Beer consumers take notice of the designs of cans gracing shelves at retail. Sometimes even more than the ales and lagers inside them. It’s human nature to be attracted to pretty things that align with one’s personal tastes. Because of this, many brewery owners spend a great deal of time vetting artists and obsessing over the finer points of the wraps and labels meant to draw people to their product out in the wild. Though his brand has performed well over the past three years, Rouleur Brewing owner and Brewmaster Rawley Macias wanted to increase his focus on growing and expanding the brand, specifically with Rouleur’s off-premise accounts. This led to taking a hard look at his current packaging and analyzing what was and what wasn’t working. The results of that analysis led to a brand refresh that includes new, more colorful cans and additions to Rouleur’s year-round core-beer lineup.
Refreshes like these happen often for manufacturers of consumer goods. Even the seemingly staidest brands make small tweaks on a regular basis to remain fresh while capitalizing on elements that have equity with consumers. When determining how to adjust Rouleur’s most public-facing designs, Macias listened to customer feedback telling him the beer styles listed on Rouleur’s cans were too small and difficult to read, and the cans were a bit too dark, which led to them getting lost on store shelves. He and his team also concluded that having a half-dozen core brands lined up on a shelf makes a company’s products more eye-catching and attractive at retail. The latter was the basis for the decision to expand Rouleur’s number of core offerings.
Rouleur’s initial year-round portfolio included Bonkeur Pale Ale, Endo West Coast IPA, Dopeur Juicy IPA and the winner of Best of Show at last year’s San Diego International Beer Competition (out of 944 total entries), Domestique Blonde Ale. “These four beers have been in our portfolio for quite a while and represent a decent spread of popular beer styles, however, we identified a few gaps in the line-up and decided to introduce three beers to the year-round packaged beer lineup,” says Macias. Those beers are as follows:
- Boneshakeur New Zealand Pilsner: A pilsner hopped with New Zealand varietals that has been popular since debuting in 2018 but has not been packaged until now.
- Lowrideur Low-Calorie Juicy IPA: Coming in at 4% alcohol-by-volume and 10 calories per-ounce, this hazy IPA was introduced last October.
- Beast Mode West Coast Double IPA: The newest beer of the trio, it tapped at Rouleur’s tasting room last November and has been a big enough hit to attain core-beer status.
“It’s a bit funny that four of the seven beers in our year-round portfolio are a form of IPA, but it’s clearly what our fans want,” says Macias.
As for the cans Rouleur’s septet of core products will be packaged in, they are far more colorful. The black and charcoal shades that were so prominent in the previous can design have been almost completely eliminated save for the background for the beer description on the reverse side. Beer names have been made more prominent than the brewery’s moniker, which is large but faded on the bottom half of the can, and styles are larger and more legible. Each beer name utilizes different typography and, overall, the design is, as Macias puts it, more vibrant, energetic and fun. With the exception of Domestique, Rouleur beers packaged in the new cans will debut on shelves in mid-February.
“We’ve never strived to be the ‘trend’ or ‘hip’ brand,” says Macias. “However, it sometimes seems like possessing those traits sells better than simply offering world-class beer. We know our beer is top-notch. We took this opportunity to make our packaging rise to the level of our beer.”
Rouleur Brewing is located at 5840 El Camino Real in Carlsbad