Three Cincinnati companies collaborate to create accessible beer
By Natalie Hamren
Beer is becoming more accessible in Cincinnati thanks to a collaboration among West Side Brewing, the Cincinnati Association for the Blind & Visually Impaired (CABVI) and Brick Solid Brands.
The “Braille Ale,” a raspberry gose in a can that features braille for people who are blind and visually impaired, from West Side Brewing won the Best Can Design for the 2021 Craft Beer Marketing Awards in Ohio and is relaunching this summer in stores and tap rooms near you.
West Side Brewing started over four years ago when Joe Mumper, Jim Remmel, Kurtis Remmel and Brian Willett decided that the West Side of Cincinnati needed craft beer and a place of community that gives back.
Since its inception, West Side Brewery has created a number of beers that Cincinnatians love—including the Braille Ale.
“Some of the things that make us unique are we primarily focus on relatively traditional style. We focus on doing those very well,” Mumper says. “We’re not known as doing the most exotic beers in town, but we have a reputation for creating exceptional beers.”
Creating the Braille Ale
West Side Brewery Sales Representative Ben Metz was familiar with Aaron Bley, CABVI vice president of Community Relations and chief development officer, and Bley had the idea of putting braille on a beer can many years ago, but he says it never really went anywhere.
Once Metz started working for West Side Brewing, Bley asked him if they would be interested in collaborating with CABVI on the project. During a meeting in October 2019, West Side Brewing and CABVI met and discussed the potential to create a braille ale.
“I pitched the idea, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could work together as a fundraising project and create a Braille ale or a beer can that has actual raised Braille on it?’” Bley says.
“It’s sort of been on my wish list for years as something that I thought would just be not only advantageous for those with disabilities such as visual impairment but also just as a great thing to do for the community to bring awareness to accessibility challenges, to our agency and to West Side Brewing.”
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic halting many businesses in March 2020, West Side Brewing and CABVI kept working on their plan. Mumper says the most difficult aspect of the project was getting the actual braille on a beer can. West Side Brewing works with a printing agency in Newport, Kentucky, that had to order custom plates from Europe to print the braille on the cans.
Andrew Curtis, owner of Brick Solid Brands, says CABVI assisted in making sure the braille was the correct size, legible and easy for a person to use. CABVI provided the braille files to Curtis who then placed the design on the cans.
“It’s unique because there’s braille on the can but also the design works. It’s visually appealing. You can definitely tell that it matches the rest of our branding,” Curtis says. “It’s not too frilly and over the top. People know exactly what type of beer that is when they go to the shelf.”
Overwhelming Feedback
Once the Braille Ale debuted, people all across the United States were trying to get their hands on the beer.
“It was an overwhelming amount of feedback from all over the country; there was way more interest than I ever imagined,” Mumper says.
Mumper says he knew the beer would be popular in the Greater Cincinnati area but was surprised how much attention the Braille Ale got outside of the local region—ranging from New York to California.
“Last year, we had requests that came into our office, from all over the country. People got wind of it,” Bley says. “It wasn’t a lot yet because it was new, but there were a few that were calling from other cities, trying to get their hands on the product and really kind of asking how it came about.”
Mumper says there was two goals with creating the Braille Ale: create awareness for CABVI and its mission and to give blind and visually impaired people a shopping experience that is more similar to someone who is sighted.
“All of us who are sighted can obviously read labels,” Mumper says. “People who are visually impaired, they can’t do that.”
Goals for the Future
Moving forward, Hanna Firestone, community relations and development specialist for CABVI, says she hopes companies will start creating more inclusive designs for their products.
“I think the sky’s the limit when it comes to accessibility and we’re just starting to reach—we’re just starting to really uncover the little nuggets of what we can do,” Firestone says. “I’m excited for those innovators in the product design field to come up with better ways to be more inclusive as a whole to everybody in the world.”
Bley says he is excited to continue to watch the Braille Ale grow and future collaborations with West Side Brewing.
“I do feel a sense of ownership around this project because it was so near and dear to my heart—from the beginning when it was just an idea written on our idea board here at the agency. For me to be able to watch this come to life and have legs of its own, and know that it’s going to continue to grow,” Bley says.
West Side Brewing, Mumper says, will continue to expose people to traditional beers that they may not know about.
“I think we, first and foremost, want to continue producing exceptional beer. That’s always been one of our top priorities. We want to just continue to brew interesting and unique beers, while primarily relying on traditional style,” Mumper says. “There are so many great beer styles across the world and some of those are traditional, but they’re not brewed very regularly. I think one of our niches in the market is taking a style that might not be as common and expose people to it.”