Hand Brew Co is an independent brewing company with a brewpub in Brighton and brewery & taproom in Worthing. They focus on high quality craft beers to suit every palate and offer a wide range of core, seasonal, and special brews available in keg, cask and can. They recently collaborated with HelloMarine, a local artist and illustrator that works with bold, vibrant colours and organic shapes, to design their branding and beer labels.
Worthing and Beyond interviewed Jack Tavare from Hand Brew about their collaboration.
Please could you tell us a little bit about your brewing company?
The brewery was started when Jen & Clark took over the Hand in Hand brewpub in Brighton in 2015 that already had a brewery in it, installed in 1989. Jack came on board about a year after they took the pub over to run the brewing side of the business after completing a brewing diploma. Over the next 4 years we made numerous improvements to the 30 year old brewery including a brand new chilling system and fermenters which involved cutting a hole in the pub floor and lowering the new vessels in.
We soon could not meet the demand so also started cuckoo brewing at another local brewery to get more stock and after a year of this, it became clear we needed our own larger premises. This led to taking on a 6000 square foot unit in West Worthing, installing a brand new high quality and efficient brewing kit that gave us room to grow and could be a forever home. The new site is home to our tap room too which showcases beers brewed at both our Brighton brewpub and Worthing brewery.
How did you first get involved with Hello Marine?
With the large expansion to our Worthing production site we talked a lot about our values as a business going forward and what kind of company we wanted to be. This led us, amongst other things, to want to support the arts community that have helped us in our journey so far. We’re very fortunate at our brewpub in Kemptown to be surrounded by a thriving arts community who have bought our beer and supported us since day 1.
We knew Hello Marine from this community and have always loved her work so our Creative Director Clark approached her to see if she was interested in collaborating on our new artwork and branding.
What was the collaboration process like?
With Clark having been in the artistic world professionally, he was very keen on this being a true collaboration with input and full approval from both sides. Marine starts by producing a digital illustration for us which is then sent to Clark. There is often not much of a brief for the artwork so we can let Marine’s creativity flow and it’s always exciting to see what artwork comes back for each beer.
Clark then takes the illustration and puts it into our can label templates and plays around with the layers and orientation before sending a variety of mockups to the whole team and Marine. There is a bit of back and forth getting the artwork right before approval from all sides for sending to print.
What was your favourite thing about working on these projects?
My favourite thing is the excitement of seeing what artwork comes back for each new beer we do. I love that our designs aren’t beer related in any way and it’s always exciting seeing the designs develop into our branding pieces.
Do you have any more collaborative projects lined up?
We’re definitely keen to do more collaborative projects like this down the line. I think once things are slightly back to normal we can start planning more exciting projects and events that support the arts community.
Anything else to add?
I’d just like to say that we’ve loved working with Marine and we’re excited for what the future holds with our collaboration.
You can buy their beers here.
Are you a creative or business that supports creativity in Worthing that would like be to interviewed for our blog? Please get in touch with Chelsey.
