The consensus that you consume a beer before you actually drink it arguably relates to the appearance, and aroma, of the drink itself. But the same increasingly applies to the packaging of small-pack sales, too. Most of us have been guilty, I’m sure, of buying a beer because of the eye-catching, attractive, or divisive, look of a particular bottle or can.

It’s an approach that’s far from exclusive to beer. Good packaging sells a product, so it’s far from surprising that breweries are placing an increasing emphasis on the way their bottles and cans look when they go out into the wild. That there’s no one size fits all approach for the way beer types should, or must, look for consumers, makes packaging proposition all the more exciting.

A cursory glance at some of the standout UK frontrunners in recent months and years demonstrates the level of diversity emanating from breweries and their designers. On one hand you have the hypnosis of Magic Rock’s burgeoning can offering to the ethereal and effortless simplicity of Cloudwater and its seasonal bottle range.

On the other, the direct and efficient, yet iconic, brown-paper stock approach from London’s Kernel to the often uniform, but reassuringly consistent, take on bottle labelling from Thornbridge, XT and Siren.

While design is of course key, the interplay between the design itself and the ways these creations can be realised on the bottle label, can label, or can itself, continues to diversify and impress. And that’s only a positive for breweries looking at varying ways to help ensure their beer stands out.