A stellar keg collar is a tremendous sales tool for breweries of all sizes. Let’s break down what you can do to make your collars stand out in bars, at cookouts, and anywhere else your kegs may travel.

Showcase Your Brand (Without Losing Track of Key Info)

Keg collars play a few different roles for your brewery. The most basic function of these labels is to share key information with your customers. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau requires breweries to include the following details on every collar.

• Brewery and brewery address
• Class of beer
• Net contents
• Alcoholic content (ABV)
• Production date
• Health warning statement
• Keg pressure warning

While these details are essential for keg collar compliance, they don’t need to be the star of the show. Compliance info isn’t going to sell your beer, but a notable logo or some appropriate visual elements can help your brand burrow into the brains of buyers.

As long as you follow the TTB’s rules for the font size and presentation for warning statements and other details, you have free reign to make sure your brewery is what people remember. A prominent logo is a great start, but you can also build consumer trust by sharing your local pride or highlighting your brewery’s personality in your design.

Color Them Impressed

A little color can make a world of difference for your keg collars. While gray-scale keg collars are simple, inexpensive options, you want your packaging to go beyond basic black and white.

Combining full-color printing with your branding is a surefire way to capture attention. Blasts of red, green, or any other color make for a stark contrast against metallic kegs, so don’t be afraid to go big and bold with your design choices. Different color combinations and label materials can also make key design elements “pop” for soon-to-be diehard fans, so play around with your brand colors and other showy hues to make your keg collar’s presence known.

Build Your Design Around Your Production Needs

As you may expect, one brewery can have vastly different needs than another. Those exact requirements have a direct impact on your keg collar design, especially when it comes to listing what beer is in a keg. There are a few different approaches you can take with your design.

• Add a blank space where you can write the beer name and date.
• Include a list of multiple options with check boxes for flagship beers.
• Make multiple keg collar designs with dedicated beers printed directly on them.

If you know that you’ll have enough volume to order dedicated keg collars for a flagship beer, that extra bit of branding certainly looks professional. Meanwhile, a blank space is the easiest option if flexibility is your biggest concern. Each approach makes a lot of sense, so make sure your keg collar design is based around your needs.

Follow Keg Collar Specs

Not all design tips are about fun ideas like bold colors and custom shapes. You’ll want to build some safeguards into your keg collar design to make sure they come out they way they should. That’s why every good keg collar template should typically incorporate the following elements into its art file.

• Dieline – A line indicating where the actual cut is made on the final design of a label.
• Safe zone – A buffer between the dieline and main portion of the collar design.
• Bleed – A line that indicates where the collar art should extend past the die cut into the matrix.

Each of these elements are designed to create a little bit of wiggle room to make sure key elements don’t get cut off or that you don’t have any unintended white space. In general, you should allow for at least 1/8” of bleed and 1/16” of space between the dieline and any elements. The keg collar template below can serve as a good example of a dieline, safe zone, and bleed.

Maximize the Value of Your Keg Collars

No matter your design, your brewery deserves top-notch keg collars. Blue Label has the capabilities necessary to deliver industry-best print quality and unmatched customer service that help you maximize your branding opportunities.

Our team is here to help you get the most out of your design and uncover a solution that works with your budget. We also help breweries maximize their investment through our Keg Collar Cooperative, a program to allow brewers to group your keg collar order with other orders. This process spreads out setup costs so that we can offer quality, high-performance keg collars for as little as 15 cents per collar. Learn more about our Keg Collar Cooperative today.

Whether you utilize our Keg Collar Cooperative or need a completely custom design, Blue Label is here to deliver stunning labels with industry-best turnaround times. Contact us today to make the most of your keg collars.