Labeling Innovations from Weber

It all started when Monte Summers and his business partner tried to decide between brewing beer or making cider. After working both ends of the question for a while with their brew club, they decided to make cider. And it was so good that friends encouraged them to start a business selling it. 

2 Fools Cider was born.

Located in Naperville, Illinois, 2 Fools is a small but mighty craft cider company that has been pleasing the Northern Illinois area since 2016. Monte studied the science of cider making at the Oregon State University and created recipes that don’t taste like mass-produced cider. Rather, he goes for a subtle sweetness and crisp, balanced flavor in his beverages. Their taproom/cidery is a fun destination that has been growing in popularity, even with the challenges of the Covid pandemic.

One of the things they did in the early days of the pandemic was to pivot quickly and get an outdoor tent set up so they could remain open. Their outdoor space allowed them to keep serving customers when inside service closed up again in the late Summer of 2020. 2 Fools was lucky to enjoy a lot of local support with both their outdoor taproom and local deliveries of packaged cider that helped them actually grow their business during hard times. 

“People really supported us. I had people ordering every week, cases at a time, dropping them off on their stairs and porches. It was great.” said Monte.

Inspiration Every Day

“First and foremost, I have two-year old twins that get me up every morning,” said Monte when asked what motivates him. “But I really enjoy growing businesses,” he said, “and it’s fun for me to see how this business has grown through the years.”

He likes having the ability to come up with new flavors and seeing people enjoying his products. 2 Fools started with about five or six flavors, including dry English-style cider, a tart cherry cider,  a dry-hopped cider,  and a sweet cider that wasn’t too sweet and eventually morphed into their very popular Rosé cider. 

The Rosé actually started as a blueberry cider that he considers one of his biggest mistakes.  He had some blueberry concentrate and decided to try making a blueberry cider.  As he was formulating the first batch, he would add more blueberries, take a sample to the taproom to have people test it, then return to tweak it some more. After adding a lot more blueberries, everyone said to stop! That’s it!

Whether you are looking at label automation for the first time or if you are getting ready to update some old label printer-applicators that have worn out their welcome, there are a few important things to think about. 

Make sure you have all the information you need to make a decision that will reward you for years to come.

There are quite a few different varieties and manufacturers of print-apply systems out there. Most work well, as advertised.

But there are some major differences in the features and construction of these systems that can effect production up-time, maintenance and longevity.

Some Common Issues

 Durability

Depending on your type of product and the production line that the print-apply system is used on, it can see modest to over-whelming activity. First time automation companies might just be labeling 10-20 pieces an hour, where a distribution center might be labeling a package every few seconds.

But in both cases, durability is a major consideration. What would happen if the machine failed? Can you have your production line down for any length of time while the system is fixed? This could create a bottle-neck that keeps products from going out the door. You can employ a zero-downtime system that has a back-up printer-applicator, but that can get expensive. 

When looking for a new print-apply system, see who has a proven track record of durable systems with a good maintenance track record. As with anything, you get what you pay for. Buying a cheap system will only bring future headaches as well as a pain in your wallet when you have to replace it too soon.

Check out systems that are built using substantial materials like stainless steel and aluminum plate. Check and see if all the connections are protected from damage or abuse. Are moving parts like applicator arms shielded to protect the operator or local workers? Make sure the print engine that you chose is a new model from a major manufacturer like Zebra or Sato with up-to-date features. These integrate easily with your online systems for loading label formats and monitoring jobs. 

One of the coolest things about our Digital Label Department is our sample rack of labels siting in the corner. Nothing fancy. It just holds the end rolls of some of the amazing label runs that Weber prints every day.

I love to wander back to that department to check out the latest craft beer labels on that rack. Every brewery has adopted a style of artwork for their brand, and most of it is so interesting, I thought I would share some of my favorites with you.

2020, as a year, was pretty bad. I hope you all got through it safely and remain in good health. These labels are one of the true bright spots. Enjoy!

1. New River Brewing - West Jefferson, NC

Founded in 2016 by father Greg Hershner (a family doctor) and his son, Adam (an industrial engineer), New River Brewing started small but with a big goal: disrupt the local craft beer market by creating innovative beverages in Ashe County North Carolina.

Veteran home brewers turned pro, these two began slowly until 2018 when Adam won a NC Brewer's Cup Medal. That was a turning point for the brewers and they opened their current Taproom and Brewery in 2019. They are committed to bringing the best craft beers and pub food to their community.

One thing common to most taprooms is the ability to bring home some fresh-brewed goodness via a crowler or growler. Many breweries use plain labels and just write the name and date on it with a Sharpie marker.

New River knew they had an opportunity to showcase their brand with a great-looking label on their crowlers. The label material is our Digiflex Silver with a matte over laminate, giving it a reflective quality with a subdued reflection. 

2. 903 Brewers - Sherman, TX

Deeply rooted in originality, high quality, and community, 903 Brewers prides itself on solely offering its best to its customers.

Their labels are in-your-face designs that get noticed right away. Bold colors and striking colors are their trademark. The 903 IPA is a fruity treat with notes of grapefruit, pear, stone fruit and mild spice. They say it pairs well with hot wings, curry and tom foolery.

