|
New Belgium Creates New Tap Handles |
|
Monday, 17 November 2008 |
Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing is retooling its tap handles for the first time in 17 years. Inspired by New Belgium's bike culture, the new tap handles include a New Belgium Brewing logo reflector and are made to represent a bike rim, complete with spoke holes and recessed edges.
"Now, where wood, enamel and big bulbous heads reign supreme, we will enter a slender, aluminum bike rim that reflects New Belgium," says Brian Kruger, sales co-pilot at New Belgium Brewing.
New Belgium wanted to use Colorado companies for the artistic execution and turned to Heritage Die Casting out of Denver and U.S. Precision Mold in Arvada to produce the one-of-a-kind creations.
"Creation of this bar handle involved some intricate work with pretty elaborate tools, but we wanted to make New Belgium's vision a reality," says Gregg Bannick, with Heritage Die Casting.
New Belgium will swap out more than 25,000 handles across 19 states in the next three months. Old handles will be brought back to the brewery and repurposed for retail display and signage.
"In the end, a tap handle is primarily meant to inform the consumer what is being poured, while also representing who you are as a company," adds Krueger. "Our new handle is simple, clean, and direct and it's 100 percent a representation of who we are."
Catch the Amazing Race-style, no-holds barred, winner-takes-all battle royale as Team New Belgium rolls out the first new handles in its own hometown in this three minute video at http://news.newbelgium.com/?p=355.
|
