Burnt City Brewing blossoms from the ashes of Atlas Brewing

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Burnt City Brewing blossoms from the ashes of Atlas Brewing

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Post by golf_lover44 »

April 22, 2016, 3:39 PM

Atlas Brewing Co. had a problem. Actually, it had two problems.

The first was increasingly common in an ever-crowded craft beer industry: a naming dispute. In 2012, a Washington, D.C., brewery called Atlas Brew Works filed paperwork toward trademarking its name. Atlas Brewing founder Steve Soble opposed the application, believing he had begun using the name in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood well before his East Coast counterparts.

He was wrong. Not only had his lawyers failed to trademark the name, Atlas Brew Works filed its paperwork two weeks before Atlas Brewing opened its doors. After more than two years of legal back-and-forth, Atlas Brewing learned in late 2015 that it had lost the fight. It would need a new name. And that tied into the second problem.

Until its legal odyssey, Atlas Brewing had been content with its identity. It had a good name. The cans looked good on the shelf. It made good beer. But was "good" good enough? And had the brand represented who Soble and his partners were?

They realized it hadn't. And though sales were solid, the brand had yet to become an iconic Chicago beer name. After nearly four years as Atlas, the brewery took its unusual opportunity to hit the reset button and, as Soble said, "burned everything to the ground."

"It wasn't pleasant to go through this," Soble said. "But I think we're better off for it."

One trademark dispute and identity crisis later, Atlas Brewing is about to be reborn as Burnt City Brewing. Most everything old is gone: the brewery name, the names of the beers, the logo, the can design and even elements of the core beer lineup.

Image
The new can design features yellow-eyed, post-apocalyptic silhouette characters in motion — residents of the “burnt city,” which is meant to invoke Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. (Burnt City Brewing)

Conservative beer names are out, swapped for edgier, more contemporary identities. Diversey Pale Ale is now Dick the Butcher Pale Ale. (It's a Shakespeare reference.) Farmhouse Wheat Ale has been reborn with slightly less alcohol — a nod to contemporary tastes for sessionable beers — as Balloon Boy Farmhouse Wheat. Rookery Rye India pale ale is out altogether, replaced by the positively Floydsian-inspired Face Melter, an IPA brewed with hibiscus (flavored IPA: another hot trend).

And then there is the can design. Atlas' tidy, geometrical shapes have given way to yellow-eyed, post-apocalyptic silhouette characters in motion — residents of the "burnt city," which is meant to invoke Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. The fresher, edgier and more fun approach will affect both the packaged beer and the Lincoln Avenue brewpub that will adopt its new name May 5. (The Burnt City brewpub will also absorb the adjacent Seven Ten Lounge bowling alley, which is also owned by Soble.)

Soble admits "natural business-owner anxiety" about the change. What if no one wants to deal with yet another new beer brand in Chicago? But Soble and his partners, brothers Ben and John Saller, who handle brewing and operations at Burnt City's production facility in an old Jay's potato chip factory on the South Side, said a reset is the best idea in a fast-moving craft beer industry. With Atlas, they were trying to look back and evoke a long-dead brewery that dated to the late 1800s. It ended up being the safe route.

"I'm not sure (Atlas) captured anyone's imagination," Soble said. "It was a very nice brand but might have been a little generic looking back on it. I think Burnt City is so much bolder."

With nearly 4,300 breweries nationally, and about 80 in the Chicago area, bold is key — or at least sharp, clear and memorable, said Nate Young, who teaches a class called The Business of Craft Brewing at Portland State University in Oregon. With more breweries and brands competing for tap handles and shelf space, catching the eye and telling a story is increasingly important.

"It's an arms race," Young said. "It's really all about that first purchase: getting someone to walk down the aisle and say, 'I've never seen this before, but I like this can, and I like this beer style.' Then you hope and pray the quality is good enough to get them to come back."

The initial impulse among Soble and the Saller brothers was to hew as closely as possible to what they had; Ben Saller wanted shoppers to be able to spot the brand from across the store, even with a new name.

But they gradually saw losing the trademark battle as an opportunity both to reflect on who they were and to make inroads in a crowded marketplace. It has been a costly undertaking, for sure — lawyers, disposing of leftover Atlas cans and developing new designs aren't cheap — but the effort has allowed them to put four years of industry education into action.

"People like brands that convey the personality and the excitement and fun that the people behind the company are having, and I don't think Atlas did that for us very well," Ben Saller said. "I think Burnt City does."

For instance, Balloon Boy was the original name of the brewery's wheat ale and its name at the brewpub. It was tempered for a broader release because it didn't fit with the Atlas identity.

"We were boxed in," Soble said. "We were looking back, and now we're looking forward."

The partners spent weeks considering new names for the brewery before Ben Saller was struck with the words "burnt city," along with the image of a Chicago devastated by fire, in late December while stumming his guitar and sipping a Manhattan. The fact that the brewery was experiencing a rebirth of its own made the name seem all the more appropriate.

"It was one of the only things we ever all agreed on immediately," John Saller said.

They brought the concept to Ian Law and Adam Muran of Mighty Few, a design firm that created the Atlas cans and has worked with Revolution, Penrose and Brickstone breweries.

"They knew what they were and what they weren't anymore, and the direction they saw themselves going," Law said. He admitted surprise at how radically the concept had evolved but also sensed liberation. Of several options presented by The Mighty Few, the Burnt City partners picked the most aggressive designs for their branding.

"With Burnt City, they were just going for it," Law said.

Now that they're going for it and Burnt City is set to debut, what has been Soble's lesson?

"If I had to do it over again, I would have started a brewery in the '90s," he said.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/dr ... story.html


golf_lover44
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Collector of current micro and craft brewery cans from Chicago and the USA

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