Andrea Chiodo has always loved telling stories.
With a background in literature, Chiodo was never certain how she would turn her university degree into a career, but has managed to find a pretty unique way to combine her passion for storytelling and art since the launch of Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Barrie more than a decade ago.
The Dunlop Street West tap room — and the beer it serves — is well known for being a little bit “weird” and the packaging is no exception. With brews like Juicy Ass, which looks like a college student’s notebook, to a “laser-shooting cat” with Sparklepuff, it’s safe to say Chiodo has found a creative outlet that not only tells the story of their “weirdness,” but also serves as way to make their cans stand out on the shelf.
“I do not have a fine arts degree. I have a doodle degree and I just have an overactive imagination,” she says, adding her notebook is full of scribblings and doodles, and her nightstand is full of random scraps of paper for when she dreams up a new idea.
“My background was as a literature professor and I never really knew what I was going to do, but I have always been a doodler and a colourer. I love the fusion of culture (and art)," she says.
Initially launched as Robert Simpson Brewery, Chiodo says they ultimately felt that brand didn’t fit who they wanted to be.
In 2008, they decided it was time to create a beer and a brand that didn’t fit into any particular culture, but rather created its own — including the artwork that represents their brews.
“I am all about diversity of the canon, so we needed to recognize that there was a lot more in beer than what is being represented,” she says. “I am not a trained artist, but I’ve always been intrigued by folk art and with literature you're always telling a story.
"We had to make a reason and communicate to people why we do things the way we do.”
The process starts with naming the beer, says Chiodo, then she gets to work trying to tell the story of the beer through her artwork.
“The story of the beer always has to do with the palate and what we’ve done with it. What we do with our brand is we’re always trying to tell a story and trying to create a culture and express ourselves,” she says. “I love telling stories, I love hearing stories and I love looking around and repurposing — finding new ways to do old things.
"That’s what our beers are. In the early days of craft beer, and probably one of the reasons my art is the way it is, is because the only place we could compete was on the shelf," Chiodo adds. "We couldn’t afford radio or TV ads, we couldn’t go hire celebrities to go slog our beer. We were trying to market in an industry that is basically run by (our) competitors, which is the big brewers.”
Their cans, Chiodo admits, are “kind of a mess,” but that’s one of the best things about it.
“Honestly, I am not that great at it,” she jokes, “You look at it and you’re like 'what the hell is that?!' But when you really look at a big beer wall you see this big yellow can, a big blue can and then you see this big mess... and you’re drawn to it.
"Like is this a cat with lasers shooting out of its eyes?”
The beer she's referring to is known as Sparklepuff, a triple IPA, which Chiodo says was the easiest design she has created to date. As for her favourite, like any good mom, she refuses to pick.
“That’s like asking who is your favourite child. There were some that were easy and went together in like 10 minutes and Sparkepuff was one,” Chiodo says, adding she just completed its companion piece — an orange creamsicle quadruple IPA that the brewers recently created.
“It’s cloudy and it’s beautiful. It’s one of those ones you drink and you get a little warm belly. It got turned into Space Age Sunshine. So it’s continuing the saga of Sparkepuff and it’s a lot of freaking fun and that went together really easily, too," she says.
While some designs are character-driven, Chiodo says that’s not always the case.
“Sometimes we want to tell a story (and) sometimes we just want to have fun. Craft beer is really fun, and we don’t need to take ourselves too seriously," she says.
Their first beer as Flying Monkeys — and her first “doodle” to become art — was their Juicy Ass IPA, which Chiodo says the brewers initially created just for themselves. She wasn’t super keen on the name, but after they entered the beer in the Ontario Brewing Awards — and won — they were “stuck” with the name.
“As a girl who was a server for many years in graduate school and who worked a year at Nick’s Crabhouse, and had to wear the T-shirt that said 'I got my crabs from Nick’, I was very sensitive to what Juicy Ass would be when you’re a female and you have to order a beer," she says with a laugh.
Chiodo found herself having to come up with packaging that wasn’t sexist — and that didn’t include the “behind” of a donkey.
“It was a sophomoric, stupid name, and as soon as I thought of the word sophomoric, I thought (about) what my notebook looked like when I was a sophomore — and that’s the packaging of Juicy Ass… doodles, little sayings.
"If you look carefully there are notebook lines. You want to embrace everybody’s process, but I had to make it where I could put it on the shelf with pride.”
