Smuttynose Brewing Company is one of the 11 brewers in the exhibition, BRANDED: The Art of the Beer Label. I asked them to be a part of the show because the characters on their labels are so compelling. They draw you in, making you wonder what the story is behind them. Joe Grotto of Smuttynose was kind enough to let me in on the inspiration behind some of their labels.
The dog on the Old Brown Dog label is the owner Peter’s dog. Her name is Olive. She’s a weinheimer. She was probably about a year old when that pic was taken in ~1995. She did not want to sit still on that barrel.
The geezers on the Finestkind IPA label are Cy and Paul. Cy was 90-some-odd years old when it was taken in 2004 and has since passed away. Paul turned 93, I think, this year. He still comes, on occasion, to beer fests with me rocking his hole-y jeans, flannel and suspenders. He’s a rock star and one of the nicest fellas you’ll ever meet.
The image on the Rhye IPA label is a famous drawing of an Indian rhinoceros by 16th century German painter and printmaker, Albrecht Dürer. Dürer had never seen the creature before and created the drawing based on one description and a crudely scribbled sketch.
