thomas ohashi / work / beer cellar sapporo

Beer Cellar Sapporo

About: Beer Cellar Sapporo is a bottle shop in Hokkaido that imports and distributes craft beer from Portland, Oregon. I was initially hired as a contractor to help create some flyers but they ended up bringing me on full time to be their house designer.

Work: Graphic Design, Marketing, Illustration

A little bit of everything

As the house designer for both a beer distributor and a bottle shop I had a lot of different projects. I made lots of marketing and sales materials, craft beer explainers, flyers for events, packaging and merchandise, and so on.

A flyer explaining the concept of hard cider and showcasing several brands from Portland, Oregon including Reverend Nat's Hard Cider and Portland Cider Company.

A t-shirt design with Mt. Hood in front of a sunset surrounded by trees, a row of simplified bicycles and a unicycle, and two beer glasses. Text: Focus on Portland.

A sign used at a beer festival to promote Culmination Brewing's Zing Tart IPA

An illustration of the ingredients used to flavor a Thai inspired lime kolsch and a description of it in Japanese. The ingredients are galangal root, kaffir lime juice and leaves, bird's eye chili, and lemongrass.

A poster design for a live music event featuring the Japanese group Heanzakura

A chalkboard style poster with beer bottles and taps. The text reads Beer Cellar Sapporo: We specialize in craft beer and hard cider from Portland, Oregon and Japan. You can enjoy bottles and cans here or to go, and we also fill growlers!

Matching brands

As a Japanese importer, we were pretty down the priority ladder for American breweries. The quality of marketing materials we were provided varied wildly, and I just had to do my best to come up with designs that felt authentic for our sales team.

Sell sheet for Basecamp Brewing's Hop in the Pool Helles. There's a photo of the can next to a description of the beer in Japanese and various logos at the bottom.

Sell sheet for Ecliptic Brewing's Flamingo Planet Guava Blonde Ale. There's a picture of three cans lined up together above the beer's name and a description in Japanese.

Sell sheet for Crux Fermentation Project's Play Wave Northwest Pale Ale. There's a photo of the beer in front of an abstract background and a Japanese description below.

Fuji to Hood to Fuji

Fuji to Hood/Hood to Fuji is a brewery exchange program and beer festival that alternates between Portland and Tokyo, with brewers traveling in either direction to brew collaboration beers. I've been helping out with the signage when the event is in Portland, and in 2024 I was asked to create a special beer label for the festival.