“Taste of Echt” in a Corrugated Cardboard Beer Crate

In contrary to the brown 330 ml longneck bottle the bulk of the Dutch beer for consumption at home is offered in a standard refillable 30 cl brown glass bottle, nicknamed a ‘pipe’. The content of 30 cl bottle is different from all international sizes.

The bottles were introduced in 1986 and are 30% lighter in weight than the previous generation. They are refundable (€ 0,10/bottle = USD 0,14) and returned to any brewery where they can be refilled up to sixty times. The beer bottles can be used and refilled by all breweries operating in the Dutch market, providing tremendous benefits in logistics. The Central Brewery Office (the brewers’ trade association) owns the design rights to this standard Dutch beer bottle.
New returnable bottles are made from up to 65% recycled glass.

In the supermarkets and other sales outlets the beer bottles sit in returnable heavy duty plastic crates with 12 or 24 bottles. Dutchmen typically buy a crate to bring home and return the crate with the empty bottles to the store. Any store.

Four characteristic small old family-owned Dutch beer brewers decided to enter into an alliance to market their speciality beers together. To commemorate this alliance they commissioned BooM Packaging, an agency specialized in brand and packaging design, to develop a unique brand and structural packaging design for 12 bottles of beer. The design needed to meet the marketing communication values: heritage, authenticity, small business, inspiration and experience.

BooM Packaging developed a shared identity and gift packaging for the four independent Dutch family breweries, underlining the character of the brewers and their unique beers. The gift case, a beer crate made from corrugated cardboard, holds 4 x 3 bottles of “Smaak van Echt” (Taste of Echt) beer, provides a beer glass, four “Taste of Echt” coasters, a booklet with background information and stories of the brewers. The crate also holds a bottle partition, a cardboard sleet with 13 holes (12 bottles and one glass). See the photo of the billboard, on top of the stack you can see the inside of the crate.
A successful combination of brand and packaging design with the benefit of eco-friendliness in regard to the small carbon footprint of the natural and renewable materials used for the corrugated cardboard crate.

With passion for beer, which has been transferred generation upon generation with respect for the people and their surroundings, each brew master, developed a unique recipe for the “Taste of Echt” marketing campaign.

You also like to know something about the four ‘genuine’ new brews. Here they come:
Alfa Brewery chose with Alfa Echt 2009 for a strong beer with the colour of a sunny summer day. The beer is velvety with an insidious invitation to drink more. Insidious as it has 8% alcohol.

The Budelse Brewery opted for an even stronger beer. With 8.5% alcohol Budels Echt 2009 is the strongest of the quartet. The beer is dark in colour and made of organic barley. A typical tasty beer to be enjoyed at the end of the evening.

Gulpener brewed the most accessible beer. The brewery was inspired by the Bavarian Märzenbier. Originally, this beer is brewed in the spring to quench the summer thirst. Gulpener Echt 2009 is an amber beer with a pleasant spiciness, an attractive bitter. With 6.5% it is a fine beer for an evening drink.

The top of spiciness can be found in Lindeboom Echt 2009. Like the Märzen, the beer has an amber colouring, but is slightly stronger. The brew master not only made use of four different hops, but also used a special herbal blend.

The result: A beer crate, made from corrugated cardboard, with four unique beers creating a maximum gift experience. And not only that. The crates create an imposing billboard in the store.

After drinking beer, a pint of milk recovers the body, as the saying goes. Milk in the US is distributed in large plastic bottles. Let’s have a look at the innovations recently introduced in the UK, where the dairy industry is forced, by consumers and law, to dramatically reduce the packaging waste . .. read the full article: “Milk in a Pouch – Innovative and Sustainable“