Brewery: Collective Arts Brewing Ltd
Origin: Hamilton, ON Canada
Style: Porter
Abv: 5.5%
Marketing: Nature woodland monster reminiscent of the children's book "Where the Wild Things are." Actually, it really reminds me of something that you would see as a Screensaver for Microsoft Vista. Do you remember those images? They were sort of a trendy, flash style of artwork.
The image is printed quite dark on the can, which makes it difficult to see and somewhat muddied looking, even up close.
To show you what I mean I lined up three different cans from different breweries and from only 10 feet away you can barely tell what the Collective Arts image is supposed to be. I was even generous enough to show it in its best light by putting the can closest to the light source. I don't think that it made much of a difference. It was still quite hard to see the image and tell what it's supposed to be. It comes across as sort of a blob.
I personally do not care for the can design at all. This company's gimmick is to pair up with new and "up and coming" artists for their label designs. Anyone can submit their artwork for review and the instructions are printed on each beer can on how to do so. It's sort of a cool idea, but it makes for bad branding in my opinion. The brewery has no recognizable brand logo other than the black banner with the company name printed on it. You can see it at the top of every can but it really doesn't stand out anymore than the black banner seen on the Broadhead beer in the photo above. Going back to that photo, I can clearly recognize the Wellington boot logo from wellington brewery and I can even just make out the Broadhead writing on the beer beside it. On the other hand I can't read the "Stranger than Fiction" or the "Collective Arts" writing and I can't tell what the image is, and I'm only standing about 10 feet away.
Of course, things change when you view the beer up close. There is a lot of detail and the image is a little more interesting than other more simple can designs. But the image still has nothing to do with the beer and nothing to do with the brand or marketing. All said, it really just seems like a random image that they chose. I personally don't like the design (if you haven't gathered that already), but I will admit that I spent more time looking at it than the other beers I've drank. So in a way, maybe it really is good marketing? Similarly the image they chose does fit with their Stranger than Fiction name.
My wife doesn't agree with me on the bad can design idea, she quite likes it and says that it's more fun and its more interesting than the others. So each to their own I guess.
The Beer has a hip and trendy sounding name that much like the image design has nothing to do with the beer itself. I guess it sort of implies that the beer will be unique in some way? Beer names never really have anything to do with the beer itself anyway.
Color: Poured black with a tan head of foam that lasted a decent amount of time.
Nose: Roasted malt, cocoa, chocolate, very mild smoke aroma in the background.
Taste: Mildly sweet up front and finishing with a strong bitterness that coats the mouths. I noticed cocoa flavors coming through, coffee and a mild leathery smokey taste.
Texture: very nice mouthfeel overall. Nicely carbonated. Medium bodied.
Impression: This was actually a really great beer for me. It had a lot of flavor but was still very easy to drink. I personally didn't find this to be anything too different or more unique than other porters I've had but I quite liked it. Overall, it was a great beer, even despite the (in my opinion) horrible can.
comments.