Acting on their dream of sharing their love of creating great beer with folks who mean the most, 903 Brewers is the product of the perfectionism and persistence of founders Jeremy (also head brew boss) and Natalie Roberts.

Their award-winning beers include the Sasquatch Imperial Chocolate Milk Stout which took home the silver in the 2015 Great American Beer Festival aged beer category.  Their Scotch Ale, Kilt Switch, took home a bronze in 2018.Cultivating its craft since 2013, 903 beer is noticeably crafted with impeccable care. 903 Brewers first made a name for itself with the beloved The Chosen One Coconut Ale and Roo’s Red Ale. Now, with an array of year-round, seasonal, and special release beers, craft beer enthusiasts are sure to find their flavor.

This label is a Flexlyte white BOPP film with a clear gloss over laminate for protection.

3. Le Chien Brewing - Denham Springs, LA

The Le Chien Brewing Company started out in 2016 and is a micro brewery in the antique downtown district of Denham Springs, Louisiana. They feature great handcrafted craft beers and sodas, along with custom food and live music. 

And, as you can see from this crowler label, they are completely dog friendly! Check out their Facebook page for some great dog pics for visitors to their taproom and patio. The brewery is built in an old oil change shop. The pit that was used to get under the cars to change the oil was converted into a home for their fermenters and tanks. You can actually see them through grates on the floor!

The label we made for Le Chien is for their 32 oz. crowlers. Beautifully designed, with simple graphics and great colors, the label has areas for writing in the beer information contained in the crowler. The label used our Digiflex white BOPP film with a matte over laminate for a low sheen writable surface.

4. Tantrick Brewing - Allegan, MI

Tantrick Brewing is named after the two owners, Tanya and Patrick who opened their taps in 2018. They are dedicated to using the freshest ingredients to deliver outstanding beer to their customers around Allegan, Michigan. They recently started canning and found Weber as an alternative to hand labeling cans from sheets. 

Their beer menu ranges from IPA's to Stouts, Irish Reds and even into a couple of refreshing ciders. And their labels are just beautiful! The design really stands out with it's trippy colors and mesmerizing patterns (see more info below). We printed these labels (above) on Digiflex white BOPP film with a matte over laminate. They are easy to spot on the shelf and a true pleasure to enjoy.

The Covid pandemic has upended most breweries around the country this past year, as so it did to Tantrick.  They have a Mug Club and all mug club members get their own handmade glass mug, which are made by Avolio Glass Werks in Kalamazoo. 

Earlier in 2020, local Covid regulations prohibited gathering indoors, but the move to outdoor seating was causing a lot of mugs to be damaged.  So they decided to suspend the service, and give mug club members an option of buying 16 oz cans instead.  They changed the art on their labels to reflect the unique designs of each mug. Most of the new label designs are a theme off of their Mug Club mugs. And the wood grain band across the top of the label reflects the scorched wood bar surface in the taproom. It is their way of bringing the best of the Tantrick Mug Club to their members and other customers while creating amazing label designs!

Currently, mug club members are also given a complimentary koozie to hold their prized beverages.

5. Mountain Fork Brewery - Broken Bow, OK

Established in 2015, Mountain Fork Brewery is located in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma. The water for their beer comes from the pristine Mountain Fork River. They believe that from a good source, comes a good beer. And their goal is to produce easy drinking, creatively crafted beer with you in mind.

Mountain Fork is located in a shopping center that also includes a coffee & ice cream shop, a winery and a distillery! Demand for their brews have increases so much over the years that they have increased their capacity with a 20 barrel system. With a winery, distillery and brewery located so close, they have the adult beverage market covered.

And it makes it easy to get access to used bourbon barrels from their neighbor at Hochatown Distilling next door. The whiskey goes out one day and it's filled with beer the next! The above label is an example of their Stout aged in whiskey barrels. It has an 11% alcohol by volume from aging it for 6 months. 

This label was made with our Flexlyte clear film with a white underpainting and a clear gloss over laminate for protection. This is a beautiful label with outstanding colors that reflect the lake area of their location.

Back in 1926, when the automobile was starting to become commonplace in the United States, there was a problem. Cars like the Ford Model T and the Dodge Series 116 were going faster and farther, but the roads they traveled were mostly still unconnected dirt ribbons.

Two entrepreneurs, Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri, decided they wanted to try to connect the country with a paved road to enhance auto travel. They lobbied the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) for the creation of a route across the country near the center. What eventually evolved over the years was Route 66, which connected Chicago in the East to Santa Monica in the West.  The road grew by connecting smaller local roads into one unified paved US Highway. It opened up the country to commerce and travelers, especially helping the migration to the West during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930’s.

While many changes occurred over the century, including the endpoints, Route 66 has remained a special magical highway romanticizing auto travel in the 40’s-60’s.

The scenic by-ways, small town diners, museums and tourist attractions still bring travelers looking to relive those special times when traveling by car was more than just speeding down a crowded concrete multi-lane raceway. When you mention Route 66 to those that know, it conjures up images of large un-air-conditioned beasts full of families traveling down long stretches of two-lane asphalt.

