O’ale Rice Beer

Design: Prerana Roy
Location: India
Project Type: Student Project
School: MIT Institute Of Design, Pune
Tutor: Prof. Ranjana Dani
Packaging Contents: Rice Beer
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Aluminium cans with bamboo grip, Glass bottles with bamboo grip
Printing Process: Offset Printing

“To beer or not to beer, is definitely not the question”
In the current market scenario, most of the urban people are unaware of the local alcoholic drinks across the country, making their taste palette monotonous. The ingredients of these alcoholic drinks are organic and has a huge scope of attracting the audience, who are constantly looking forward to a healthy lifestyle.

BRAND STORY
O’ale is an Indie Rice beer brand looking at commercializing the authentic Rice beer of Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh, India, popularly known as “O”, with a twist for the taste palate of it’s fairly urban audience. The beer is brewed by the local women of Ziro, promoting employment to women from Ziro, further enhancing the authentic experience of the indigenous drink. The beer taking the root inspiration from the authentic rice beer of Arunachal, is added with the locally grown wild fruit “Kiwi”, for infusing an authentic wild flavour and adding a fresh and new taste palate for the audience. O’ale is available in different flavours, intensities and fermentation types. The four variants are- Classic Strong Rice Beer, Classic Light Rice beer, Kiwi Lager and Kiwi Ale.

BRAND CONCEPT
Staying true to it’s inspiration, this authentic handcrafted rice beer, served in both cans and bottles, are assured to be travel friendly, ethnic and reflective of the cultural semantics of Arunachal Pradesh. In order to make the experience travel friendly and avoid slipping of cans or bottles, a bamboo strip is wrapped around the cans and bottles, for firm grip. The use of bamboo can be traced back to the extensive growth of bamboo in Arunachal Pradesh, making it their basic material for every other activity, commonly known as the Cane Culture.

DESIGN APPROACH
The packaging identity is based on basic geometric shapes which symbolize the culture of Arunachal Pradesh and the brand story of O’ale. These shapes when combined tell visual stories of the land from where the beer is being produced and change their colours depending on the flavour of the beer. A pack of four cans or bottles, called as a Hangover Pack, comes with a bamboo tumbler, which eases the experience of carrying a beer can while travelling by ensuring grip and also acts a container to pour the beer in which could be later saved as a souvenir.

What’s Unique?
The urban audience is unaware of local drinks, available across various regions of the country, yet they are keen to try and explore the unexplored, hence leaving a scope for urbanizing a local market. O’ale is a brand that provides the opportunity to experience an aunthentic local drink, from the mountains of Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh. Not only does it provide the taste of an authentic rice beer, but also reflects the cultural semantics of the region from where it originates, through it’s packaging. Altogether, it is a blend of modern palette handcrafted with authenticity.