The past year has been, for us at The Queer Brewing Project, both interminably quiet and incredibly busy. During the first lockdown, we felt uncertain that Queer Brewing could, or would, continue. Thanks to our friends at Cloudwater, and the injection of energy that came with our time with them, not only did we see a way forward, but a way to grow and develop.

One big outcome from our time with Cloudwater is our recent rebrand. We’ve just announced our new logo, website, and artwork (one large part of the rebrand remains under wraps until next Monday…), but I wanted to share why we thought the brand needed a refresh, and what the new look means to us.

All of our previous branding, including logo, website, t-shirts, and the odd beer or two, was designed by me—not surprising, considering I was the sole member of Queer Brewing until this past October. The logo was designed in the back of new creative director Charlotte’s parents’ car on the way back from a weekend in Wales. I am not a graphic designer, though I try my best, and whilst the logo became recognisable and, to some extent, symbolic, we recently came to the conclusion that it needed to change.

This old logo drew on the famous pink triangle—a badge used to signify the wearer’s homosexuality in death camps in Nazi Germany, which has since been reclaimed as a symbol of resistance and resilience, as well as the iconic but desperately sad AIDS awareness and mutual aid campaign, Silence = Death, in the late 1980s. Given the pink triangle’s status as a symbol of pride that acknowledges a history of pain and persecution, it was something I wanted to bring into our logo: what we’re doing is pushing forward and taking up space, without ignoring our past. 

So, too, with the boldness of the Silence = Death campaign: though it would be inappropriate and wildly insensitive to compare our mission within beer to fighting for the rights and lives of those affected by AIDS, the name of the campaign inspired a poem I wrote years ago, which looked at the idea of silence equalling complicity in the fight for queer and trans rights. 

These symbols are too important to leave behind completely, and you’ll see them popping up from time to time—the pink triangle sits behind our new logo on some of our new pin badges—but we also wanted something new. Something bold, impactful, and that reflects who we are as Queer Brewing moves forward into its next phase.

Both Charlotte and I loosely define ourselves as goths. Though we both forgo corpse paint and leather trenchcoats, we wear almost exclusively black, and heavy/post-/black/death/extreme metal makes up a large proportion of our artistic consumption. These surrounding subcultures are where we have found ourselves since we were teenagers, and it’s often where we feel most at home. Though, of course, there will always be an inherent distinction between our personal tastes and the aesthetic of Queer Brewing, we wanted to reflect some of who we are in the new branding.

That’s not a solely personal choice, however. Importantly, it helps us to stand out. The other LGBTQ+ drinks brands on the market all rely rather heavily on rainbows, and, at times, what we feel to be tired cliches. There is, after all, more to being queer than rainbows and campness, and we want to speak to those who (much like myself) feel alienated by the more mainstream, rainbow-adorned LGBTQ+ community. 

Our new logo reflects the above, as well as encapsulating an important part of Queer Brewing. The logo’s typeface is stylised to look as though it’s made of a number of pieces of tape, all carefully laid out to form letters. It’s this DIY aesthetic that first drew us to this typeface: when I started Queer Brewing I was frustrated by a sense of otherness I felt, and wanted to build something that created representation, visibility, and community. 

So, I just did it. I had a reasonable understanding of the mechanics of brewing, though I was not a brewer. I wasn’t a graphic designer, nor a marketing manager, nor a director of a company, nor had I ever fundraised for charities on my own. But I went ahead and became all of these things, anyway, and thus Queer Brewing was born. To me, our new logo represents this core value of ‘just fucking do it yourself!’ After all, who cares if you’ve not done it before?

Throughout the rebranding process, we were always careful not to lean too heavily on the goth aesthetic—as much as many may love illegible death metal band logos, there are many who certainly don’t. For all the breweries for whom this works (like the incredible TRVE Brewing in Denver, Colorado, and Burial Beer Co in Asheville, North Carolina), we felt we needed to remain relevant for the rest of our audience, who may prefer Lady Gaga to Litvrgy.

The artwork that Charlotte has created, for which she manipulated photographs of mine, brings brightness, colour, and energy into the fold. The purpose of artwork will become clearer next week, but they’re also versatile: you’ll see them on stickers, badges, t-shirts, and elsewhere.

We are at, to my mind, the single most exciting point since Queer Brewing began. More will become apparent at 9AM next Monday, but even beyond that, the direction in which we’re headed, and the vigour with which we’re heading there, is incredible. We cannot express our gratitude to the team at Cloudwater for their input and guidance—especially Paul Jones and Chris Shearston, for everything, and all the help with the rebrand, respectively. 

We’re so excited to unveil the rest of our rebrand next week. We hope you’re excited to see it.

Lily Waite — Queer Brewing founder.