Nano Challa craft beer, is the result of a special collaborative project among three Roman-based firms: the craft Brewery EastSide, the beer shop Artisan, and the roastery Faro Caffe’ Specialty.

The vision that lies behind the project consists of creating a common ground between the world of craft beers and the coffee specialty supply chain.
Nano Challa beer is an export stout made with specialty hand-picked beans from the controlled and traceable Nano Challa lot, located in the region of Jimma, Ethiopia. This lot is highly representative of his country of origin: in terms of flavours, it has a very delicate and complex profile.
This mix of elements combined together converges into a very balanced beer in which, despite its 7% vol., the alcoholic note is not aggressive. Instead, you will experience a creamy mouthfeel, good texture, with notes of cocoa, liquorice and a pleasant coffee hint in the finishing.

I was involved in this project as Art Director and Graphic Designer. In the brief the client ask me to create something impressive, with a contemporary graphic design, with the same style that I use for Music Festival. They don’t want a design similar with the “classic mood” of the beer.
For the artwork of the new beer can, I’ve started drawing an illustration of a coffee bean with a bit futuristic touch. The bean explodes as if it were made by frequencies, wireframes, geometric shapes, lines, that makes the beer can seems in an eternal circular moving. The visual effect has a strong impact, the color palette goes to warm brown to beige and orange, reminding to the coffee shades, from the raw bean to the dark stout beer colors.

The writing “Nano Challa” and all the details of the text and the logos are made with embossed varnish, and we use a special uncoated paper with a beautiful touch, that create a “short circuit” from the grafica design to the beer can. The final product has a great success and a special presentation event at Artisan in Rome and at the Italian Beer Festival in Florence “Birraio dell’Anno”.