The Beer Me Project from Seventh Son Brewing in Columbus, Ohio
On April 20th, 2020, Seventh Son Brewing in Columbus, Ohio, will celebrate its seventh anniversary. To celebrate, they’ve launched the Beer Me Project, a unique way to feature the fifty-seven employees that have contributed to their seven years of brewing.
“We came up with the concept for this beer in the fall,” said Collin Castore, co-founder of Seventh Son. “Our designer, Will Fugman, had put his face on a can. We were like, Hey, it’s going to be our Seventh Anniversary, let’s use this as a way to highlight the people who make our beer what it is.”
The Beer Me Project saw Seventh Son putting the faces of brewery employees on cans of Maui Wowie, a tropical fruit pale ale with guava, passionfruit, and raspberry.
“It’s not a hazy,” said Castore. “It’s a relatively straightforward beer with a nice hop character. Our anniversary is on 4/20 so we figured people would want a crushable, easy drinking beer.”
Although this year’s Beer Me Project is Maui Wowie, next year’s beer might be something different. However, the concept of putting employee faces on cans will remain the same.
“We want to highlight the people behind the beer,” said Castore. “And we want to bring it home that the purchase of a beer helps the people on the can.”
According to Castore, the process of putting faces on cans is more involved than just taking a picture. In order to make the varied labels, Seventh Son took hundreds of pictures of its employees at different angles, taking careful account of positioning and lighting. The pictures were then blended into a composite and converted into a file that could be applied to a cylindrical surface.
“It was a big process,” Castore said. “We reached out to all fifty-seven employees. Five or six were camera shy and with four or five, we couldn’t figure out timing. But this year, we got forty-seven of our fifty-seven employees on the can.”
In addition to Seventh Son’s human employees, the cans will feature Seventh Son’s only feline employee, a cat named Assistant Manager. The cat not only serves as “Director of Pest Control and Customer Satisfaction,” but brand ambassador, with his own Instagram promoting the Seventh Son brand. Each six pack of twelve-ounce cans will feature the faces of five different brewery employees as well as Assistant Manager.
“We’re doing a run of about 400 or 500 cases,” said Castore, all of which will be available for purchase via pickup or delivery. While profits from the project will support the brewery, 100 percent of Seventh Son gift card sales are currently going to an employee fund. Additionally, all proceeds from the purchase of Seventh Son’s stickers go to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.
