A Brewed Awakening: A Visual Analysis of Craft Beer Labels and Their Use of Multimodality in the Transmission of Culture, Identity, and Taste.

This thesis is a comparative study that utilises theories of visual grammar and multimodality to determine how Norwegian craft beer breweries use their product labels to transmit culture, identity, and taste to their consumers. The study examines how a selection of craft breweries utilise verbal and visual elements on their product labels to communicate a beer’s flavour and aspects of culture to consumers whilst creating an identity and positioning themselves in a rapidly growing market. The main assumption was that craft breweries rely on a combination of modes such as text, image, colour, and layout, as well as using cultural references to convey the distinct characteristics of their beers and the brewery itself. The material for this study consists of 200 beer labels sourced from five Norwegian craft breweries: Amundsen and Cervisiam located in Oslo, Lervig and Salikatt located in Stavanger, and Monkey Brew located in Trondheim. These breweries were selected as they were the five top-rated Norwegian craft breweries on the Untappd beer rating website as of 1st September 2020