Strange Brew: Building and Printing Custom Beer Taps for a Collaborative Brew

Decorating beer taps with inkjet printed graphics

You may know Tim Dussault, owner of The Color I in Anacortes, Wash., from such projects as custom inkjet-printed window shades and a makeover for the H2O club posted here at the LexJet Blog. Dussault is always on the lookout for the next creative, custom project. As he puts it, “Our process is about serving unique niches that aren’t mass produced and that market to a specific audience.”

In this latest case, pictured here, it was a tasty blend of brews from three local brewers – Diamond Knot Brewing Company, North Sound Brewing and Anacortes Brewery – blended for a beer-tasting special event that brought Dussault’s creativity to the fore.

The brew masters from the three breweries exchanged ideas, recipes and yeasts to create a special brew for the event, held in three different places between the Puget Sound and Everett, Wash. The brew was also on tap for a month, and three taps representing each brewery were need for all three locations.

Since Dussault is active in the community and well known for producing projects like this, they turned to him for his expertise. The group came up with a concept, DNA, for the collaborative brew, and an eye-catching graphic. DNA is a double entendre – the initials of each brewery plus the fact the new beer is a blend of the three different yeasts each brewer uses.

Dussault had one day to take that concept and build the nine taps, so he worked with his local sign shop, Anchor Signs, to cut the taps out of one-inch thick PVC board on Anchor’s CNC router, then printed, cut and applied the graphics, which were printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene.

Printing images on window shadesDussault says the event was packed with people from as far away as Canada. Moreover, the event and the work got pub and brewery owners thinking about how to better promote their businesses with the creative use of graphics and signs.

“We’ve had three to four different pub and brewery owners interested in the process, and not just the beer taps, but the whole concept of using graphics in a creative way to promote their business,” says Dussault. “I created a roller shade print for one of the breweries. The roller shade is inside the brewery, which faces the restaurant. On that window shade is a schematic of the brewing process and how beer is made using photos of their own equipment – their tanks and process – so when someone looks at it they see not only the process but what’s being used in their specific brewery. We’re modifying the concept for another brewery because each is so unique.”