Omega Yeast Labs had deep brewing expertise and a genuine desire to share it, without turning it into a sales pitch. Top Crop was the answer: an educational brand and website covering research, experiments, and general knowledge for brewers at every level. The visual ambition was to break entirely from the skulls, flames, and blackletter that had become shorthand for craft beer.
The name came from the traditional method of harvesting yeast from the top of an actively fermenting beer: hands-on, a little old-fashioned, pulling the best material to the surface. The identity followed that instinct with a bright palette, editorial typography, and a custom illustration system for concepts photography couldn't carry. Each major content release was also reprinted as a broadsheet newspaper, distributed at industry events out of custom refurbished dispensers and sold on the site for 50¢. The papers sold out and required a second print run. Top Crop won a 2024 Craft Beer Marketing Platinum Crushie Award for Best Website, and writer Shana Solarte received the 2024 North American Guild of Beer Writers Award for Best Technical Writing for work published on the site.
- Agency
- Knoed Creative
- Creative Director & Designer
- Kyle Eertmoed
- Designer
- Dexter Stevens
- Web Developer
- Brett Burwell
- Writer
- Shana Solarte
- Editor
- Danielle Sommer
- R&D Contributor
- Laura Burns
- Photographer
- Lisa Beck
- Illustrator & Designer
- Kyle Romberg
Project link
