“The proprietor of our plant is a huge fan of German beer, and he decided that beer production at our facility would remain true to a German law on the purity of beer, dating back to 1516”, says Maksim Sukhov, deputy marketing director at the Stariy Zavod brewery. “As a result, our beer only contains malt, hops and artesian water. Nowadays the factory produces ten types of beer (seven under the trade name of Alter Brauch) and three meads.”
Alter Brauch, together with its new craft label, has been produced since October 2016. When designing the bottles, the designer developed a trademark and several varieties of label. The designer also came up with the idea of wrapping the bottles of beer in kraft paper. With this idea, Maksim and his colleagues turned to the Ryazan-based flexographic printing house RolUpack and started looking for a suitable material.
The material they needed was in the UPM Raflatac catalogue. They really liked the Kraft Brown 70 RP30 WG85 product. The pre-press department at RolUpack adapted the design of several variants of the label for this material.
“We tried them out, printing several labels on a colour printer before going into production”, Maksim recalls. “I literally lived at the printer’s for several days, sorting out and adjusting the colours. It all worked out well in the end”.
Importance of the right label
The new Alter Brauch label was also an experiment for RolUpack. It was the first time they used kraft material for a label.
“The label is printed using the flexographic printing method, and incorporates the use of UV dyes”, says RolUpack director Mikhail Agapov. “We’ve been collaborating with the Stariy Zavod brewery for a long time. It’s one of our favourite clients. They’re not afraid to experiment, and are constantly coming up with something new. They understand the need to work with design and colour, and they also appreciate how important it is for a label to feel right to the touch.”
“The label is perfect for the brand, and it attracts customers. It conveys our key messages of a natural beer at an above-average price”, says Maksim confidently. After it appeared with a new label, Alter Brauch beer sales almost doubled.
Bright future for craft breweries
Maksim thinks the market for beer is moving in favour of craft breweries. Even large breweries are actively experimenting as they strive to produce a style and flavour of craft beer, and they’re launching new varieties. The Stary Zavod brewery’s plans include trying out Kraft Brown 70 RP30 WG85 material on a new product - mead in wine bottles.
Mikhail is happy to divulge one secret: “We do of course work with other manufacturers of self-adhesive labels, but we always use UPM Raflatac's production up as an example. The material is technology-savvy and performs supremely well both in the printing machines and on our clients’ equipment. This is a big advantage, because it means we’re not faced with any complications.“