Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Play Ball




Beer and baseball seem made for one another. An Indians pre-opening day party April 11th from 2-11 p.m. at the Greenhouse Tavern celebrates both with a limited edition ale created by Buckeye Brewing Company in collaboration with restaurant owner and chef Jonathon Sawyer specially for the occaision.

The label on the bottles is special too and I‘m proud to take some of the credit for that. Here’s why.

In January, Sawyer posted a picture on Facebook of a possible label for Saison de Maison, another joint project with his Lakewood brewing pals. He asked for comments on the image which featured an unclothed and buxom lass in all her busty glory. So I weighed in with this opinion: “Ditch the tits. So old, so done. How 'bout a nice tasteful full frontal of a guy?” Another person (a woman of course- the guys were, well- more universally uncritical and enthusiastic) added: “I'm with Laura. Jonathan, why don't you be the model? I'd BOOK back to Cleveland to have that beer.”


He didn’t respond online or any other way. I thought maybe my remark- half serious, half jokoing- had annoyed or offended him. And then I forgot about the whole thing. Imagine my surprise when Sawyer called me at the end of last week to tell me about the cool label for the latest Buckeye/Greenhouse suds. Turns out that he took my suggestion to heart.



The label you see here is the work of Kyle Roth of Epstein Design Partners. There was a rumor that Sawyer’s wife Amelia was prototype for the lovely lady on the Saison bottle. So I just had to ask Sawyer if he was the inspiration for the batter with the strategically placed foot. “Absolutely not,” he assured me. “It’s one of our bartenders.”

Whoever stepped up to the plate for this, did his part for gender equity. And my response is Ladies- this one’s for you!


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