Labelling your bottles (with your own labels)

[EG_Wanna_Be]

Hey guys!

I have already learned so much from this forum, and I wanted to do a bit to give back wherever possible! I am a big fan of being creative, and long before I got interested in brewing beer, I have mucked about in different visual mediums, most relevant to this exercise is a few years of Photoshop under my belt.

I hope in the not too distant future to make a sort of basic walkthrough for designing a label, but this tutorial trusts that you have already produced/procured your own labels, and have adequately cleaned and bottled/capped your bottles.

The label I used here was a label I designed using Photoshop in a document that was 7"x3" @ 300 dpi, in CMYK mode. Here is a web rendered version of the label:

So... what do we need to get going?

- Labels! - Obviously have enough labels for the number of bottles that you have got.
- Milk in a bowl - Milk is our adhesive here! Believe it or not it is pretty damned efficient.
- A small painting/basting brush - Available in most supermarkets for a couple of bob
- Kitchen Roll
- A few spare minutes and a little bit of patience!

Labels:

Right, let's get cracking!

First, get all of your stuff close to you, I am right handed and found that having my milk in a bowl to the left of my label and the bottle to the right of the label was easiest to work with.

Step 1: Dab you brush in milk, but let it drip dry a bit, so that you are not completely saturating the label, but are providing it with some good volume to cover the label. If it gets too wet, it may start to break up.

Step 2: Laying your label upside down with the graphic pointing up on the kitchen roll, brush the label working from the left edge across to the right, framing the label with your brush to ensure every square millimeter is covered. Your label may start to curl up a bit whilst you do this, but worry not!

Step 3: Place the bottle over the label ensuring that the top of the bottle is pointing away from you. Ensure the bottle is as perpendicular to the label as you can make it to ensure that when the label wraps the bottle, the ends meet at the same height on the bottle. Once done, bring up both sides of the label, squeezing them into their meeting place to help disperse any air, and extraneous milk.

Another variation of this step is to place the bottle at one end of the label and roll it across the label as if you would with a rolling pin, though I found the former method to be more accurate, but yielding a few more bubbles under the label.

Step 4: Once you have finished wrapping the label around the bottle, seek out and smooth out (pushing to the edges of the label) any air bubbles you may find. This also ensures that the label has ample surface area connected to the bottle, leaving you with a nice solid adhesion.

Step 5: When you have done this on all your bottles, stand back and take pride in your accomplishments. This was my first brew, but it has taught me a ton, and I thoroughly look forward to the next one!

If there are any questions, feel free to ask! I understand that a lot of people use this method to label their bottles, but I didn't see a decent walkthrough anywhere, so I thought I would make one.

Hope it helps!

 

[thirdlight]

Nice label! And thanks for the walk-through.

Do you print with an inkjet? If so doesn't the ink run when wet?

 

[bobsbeer]

I use a laser printer and milk. Works great. Nice label by the way. I must admit I don't label much of what I make, only the ones I give away. Makes them look professional. Which is rather odd when the whole purpose of HB is not to be professional. :grin:

 

[Smiddylad]

Do your bottles not smell of stale milk after a couple of days?

 

[mifune]

did you scan a real beer label? or did you make that all up yourself ?!, writing and all?
not sure how to use photoshop

love the walk through, many thanks!

i use a simple little free beer label site i found on the net , save the pic then try to copy 6 per a4 page and print them out. will milk them up!

 

[simonlpearce]

I have only made one brew so far, but my plan is to buy lots of different coloured dots and stick them on the bottle, then have a little book with a sample of each coloured dot and which beer it represents :

Great work on the labels though :thumb:

 

[JimmyB78]

Any tips for sticking ones made on an inkjet printer? I'm guessing the milk would make the ink run.

I have only made one brew so far, but my plan is to buy lots of different coloured dots and stick them on the bottle, then have a little book with a sample of each coloured dot and which beer it represents :

Great work on the labels though :thumb:

Get some chalk pens, they're great for the label lazy! I just put an abbreviation (eg Woodforde Wherry = WW) and then on 1 bottle put the batch date for reference.

 

[simonlpearce]

Get some chalk pens, they're great for the label lazy! I just put an abbreviation (eg Woodforde Wherry = WW) and then on 1 bottle put the batch date for reference.

Great thinking!

PS - Sorry for thread hijack.

 

[oz11]

Any tips for sticking ones made on an inkjet printer? I'm guessing the milk would make the ink run.

Pritt stick

 

[EG_Wanna_Be]

Thanks for the feedback guys! To answer a couple of Q's:

Nice label! And thanks for the walk-through.

Do you print with an inkjet? If so doesn't the ink run when wet?

This was printed on Laser, I am still waiting on inks for my ink jet. I would presume the ink may run unless your using some of the higher end Epsons with the waxy ink, most certainly if it is cheap ink/paper, you might run into this, but using a slightly heavier paper would help you avoid this as well. One thing to note is that you're being careful when you're applying the milk to the back of the paper... I managed to go throguh this relatively quickly, and never ended up touching the front of the labels with the milk.

