Cold Town Beer from Edinburgh's latest brewery is served up by Thirst Craft

"With over 2,000 breweries in the UK, the category has never been busier," says designer Craig Robertson. "The shelves and bars are swamped with wild names and intricate illustrations to decode, so much so that consumers who come to the category looking for choice can often end up feeling paralysed by it. We developed a simple positioning to silence this noise – call a beer a beer."

Inspired by a contemporary interpretation of Edinburgh’s Calton Hill, which literally means "Cald Toun" in old Scots, Cold Town Beer was born. A clean, striking system brings powerful stand-out and range navigation, while the snowflake asterisk provides a strong brand device both on and off the pack. "To continue to keep things simple," Craig adds, "the can is two-faced, introducing single word beer descriptors at its heart to prompt and help consumer choice."

The brand and tone of voice rolls out seamlessly onto the brewery, merchandise, glassware, vehicle livery and beyond. Released in venues across Glasgow and Edinburgh, it has apparently outperformed predicted sales in every unit – consistently outselling big established brands as one of the top two bestsellers in the top 10 pubs. Plus with a brewpub due to open at the end of 2018, the temperature’s only going to get cooler.