Alaskan Brewing wins awards for beer can art

Juneau-based Alaskan Brewing Co. won a platinum and a gold Crushie - symbolized by a crushed beer can in a raised fist - for two of its designs from the Craft Beer Marketing Awards, an international industry award for art and marketing.

"To us it's a huge honor because we're trying to put art out," said Ryan Lange, the brewery's digital marketing specialist.

The brewery won a gold Crushie for its recently released pilsner and a platinum Crushie for its Island Ale, according to the marketing association news release. The pilsner can art with a Jeep carrying a kayak was designed by a Juneau artist, Glenn Fairchild.

"I'm glad people are enjoying it. I've seen the boxes in people's hands leaving the store," Fairchild said. "Artwork is what moves the beer off the shelves."

The artwork of both cans was inspired by the environment, Lange said.

"We always like to use Alaska imagery and animals and all that. We want to showcase what's great about Alaska when we put a beer out," Lange said.

"Sometimes it starts with a story. One of our brewers went on a road trip down the Kenai Peninsula and was really inspired," he said. "They wanted a beer you could drink at the end of the day. Something light, something easy drinking, something with broad appeal."

With a broad vision in mind, they took a photo of the mountains on the trip. "This is a real location," Lange said. "We took a picture and had the artist, Glenn, recreate it graphically."

With that direction in mind, Fairchild worked with the photo of the mountains and the imagery of the Jeep and kayak to come up with a design for the can.

For the platinum Crushie-winning Island Ale, the brewery worked with Launch Beverage Consulting to design the brightly-colored can with its puffin on a background of greens and blues, but the genesis of the idea came from Alaska employee Cindy Burchfield, a longtime member of the brewery.

"She'd been dreaming of a puffin beer for a very long time, and we finally got the chance with that one," Lange said. "We came to those colors because it's that weird place where those tropical notes meet that Alaskan scene. I see them on the shelves and they get me excited."