We care about craft beer label art a lot at American Craft Beer.com. We care about it so much that we’ve even made it part of how we rate craft beers here. Labels are the unsung heroes of the drinking world; they lure in customers who don’t necessarily know what a saison or a stout is, beckoning with their bright colors, sharp designs and bold graphics. We’ve got some great local talent slapping noteworthy art on bottles, which begs the question: who’s behind these masterpieces.

Pretty Things bills itself as a “gypsy brewery,” and the whimsical illustrations on its labels fit right in – pastel tulips sprout under a tree ripe with babies, rabbits frolic around a Conestoga wagon, a field mouse says farewell to spring, and an old crone takes up residence in a ramshackle hut with chicken feet and a dangling cauldron.

It turns out that the artwork meshes so well because it’s conceived and executed by the brewers themselves. Dann and Martha Paquette kick drawings back and forth, help each other out with the tough bits (Martha left the fluffy white bunnies up to Dann), and fine-tune the atmosphere depending on how the beer tastes. As for the instantly recognizable white-on-red tree logo, Martha spotted the design on an embroidery sampler her grandmother had created – and the rest is tap history.

Backlash Brewery‘s Apocalypse Series labels have an epic vibe – a grim reaper sits atop a steed surveying a pile of bones (RIP Death), a skeleton archer surveys a burning village (Conquest), a flaming knight advances on a waiting army (War), and a boney desert dweller trades stares with a vulture (Famine). The scenery is stark black and white; there is no hope of redemption here.

JP-based illustrator Sophy Tuttle‘s involvement with the four horsemen was pure kismet. She’s a friend of one of Backlash’s distribution reps, who arranged an introduction. She has formal training as a Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) graduate, and has worked for clients ranging from the Natick Historical Society to ad agency Hill Holliday.

When Backlash isn’t busy scaring the hell out of beer shoppers, it’s earning street cred with high-contrast designs. The label on its most recent release, the Double India Pale Ale Salute, was designed by co-owner Maggie Foley and features founder Helder Pimentel’s outline giving us the ol’ army hello. Brass knuckles are a prominent fixture on its previous Belgian-style brews (fun fact: Maggie is the only member of the brewing crew not to have gotten the logo memorialized in tattoo form; good luck with that peer pressure!).