Castle Lager #Homegrown Campaign

The main aim of this blog is to draw attention to the artists who have created the colourful labels adorning your favourite bottle of microbrewed/craft beer. However, a recent campaign by Castle Lager,* one of the most recognisable brands of beer in South Africa, features contributions by several prominent South African artists.

Image source

Released for the 2017/2018 festive period, the Homegrown campaign consists of four limited edition 330 ml cans representing the ingredients used to brew Castle Lager. Each piece has been created by a different local artist.

The first six-pack I bought contained three cans each of Water and Hops. These cans were enclosed in the regular shrink-wrap packaging. A week or so later I picked up a second six pack containing Barley and maize. This time the plastic wrap was different from the regular packaging, featuring a a design entitled Barley, Maize, Hops and Water by Thulisizwe Mamba.

This is a great initiative, but unfortunately for the Homegrown campaign there has been little to no coverage via social media. Not even the official Castle Lager Facebook and Twitter accounts have given it some coverage. The one exception is the official Instagram account which shared the following four videos:


1. Barley - Cameron Platter
Platter's website is a bit eccentric and may induce photosensitive epilepsy. I found it a bit tedious to navigate, so couldn't compare his offering to any previous works, save to say this doesn't resemble a spray painted cheese curl.

A post shared by Castle Lager SA (@castlelagersa) on Dec 19, 2017 at 6:48am PST

2. Water - Bruce Mackay
The can design is reminiscent of several pieces in Mackay's exceptionally intricate Former Mountains and Crazed Waves series.

A post shared by Castle Lager SA (@castlelagersa) on Dec 21, 2017 at 11:49pm PST

3. Maize - Karabo Moletsane

According to Moletsane's Behance project, her design was inspired by flame grilled corn, a local street food. 

A post shared by Castle Lager SA (@castlelagersa) on Dec 27, 2017 at 12:11am PST

4. Hops - Heidi Chisholm

Chisholm has created several textile patterns during her career. If you swapped flowers for hop cones in the Jackie So, Rosemary and MO Baby! designs, then these are her most similar works.

A post shared by Castle Lager SA (@castlelagersa) on Dec 28, 2017 at 11:46pm PST

I really like the idea of having a fifth artist design the shrink-wrap packaging, but think this could have been implemented better. It would have been great if Castle/SAB followed some of the trends in the craft beer scene by releasing a limited edition 4-pack that included one of each of the four limited edition cans. Either way, I'm really happy to have completed the small collection, and will proudly add them to the "Wall of Beer" the next time I get a chance.

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* Castle Lager is brewed by South African Breweries (SAB), which is a subsidiary of the world's largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), and is therefore anything but craft beer. Despite many craft drinkers denouncing Castle, drinking macro/industrial beer is not something to be ashamed of. In fact, it's a guilty pleasure of several well-known and respected craft brewers in the United States. One simply cannot deny the consistency SAB has achieved in the process of brewing millions of litres of Castle.