mm (0.9 mm on small packs), and that it must give the name and address of the business responsible for the information.
What it means for your logo: the beer name, the volume and the ABV have to be read together, so the brewery logo gets its own fixed slot at the top of the can or clip, away from that block, and never a lockup that swallows the beer name or pushes the ABV round the curve.
The industry also polices its own marketing. The Portman Group’s 2019 guidance note on particular appeal to under-18s says care should be taken with cartoon-style imagery, childish fonts and bright colouring, individually or in combination, and with naming a product after well-known sweets. It also says merchandise should not have a particular appeal to under-18s, and encourages producers to use its free Advisory Service before launching products.
What it means for your logo: a mascot or playful lettering can work, but cartoon styling, childish type and bright sweet-shop colouring each need care on their own and are riskiest together, and because the same mark goes on caps and T-shirts, the merch has to pass the same test as the can.
Cuckoo brewing: a brand before a brewhouse
Some new breweries start by brewing on another brewery’s kit, and some stay that way for years while they build demand. Your beer may be made in one town this year and another the next, and the brewhouse you eventually buy may look nothing like the one you imagined.
What it means for your logo: a cuckoo brewer’s mark is built on the name and an idea, never a drawing of a building, a copper or a town skyline, so it stays true wherever the next batch is brewed and still fits the day you open your own taproom.
Taproom walls, merch and the festival glass
A taproom turns the brand into a place. The logo goes large on a wall, small on the tap list, embroidered on staff tops and printed on the tasting paddle. Merchandise earns its place for a brewery: T-shirts, caps, tote bags and glasses are bought by fans and worn at festivals, which spreads the name. Keep an icon that embroiders cleanly and a one-colour version that prints on a dark tee. Many beer festivals supply their own glasses, so your pump clip, bar towel and a banner behind the bar carry the brand there; our guide to PVC banner design covers the banner.
Beyond hops, barrels and wheat ears
Brewery logos tend to repeat the same small set of images: a hop cone, crossed mash paddles, a barrel, an ear of barley, a roundel with “est.” and a year. They tell people you make beer, which the clip already says. Stronger directions come from your own story: if you brew on your own site, the river, street or landmark beside it simplified into a shape, a distinctive initial, or a mascot drawn for adults rather than for a cartoon. Our guide to wordmarks versus icons helps you decide which should lead.
Clip, can and keg: the £129 set
Our Logo Design is £129 with all layouts included. The stacked version goes at the top of pump clips and bottle labels, the horizontal version runs along keg collars, delivery notes and the website, and the icon takes the keg font, glassware, caps and the brewery’s social profile. You get a single-colour version for black keg labels and etched glass, a 3D mockup, every file format a label printer or pump clip maker asks for, unlimited concepts and unlimited revisions within your brief, and the copyright on delivery. Can and label artwork for individual beers is a separate job: our Packaging Design service is £99, and our pricing page lists the rest.
Switching a brewery over, beer by beer
Change the pump clips first: some clip bodies take a replaceable badge, so the new logo can be on every bar within weeks. Move each canned beer to the new layout at its next production run, once the old labels or sleeves are used up, and start with the core beer that sells most so the new look reaches the most fridges. Keg collars and delivery paperwork can switch on a set date. First concepts reach you within 48 hours of your completed brief, so the logo need not hold up your next brew day. Customers rate us 4.8/5 Excellent. Order your brewery logo before the next clip order.
