Duncan Channon Helps Redhook Brewery Get Back to Craft Roots with Seattle Brewlab

As craft beer growth slows – volume up 6 percent in 2016, compared to 13 percent the year before according the Brewers Association – Redhook Brewery aims to re-energise its brand with a new Capitol Hill brewery and pub, the Redhook Brewlab, opening August 17th.

Founded in 1981 before ‘craft’ was a thing out of a former Ballard transmission shop, Redhook helped launch the craft beer movement before departing for suburban Woodinville in 1994 and weathering “Budhook” criticism when Anheuser-Busch InBev purchased a 30 percent stake in the company. 

With the Brewlab, Redhook is returning to its Seattle roots and experimental heritage. Rather than launch a new advertising campaign that talks about these things, Redhook set out to create a beer-focused working space and test ground to experiment and create new small-batch beers primarily for the pub, as well as develop recipes that will eventually come to life on a wider scale in Washington and beyond. Brewlab will feature 16 taps of rotating small-batch beers, brewed onsite by Redhook Head Brewer Nick Crandall - who will experiment with a wide variety of styles and recipes to brew more than 100 different small-batch beers every year.

Redhook’s creative agency Duncan Channon conceived the Brewlab brand concept and created the identity, name, signage, menus and merchandise to bring the experimental brewing space to life and engage Seattle residents.

Nick Crandall, head brewer, Redhook, says: “Redhook was built on experimentation and taking risks back in the early 80s,” said Redhook Head Brewer Nick Crandall. “Redhook Brewlab will allow us to experiment and test brewing boundaries, as well as get feedback directly from our guests. We’ll see what works and what might not. Ultimately, the next generation of Redhook’s core and seasonal beers will be born at Brewlab.”

Michael Lemme, chief creative officer, Duncan Channon, comments: “To revitalise a brand that lost some of its craft credibility in the 35-plus years since it became one of the pioneering brewers in the small-batch movement, we knew we had to bring Redhook’s values to vivid life rather than merely talk about them in a traditional advertising campaign,” said Michael Lemme, chief creative officer, Duncan Channon. “In developing the Brewlab concept and identity, our job was to make sure everything from the name to the smallest detail in the customer experience communicated how Redhook Brewlab is purpose-built to experiment, innovate and test the results on Seattle humans of legal drinking age.”