Sour Monkey

Art Direction, Branding, Packaging Design

When Victory created Sour Monkey, it was certainly a ‘go big or go home’ moment. Not only was this the brewery’s first sour beer, it was also a completely out-of-character take on their famous Golden Monkey—a heavy-hitting 9.5% ABV Belgian Tripel. Our design team was tasked with creating a brand that matched the intensity of this tart and funky limited release that also payed homage to the established Golden Monkey brand.

As another designer crafted the brand’s hand-lettered logo, I twisted Golden Monkey’s deep purple and gold color palette and sunburst background into a shimmering, screaming spiral of neon green, pure magenta, and bright purple—not to mention the floating Golden Monkey logos. Spot inks and metallized label stock pushed the shelf presence of the beer, but we had one more trick up our collective sleeve...

What began as a moonshot idea of making the label into an actual fuzzy, 1970s-inspired black light poster inspired a few R&D sessions with one of our print vendors, eventually leading to utilizing UV-sensitive ink to hide the original Golden Monkey himself on the body label.

Sour Monkey proved to be a huge hit with consumers, with demand for the beer leading to a second limited release in 2016 and eventually the introduction of a year-round 12 oz. bottle version in 2017.