Pioneering craft beer in France: Setting Big Mountain up for adventure
Big Mountain is an award-winning craft beer brewery in Chamonix, based in the heart of the spectacular French Alps, but they started like many do, making a good home brew. When they came to us in 2018 they had plenty of adventurous spirit and passion for brewing – but their brand felt small-batch and wasn’t helping their core beers reach their potential or giving them the budget and scope to extend their ranges. They were moving away from operating as a micro-brewery and had ambitions to build an international craft brewery. So their visual identity needed to develop to help them widen and build their consumer base and reflect their potential as a brewery with consistently great and appealing beers.
Big Mountain are all about outdoor adventure and the thrill of the alpine mountains. We looked at outdoor fashion and accessory category cues to gain inspiration for the attitude and visual codes of the brand identity, to appeal to those wanting a piece of the Chamonix lifestyle.
Our challenge was to create a craft beer brand that was authentic to their personality and their craft processes, but accessible enough to grow into an international brand, extend into different ranges for different audiences and drive visitors to their taproom.
The Concept
We set out to help their overall aesthetic and attitude match their big ambitions to scale up and live up to their name, developing their brand logo to captured the outdoor adventure at the heart of their beers, without compromising on the quality and taste appeal of the brand.
To help Big Mountain appeal to beer-lovers in Chamonix and beyond, we established a broader, aspirational, mountain-lifestyle feel for the brand. We combined contemporary typography and colour palettes with bold mountain imagery in a clear, cohesive design system. Hand-crafted illustrative elements in the mountain device allow an injection of unique personality for each beer. The overall result is a premium, contemporary brand that captures the quality of their brewing and the spirit of mountain adventure.
As they’ve grown, so has the brand, using our original assets to develop range differentiation from the core range, to the special editions, to their more premium barrel-aged bottled beer. This takes the core elements of the Big Mountain brand but uses the assets in a more minimal ways to create a refined product identity. The brand is also used across across merchandise, their new venue and the digital landscape. The result is a flexible brand system that can work for different platforms, products and customers, but always keeps Big Mountain’s personality at its heart.
The Impact
“Kingdom and Sparrow are an approachable, highly professional and talented team of creatives who have been wonderfully positive and easy to work with.
We love where they’ve taken the brand so far and as we grow I’m looking forward to more work together in the near future.”
Jack Geldard, Director of Big Mountain.
Positive Change
Big Mountain are always innovating and creating. As they grow and the brand system develops, we’re working with them across platforms to update and refine their marketing output and merch, and continue to work with them on their beer ranges.
Most excitingly, right now they are working towards the opening of their new premises and we’re right there alongside them to help brand their new venue. They’re creating a space where people can fully immerse themselves in the Big Mountain experience and choose from their array of incredibly delicious and often adventurous craft beers. They continue to be set for big growth.
Since the rebrand Big Mountain have done extraordinary things. All the ambition they first had when we first met them has come to fruition and the brand continues to strengthen and flex for them. In the first year after launching their new brand, Big Mountain saw a 150% increase in sales and picked up gold in the World Beer Awards France.
They opened their bar in Chamonix which continues to be a huge success and in 2020 their craft beer production doubled and the core range expanded to 9 beers. In 2021 they invested in new kit that allowed them more control and consistency and allowed them to triple their brewing capacity.
