Visualizing Beer: The Beer Menu

When I was working on the training program for the Four Points by Sheraton Best Brews program, one of the biggest difficulties was designing a beer menu that was actually useful. Every Four Points bar carries about two dozen craft and regional beers, with many locations carrying upwards of three times that number. The challenge boiled down to this: how do you design a menu that:

• Delivers all the necessary information that a beer drinker might want (beer name, brewery, geographic origin, beer style, general flavor profile, and alcohol by volume)?
• Is easy to scan?
• Makes familiar/national brand beers easy to locate?
• Conforms to the clean, simple style of the Four Points style guide?

Step one, of course, is logically categorizing beers. Most bars that focus on craft beer tend to categorize beers by region, although some opt for style. Both approaches can alienate (yes, alienate) the casual beer drinker, to whom such categories may be virtually meaningless (just what the hell does a German beer taste like?).

Luckily, my client had spent years creating a system for categorizing wine by flavor profile. Could we apply this same approach to beer? we wondered. In theory we could, but WineQuest's flavor profiling relied on an intricate database of thousands and thousands of wines. Amassing a similar database of such detail-level information for beer would never be done soon enough.

The solution, I found, was to create five straightforward categories that any customer could easily understand:

• Draft Selections
  
• Crisp Refreshers
• Smooth Thirst-Quenchers
• Robust Brews
• Low Calorie and Non-alcoholic

I then recommended that each category list the beers according to the following format (with mildest flavors at the top and strongest at the bottom, much like WineQuest's progressive wine list format):

• Beer Name (Style, ABV%): Region
• Example: Sierra Nevada (Pale Ale, 5.6% ABV): California

Of course, there was plenty of back and forth between myself, WineQuest, and the in-house design team at Four Points. But ultimately, they used pretty much the format I created (though I think they may have played with the punctuation and text formatting of the individual beer names).

A menu like this accomplishes several things. First, it forces the drinker to focus on the beer's general flavor profile (I wrote in-depth training courses for the staff to familiarize them with the various flavors of their core beers and beer styles in general, so that the menus would be accurate). Placing the name of the beer first in each line is the logical placement, allowing brand-loyal drinkers to easily find their beloved (cringe) Bud. Providing secondary details like place of origin and beer style serves a twofold purpose: it lends a uniqueness to each beer, and it helps educate more casual beer drinkers. Finally, the simple presentation prevents those who just want a cold brew from feeling like they have some hoop to jump through, while beer geeks get all the info that helps to reinforce their geekiness. It's a beautiful, though delicate, balance.

The piéce de resistance of the menu has been stripped down in its final form, sadly. My original design called for an additional key of icons to indicate particularly hoppy, fruity and malty beers for those who are looking for more specific flavor guidance. I was also insistent that Four Points include an icon for high ABV beers, to ensure hotel guests, many of whom would likely be driving, would know what they were getting into. I think (though I'd have to double-check this at an actual Four Points bar), they ended up using icons only to indicate recommended beers and high ABV beers.

I have to admit, I'm really proud of the final menu. The look and feel is all Four Points, thanks to their in-house team, but the structure is all mine. It makes it really easy to select a beer from what can be an otherwise daunting list, regardless of how much beer knowledge you might have. So the next time you're traveling, don't forget about this incredible beer goldmine!