Docks Beers.
Building an iconic Grimsby brand
Docks Beers.
In 2018, Axholme Brewery launched the first commercial brewery in Grimsby for 50 years. Converting a deconsecrated Church, only 250 metres from Grimsby’s docks, the vision of the Grimsby-born team was to celebrate the town’s heritage, people and spirit with a craft beer brewery and venue.
Sourcefour were involved from the very beginning, working on the branding and the iconic beer can designs for the first three launch beers.
Designing cans that tell a story.
In addition to the logo and other traditional branding elements, Docks Beers planned to launch with three on-site brewed beers with standout can designs that supported the brand story.
Part of that story was celebrating the industry heritage of Grimsby and the hard-working people that helped build it.
To encourage creativity, we opened the brief up to everyone in the design team to pitch their own ideas to the client. The pitch was won by Kirk, who tapped into his illustration skills (and passion for craft beers) and came up with a unique style.
The launch beers were:
- Hard Graft – a 4% Session Pale Ale
- Graveyard Shift – a 4.5% Milk Stout with Coconut
- Never Say Die – a New World IPA
Growing the brand.
Following the brand launch, we continued working with Docks Beers on their website, email marketing, print materials, social media and even company vehicles.
Docks Beers resonated with its customers, who not only bought into the beer and the venue but also the ethos of the brand. With that in mind, it was an obvious next step to look at merchandise that could be sold. We designed clothing, gift boxes and more beer cans as their range expanded.
Pivoting the business during the pandemic.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, the hospitality sector effectively closed down. Docks Beers could have just closed their doors, taken the government support and waited it out. Instead, we worked with them to move the business forward and into e-commerce.
Big brand collaborations.
Since opening, Docks Beers has brewed a number of beers in collaboration with other breweries and brands, and we have been on hand to provide can artwork and supporting materials for each beer launch. These brews range from collaborations with well known craft breweries, including Magic Rock, Brew York, Marble and North; a beer to help launch the new album by iconic indie band The Sherlocks and through to a brand collaboration with Adidas and Size?.
Footwear retailer Size? collaborated with Adidas Originals on the Seaside Series – an exclusive trio of retro-feel Originals Baltic Cup trainers inspired by three iconic UK seaside towns: Brighton, Blackpool, and Cleethorpes.
The collaboration with Docks saw the creation of three limited edition beers. We thought this could go further, however, and recommended creating a presentation box for the three beers with additional merch that represented each location, styled to look like a trainer box.
Expanding into a live music venue.
With the Docks building offering opportunity upstairs for a venue with live music, in 2020, Docks Academy was born. We worked on this as a sub-brand of Docks Beers, with its own branding and website.
As part of the website functionality, we assisted in integrating the ticketing platform, SeeTickets. We felt it was essential from a user experience perspective that people stayed on the website when purchasing tickets, rather than being redirected to a third-party site. Our integration made the whole ticket purchasing process seamless, which improved conversion rates.
Previous Director, Docks Beers
Our wall of beers.
Since launch, Docks Beers has crafted many different beers, each requiring a can design – from small batch experimental brews to beers celebrating other iconic Grimsby brands such as Grimsby Town FC.
When we moved to our new premises, we wanted to showcase all our can designs, so we installed our ‘wall of beer’. Each beer tells a story and demonstrates the flexibility and power of having a strong brand identity from the start.
What the team says:
“As an avid craft beer geek, Docks Beers was a dream client – an opportunity to work closely with the industry that I love but also a real opportunity to put creative skills to the test and come up with something completely unique.
Working with the Docks team over the past 7+ years has pushed our creative talents as a team in ways we hadn’t been pushed before, and we’re beyond proud of the results.
The moment I first got my hands on a can of beer featuring our artwork will always be one of the shining moments of my career!
Kirk, Creative Director