Custom Labels for Your Craft Beer

My favorite craft beer is so good that if I were resigned to drink it from a stranger’s cupped hands I’d gleefully do so. Others have a tang that leads me to think they were bottled in someone’s bird bath. Thankfully, the beer’s label helps me quickly find my delicious brew and avoid those — wait, is that 12% ABV cucumber passion fruit concoction still called beer? Make custom beer labels online!


Anyway, an eye-catching label is important for both loyal customers to identify their favorite beer as well as for attracting new customers. While you know the design is important, did you know that the type of label you choose can be just as important for your brewery?

Here’s why you should choose pressure sensitive labels for your craft beer.

1. Money, Money, Money (Muuun-aayy)

While the O’Jays may not have had the rosiest view of money, in a competitive market like the booming craft beer industry, you know that being cost-efficient is instrumental to your brewery’s success. That’s the first reason why pressure sensitive labels are the right choice for your brewery.

Cut and stack labels are certainly a viable option for those breweries with high volume orders, those requiring printed material in excess of 5,000 feet. The problem is they require extra logistics and machinery for application, making them less than ideal for small and medium sized breweries. Pressure sensitive labels, however, have very low initial costs when digitally printed.

Pressure-sensitive labels feature adhesive on their substrates, making them much easier to apply to your bottles and cans. This also means that they are more readily implemented into production lines and thus are a more efficient option. Essentially, they allow for short orders — and most craft breweries prefer the flexibility that short runs provide.

As you know, time is money. By using pressure sensitive labels for your craft beer, you’ll have both more money to help market your business and more time to do so.

2. Easier For The Design & Brewing Process

Some designs are meant to curve around the container in microcosmic, yet expansive, layouts. Others created for frontal viewing find their totality obscured, parts of their image falling behind the container’s curves. No matter what you’re imagining, you’ll be able to select a die for your labels that fits your use case, as pressure sensitive labels can be easily die cut to meet your specifications. Digitally printed labels also allow for greater flexibility, with regard to changes in design or label content, each time they’re printed. With digital printing the only limit is your creativity. Your consumers will view your label’s art the way it was meant to be received!

3.  Pressure Sensitive Labels are Long Lasting

Over time a glue applied label may wrinkle, having its image distorted. It may peel off.  A pressure sensitive label, on the other hand, is built to last. Subject it to moisture or heat, its adhesive will remain. It makes no difference whether it is in a packaging facility or fixed to a jostled-around bottle in an ice-filled cooler. What’s more, they have the ability to stick to a wide range of surfaces from plastic to aluminum and everything in between!

For the majority of breweries, pressure sensitive labels are the best fit for labeling craft beer. While some high volume breweries may find benefits in the cost-effective large runs of cut and stack labels, the majority will benefit from the easier production process and flexibility that digitally printed pressure sensitive labels provide.

Finally, an additional alternative for labeling your craft beer is with shrink sleeve labels applied directly to cans. For the ultimate ease of production, these digitally printed shrink sleeved cans can be printed and pre-applied to the cans, shipped directly to you, ready to fill. This alternative may be the only labeling option that makes for an easier packaging process for your craft beer than pressure sensitive labels.

Interested in pre-applied shrink sleeved cans? Contact us for more information and pricing.

Seeking custom pressure sensitive labels for your craft brewery? Get started with your custom label quote here or call us toll free at  (800) 750-7764 to receive a quote. LabelValue is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m EST. We’d love to help!