I have a theory about the origins of the microbrew craze that took off in the ’90s.

And like all confused, equally left-brained-right-brained people like myself, I know that I should support my theory with carefully researched facts, figures and arguments.

But I really just want to write something amusing, and show you some doodles.

So here goes…

My Dad is More Tasteful and Discerning Than Your Dad!

As the dot-com boomed, and people’s incomes rose, folks started to to get all persnickety about their coffee, their cheeses, their wine, the lifestyles of the chickens they ate…and the amount of fuss that went into the beer they drank.

But that’s not what got micro-brews going.

Yes, the yuppie hordes mounted in numbers, and they needed to set themselves apart from the other identical, VW-Jetta-with-mountain-bike-driving, latte sippers by surrounding themselves more and more with lush trappings. Objects prefixed with: gourmet, hand-crafted, and artisan.

But that’s not what caused micro-brews to flourish.

According to Wikipedia,  interest in “craft beer” has been steadily growing since Michael Jackson’s: The World Guide to Beer was published in 1977.

But I don’t think that was the reason either.

Power to the People!

It was the MacIntosh, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, and Corel Draw that did it. The availability of relatively cheap desktop publishing on ordinary PCs allowed everybody (and their mother) to design a logo.

Once Bob the Basement Brewer saw that he could put text on a curve, or on a diamond for that matter, he decided to quit his day job and set up shop!

Doomed to taste like skunk – a green bottle!

Heck, he was already brewing the beer on a shoestring in his kitchen. Now he didn’t even have to pay thousands of dollars to get a professional design firm to do his print materials.

Don’t believe me? Do an image search for microbrew logos. It just smacks of home-brewed graphic arts! For the definitive source, these guys have a web-site devoted to beer labels!

Bucking the yuppy trend. Available in 24-packs for $3.99, only in July

So Who Cares? Show Us the Pictures!

Exactly. The whole point of this article was to practice writing, waste your time, and then to upload some old microbrew logos that I found in the attic (OK, actually on the D:\ drive) thereby proving my theory that any yayhoo can come up with a microbrew logo.

As I discovered in college, I always did my best work when there was someone to ignore. So throughout the 1990s, sitting in Dilbert-esque status meetings, I was busily sketching away. Here are some of the doodles that survived the drool stream.

You’ll have to pardon the low image quality. These were “scanned” with a pre-21st century digital camera, and saved in a bad format to boot. Perhaps it adds to that historical feeling…?

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CPU Brew: Mega-taste Without the “Hurts”

I guess this was supposed to be an organically produced offering for software developers that had very low hangover effects.

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Heiferweizen: HAVE a Cow!

A logical, obvious pun on “heifeweizen”, this brew encourages the party set to let it all hang out.

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Jurrasic Amber: This is the Start of Something BIG

Ah 1993. As computers were enabling basic graphics to be produced at home, they were also generating crazy-good animation in the theaters, as the the best ever silver-screen dinos confounded Jeff Goldblum and ate Newman (Wayne Knight)

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Pauley Girl: What Are Ya, a Sterno Bum?

Growing up in the ’80s meant growing up with the three Rocky movies. (There were only three, I pity the foo who thinks there was a Rocky IV. And for those who think there was a Rocky V: I’ll knock ya to tomorrow!)

Anyway, if you don’t get this label, I recommend visiting  St. Pauli Girl and seeing all THREE Rocky movies.

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Micro brew. Where do you want to go today?
Just drink 8 of these!

Like I said, doodles from the ’90s, dot-com boom. Technology everywhere…

We thank you for your support!