Larry Tarantolo was lucky enough to grow up in Cicero, IL, right along where Route 66 (Ogden Rd.) passed by on its way to the endpoint at Lake Michigan. He was enamored with the legend of that highway, often traveling it with his family. He learned the history and lived the magic of the famed first road across America.

As a beverage marketing entrepreneur, Larry worked in the industry for years, creating multiple products and working with many experts in the bottling and distribution arena. One of the professionals that Larry befriended was Ron Filbert, a fourth-generation bottler of custom root beers and sodas. Filbert’s Old Time Root Beer is a well-kept Chicago secret that is a hard-to-find Southside treasure. Ron’s plant is located in a brick building on South Ashland in Chicago and it turns out custom hand-made sodas daily. The equipment is old but well-maintained, as you would expect from a seasoned craftsman.

About twenty-five years ago, Larry met Ron and they have developed a great working relationship over the years. And one of the special things tying Larry to Ron’s company is that Filberts and Route 66 were both opened in 1926.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to push a button and get just the right amount of high-quality color labels instantly?

Sometimes you need large of amounts of color labels for your products, whether for the product itself or the packaging. This requires getting them from a label printer (like Weber Packaging Solutions) to get the best quality and cost for a large run, say over 10,000 labels.

But some companies have requirements for color labels in small batches or need large (up to 8" x 13") labels for chemical drums and pails. What do you do if you only need 10 total labels and each a unique design? Even digital printing would be cost prohibitive.

But now you have three reasons to bring your small-run label printing in-house at a cost-effective price.

The Epson C6000 Series color inkjet label printers are specifically designed for industrial customers that need high-quality, full-color labels up to 8.34" wide. The printers come in a narrow and wide-web version but share the same consumables. Let's look at the models.

ONE: The Epson C6000A (label cutter) and the C6000P (peeler bar) are the narrow-web version of the series. These printers are engineered for demanding applications deliver dependable commercial inkjet printing that you can count on. The printers can print from 1.0" (25mm) up to  4.25" (108mm) and can print up to 24" (610mm) long. The printers can print in a wide range of quality settings from Maximum Speed (300 x 600) to Maximum Quality (1200 x 1200). Print speeds up to 5" per second on max speed settings.

The printers use separate CMYK high-quality Epson ink cartridges so you only replace the color needed. Using ESC/Label and ZPL II Interface languages, you can print without reprogramming existing systems. And the Remote Printer Management allows you to manage large fleet

s of printers over a network. 

The 4" wide C6000 printers are perfect for using color labels on small medical vials and med devices, small GHS label applications on chemicals, and food and beverage applications for small batches of high-quality labels.

TWO: The Epson C6500A (label cutter) and C6500P (label peeler) are the wide-web version of the series with label widths up to 8.34" (212mm) wide and up to 24" (610mm) long. With the same high-resolution printing capabilities as the C6000 printers, the wider label ability makes the C6500 printers ideal for large chemical drum and pail labeling. When only a minimum quantity of labels is required per day, but they need to be sharp, chemical resistant, and in full color, then the Epson C6500 inkjet printer is the perfect solution for the application.

These printers can operate in a wide variety of Operating System Environments including most Windows versions, Mac OS and Linux. A general purpose I/O port is designed to mission-critical applications that need to seamlessly integrate a color printer into their automated workflow.

The Epson C6000 Series color inkjet label printers allow you to unlock the power of color on your labels, adding color-coded fields, product pictures, logos and marketing messages to improve your overall business processes and branding.

These printers are available at Weber's online store, www.go-label.com.

The Craft Brewers Conference was cancelled for 2020, but we want to show you what Weber was planning to demonstrate in their booth. 

Every year we look forward to the craft brewing innovations, camaraderie and outstanding good time at the Craft Brewers Conference. Unfortunately, this year the show was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We hope everyone was able to stay home and practice smart social behaviors that allowed everyone to stay healthy in this difficult environment.

But we really wanted to show you some of the things we had planned for our new booth at the CBC show. So Neal Oechsle, our Labeling Products Manager, would like to show you a few things that can improve your craft beer labeling.

Weber can help you improve your craft beer brand by helping you get high-quality labels and economic prices. Craft beer labels need to look unique, setting you apart from the crowd in the busy beverage aisle. And the labels need to be durable, water-resistant and smudge-proof. Weber can print your labels on their digital presses, so small label runs are very economical. We can use a variety of label stocks for special effects and can add foil and embossing to really make your label come alive. 

And our e-commerce site, Go-Label.com, is now offering a selection of custom digitally printed craft beer labels for your brand. We can take your artwork and print beautiful labels on a variety of label materials and protective coatings. These labels come in convenient rolls of 500 labels on 3" cores (also available in larger sizes - call for details).

Our custom-printed labels are perfect for limited runs and special times when you need between 500-5000 labels for your latest project. While Go-Label can supply much larger quantities if needed, that should be handled by one of our labeling experts available at 1.800.843.4242.

For more information on the PL-501, check out our web site.