Anything goes, there are so few boundaries.
Because we viewed beer as liquid art, we wanted real art on the label, and George asked Hunter
if he would ask Ralph if he would do art for our labels. The one behind me is Ralph's
version of the Flying Dog. It's a little bit twisted. And the second was the Road Dog
label back in 1995. Creative art on beer labels was not so prominent. And I think in many,
many ways, Flying Dog paved the way and gave a lot of permission to other brewers to be
wild and crazy with the art. I would say Good Beer No Shit is very much associated with
Flying Dog. And that goes back to Ralph Stetman when he created the first Stetman original
art for Flying Dog in 1995. And his very good friend, Hunter S. Thompson, wrote an essay
for the release of the first Stetman art beer. And we wrote that essay on a neck hanger,
hung it on every bottle. And what Hunter had written was the story of the Road Dog. And
you know, they were these sons of aristocrats who used to get drunk and ride down the streets.
And he finished by writing this ancient Celtic axiom that says, good people drink good beer.
So Ralph was doing the Road Dog label, and he splashed on it. Good beer, no shit, of course.
The people drink good beer. We loved it. We thought it was art. It was actually a complaint
by Denver Brewery that it was obscenity. The Colorado Liquor Commission told us we have
to remove it from the market. We said it's art. They said, well, you can consider it
art, but if you don't remove it, we'll revoke your license. We ran Good Beer No Censorship
for a few years until the ACLU had taken our case for freedom of speech to the Colorado
Supreme Court and won. So it was our first effort to establish ourselves as the First
Amendment Free Speech Brewery. Well, the process is that we come up with a name, whether it's
Raging Bitch or whether it's Bloodline. Ralph hears a name like Raging Bitch when he said,
Jim, that is probably the best name I've ever heard. I've been waiting 15 years for
a name like that. We have such funny people. We just look for original ideas. We sit around
with the dry erase board, the white board, and just come up with stuff. So it's a collaboration
of virtually everybody here at Tallinn Dog. The only creative direction, if you can even
call it that, that we give to Ralph is that we like characters. He likes to be as surprised
by the end result as we are. What Ralph does, he starts everything with a splat. Something
in that splat appeals to him. A leg is revealed or an eyeball or a lips or a face or two heads
and then the art comes out. You'll see the Stedman look, the Stedman art specifically
on our merchandise, decks of playing cards, all of our customer contact areas, every poster,
every video, all of our social media, very much reflects that Stedman edgy, interesting
image. Authenticity, that market for something to believe in, the brutal honesty of Hunter
S. Thompson just all comes through for us. Everything you see from us is true for us.
We've discovered that the edge for us is way out there and it wouldn't make sense for a
lot of breweries, but it's very true to our brand.
