Founded in 1997 by brothers Chris and John Trogner, Hershey, PA’s Tröegs Brewing Co. brews 14 beer varieties with such colorful names as JavaHead Stout, Troegenator® Double Bock and Dead Reckoning Porter®. Clearly, proprietors with such a creative vision for their company don’t want their 96,000-sq.-ft., new brewhouse (converted from a former warehouse), to which the company migrated from Harrisburg, to bore visitors.
When she read about Tröegs’ impending move months in advance, Stoner Graphix’ (Hummelstown, PA) Julie Gwinn contacted the Trogners about creating a bold graphics package for the new brewery. They hired Stoner Graphix to produce a series of grand-format wall spectaculars that reinforce Tröegs’ most popular brews, banners that identify where brewing functions take place, and informational graphics recount brewing-process highlights.
The Neiman Group and Chris Trogner designed the program. The Stoner Graphix design team used Adobe Illustrator and Composer to refine the bulk of the graphics; for some of the more complex graphics, designed to appear 3-D, the shop used Delcam’s ArtCAM™ software.
One signature element, a 16 x 12-ft. wall wrap, promotes Tröegs’ Nugget Nectar with a larger-than-life depiction of its logo, a hand squeezing a hop cone (a key beer-making ingredient). Stoner Graphix produced the wrap on Oracal’s 3551 high-performance media, which was laminated with Oracal 290M cast overlaminate.
Stoner Graphix also enlivened several of Tröegs’ interior windows with descriptions of several steps in the company’s brewing process. The shop fabricated the 10 window graphics with MACtac’s Imagin® B-Free® JT5999 MBF 3.1-mil, cast, bubble-free, clear film.
Stoner Graphix printed the materials on its CET Color flatbed, UV-ink printer, and sped the process with an HP DesignJet high-speed dryer. Luster-finish MACtac topcoats were applied to vinyl graphics via a GBC 64-in., wide-format laminator.
To identify several of the brewery’s production departments, Stoner Graphix printed 6 ft. 8-in. x 1 ft. 3.5-in., double-sided banners on 13-oz. MACtac white, plasticizer-resistant media. They also carried
the branding onto the brewing floor by decorating the hops-processing station with the Oracal high-performance media, which was also processed on the DesignJet.
To help educate visitors who tour Tröegs’ facility, Stoner Graphix also mounted informative signage on interior walls. The shop cut the signs to shape from clear acrylic and Komatex® PVC panels on a Gerber Sabre 408 CNC router; graphics were printed on the CET Color flatbed.