Alaskan Brewing Co. of Juneau recently won a Gold Crushie Award for Best Can Design 8-15oz. for the company’s limited winter release, Chillin’ Cold IPA, making it the only Alaska win for 2023.
The 2023 Craft Beer Marketing Awards “Crushie” winners were announced recently through May 7-10 live from the 2023 Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
“We were so impressed by the sheer creativity, innovation, and caliber of marketing displayed in entries from around the world in every category,” said CBMAS Co-Founder Jim McCune, “More than 600 industry professional judges from around the world had their work cut out for them this year.”
Alaskan Brewing Co. creative project manager Cindy Burchfield played a huge role in creating the award-winning design. Burchfield said after Alaskan Brewing spent 37 years perfecting cold fermentation with their Alaskan Amber, the Chillin’ Cold IPA was the “next generation” of everything the company had learned within that time.
“We wanted Chillin’ to own the cold, both with the beer inside and the imagery on the outside,” Burchfield said. “The contrast design style was inspired by a previous Crushie winner, our Alaskan Island Ale, which is out again this summer. The Island Ale artist, Jennifer Panepinto, took her winning design style and applied it to a playful seal pup in the Arctic sea. The final design just says ‘cold’ to us.”
Alaskan Brewing Co. worked with Launch Beverage Consulting to design the brewery’s winter limited release Chillin’ Cold IPA, which recently won a Gold Crushie award for Best Can Design at this year’s 2023 Craft Beer Marketing Awards in Nashville, Tennessee in May. (Courtesy Photo / Launch Beverage Consulting)
This year the CBMAS also introduced a charity fundraiser category, “Show Us Your Favorite Tattoo”, that raised over $6,000 to benefit the Michael J Jackson Foundation that funds scholarships for Black, Indigenous and people of color within the brewing and distilling trades, according to a news release.
The proceeds raised from the charity category were presented on stage to Garrett Oliver, Founder & Chair of MJF, and Brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery. The winning tattoo was entered by Chris Jacobs from Beer Zombies Brewing Company in Las Vegas, Nevada and was drawn by tattoo artist Aaron Jackman, from Ghost Tattoo based in Las Vegas.
A wide range of entries were received from every region of the world. All winning entries can be viewed on the CBMAs websites’ 2023 Winners Gallery. According to the press release, US breweries garnered most of the wins, followed by Australia and Canada. Georgia had the most wins, followed by Texas while Colorado and Washington tied for third place in the amount of US state wins.
A total of 304 award wins were presented to winning brewers, designers, and marketing agencies from throughout the world this year. There were 89 Platinum Crushie wins, 160 Gold Crushie wins and 56 Global Crushie wins, according to the press release.
This isn’t the first time Alaskan Brewing Co. has won Crushie awards for Best Can Design. Previous Crushie wins include Alaskan White, Gold in 2020, Alaskan Citrus Wheat, Gold in 2021, Alaskan Island Ale, Platinum in 2022, Alaskan Pilsner, Gold in 2022 and Alaskan Cold IPA, Gold in 2023.
Since Chillin’ Cold IPA was a winter limited release, it’s not currently available, however, Island award-winning ale and pilsner are available around town as well as at Alaskan Brewing’s midtown Tasting Room in Juneau. Alaska Brewing Co. ‘beer gear’ can be purchased at the new downtown depot as well as the Tasting Room and online at alaskanbeer.com.
“Alaskan Brewing tries to put as much passion into our designs as our brewers put into every batch we brew,” Burchfield said. “It’s exciting when those hours of creative collaboration are recognized on a national level. We are proud to be placing a bit of Alaska into the hands of people across the country.”
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