I use a laser printer and milk. Works great. Nice label by the way. I must admit I don't label much of what I make, only the ones I give away. Makes them look professional. Which is rather odd when the whole purpose of HB is not to be professional. :grin:

Thanks mate! I have always kind of been obsessed with quality of something that I produce, plus as I said earlier it's yet another way for me to enjoy the hobby.

Do your bottles not smell of stale milk after a couple of days?

Nope! There is so little milk in the end that it turns to a kind of powder/glue and there is absolutely no smell.

did you scan a real beer label? or did you make that all up yourself ?!, writing and all?
not sure how to use photoshop

love the walk through, many thanks!

i use a simple little free beer label site i found on the net , save the pic then try to copy 6 per a4 page and print them out. will milk them up!

The label is my own. From scratch, except that I used a few free textures, and an image of St. Peter from a Google search. As I said, I am hoping to put together a walk through on creating a label for a brew, but that may have to wait until the next brew. The writing is mostly just some blurb that fills space, and doesn't look too out of place. The barcode is a genuine barcode that represents the time that the brew actually went into the bottles, along with the brew number (1) as it's my first.

I have only made one brew so far, but my plan is to buy lots of different coloured dots and stick them on the bottle, then have a little book with a sample of each coloured dot and which beer it represents :

Great work on the labels though :thumb:

Thanks, and good plan! Not everyone will have the patience or even desire to do this, but it makes it a bit more fun for me.

Any tips for sticking ones made on an inkjet printer? I'm guessing the milk would make the ink run.

I have only made one brew so far, but my plan is to buy lots of different coloured dots and stick them on the bottle, then have a little book with a sample of each coloured dot and which beer it represents :

Great work on the labels though :thumb:

Get some chalk pens, they're great for the label lazy! I just put an abbreviation (eg Woodforde Wherry = WW) and then on 1 bottle put the batch date for reference.

See above about ink, and chalk pens are a great idea, especially when you've got nice writing.

Get some chalk pens, they're great for the label lazy! I just put an abbreviation (eg Woodforde Wherry = WW) and then on 1 bottle put the batch date for reference.

Great thinking!

PS - Sorry for thread hijack.

Nae bother! Happy to inspire some chat!

Any tips for sticking ones made on an inkjet printer? I'm guessing the milk would make the ink run.

Pritt stick

I have heard this too... I had milk though, so I used milk - slightly out of date as well. :O

 

[Gayle]

Wow those labels look fantastic :thumb: I love the barcode idea too!

I only have an inkjet printer with "compatible" cartridges, and cheap paper, so ink often runs, I imagine it would terrible if I used milk! I've been using cheap "pritt" stick so the labels have been falling off too easily, the last batch I made I used PVA glue, but it's messy and fiddly. I used address labels for a while and then discovered that they're nearly impossible to remove!

Most of my brews are gallon batches though, so I don't really spend too long designing a label for less than a dozen bottles.

 

[WelshPaul]

Microsoft Publisher is also a good option for making beer labels (especially if you sit next to a laser printer in work :whistle: ). I've been using it for a few years for mine.

 

[screamlead]

Another tip for self printed labels is to spray them with cheap hairspray before cutting out apparently it sets the ink so it wont run. You can also use the picture mounting spray stuff too - i just happend to nick a couple of cans before i 'retired'. :

 

[WelshPaul]

How easy is it to remove the labels that have been fixed with spray adhesive? I know that milk comes off nice and easily in a warm soak.

 

[fairbrew]

I use an inkjet printer and spray the labels with hairspray first. I brush some milk on the back and they stick great with no ink running. Try the beer labelizer site for easy effective labels
www.beerlabelizer.com

 

[LeedsBrewer]

I use microsoft paint . am happy with the results though.

like the hairspray idea :thumb:

 

[Loetz]

Microsoft Publisher is also a good option for making beer labels (especially if you sit next to a laser printer in work :whistle: ). I've been using it for a few years for mine.

I like that label. Is that photo from someplace like Sedona, Arizona?

Also, I use glue sticks and it works perfectly.

 

[Ukulele Kris]

Get some chalk pens, they're great for the label lazy! I just put an abbreviation (eg Woodforde Wherry = WW) and then on 1 bottle put the batch date for reference.

This is what I plan on doing, I've done a little logo that I'm going to print out (at the local uni printshop, because they charge reasonable prices for colour printing)

I knocked this up to go on the bottles

And then below with a chalk pen I will put the type of beer it is, for example, my first bottled beer is a stout, so I'll just put "Stout #1 Innit" on the bottle. Or something

 

[WelshPaul]

I like that label. Is that photo from someplace like Sedona, Arizona?

I think it's around Monument Valley. Since I name all of my beers after locations in the "Fallout" series of games, I just did an image search for "red rock". :)

 

[Loetz]

I like that label. Is that photo from someplace like Sedona, Arizona?

I think it's around Monument Valley. Since I name all of my beers after locations in the "Fallout" series of games, I just did an image search for "red rock". :)

I've been playing fallout since I got the demo for the first one with PCGamer. I'd like to the the rest of your labels. :P

EDIT: I just did that google, and those are hoodoos from Bryce Canyon in Utah. I hope your beer is 3.2% or under. They have some strict alcohol laws in Utah!