How Garage Beer designed its delightfully retro glass bottles

FastCompany: Garage Beer just got a packaging update that looks like a throwback. The light beer company, which became a household name after football stars Jason and Travis Kelce backed the brand in 2024, debuted its first-ever glass bottles on April 13. Instead of a standard long-neck bottle, Garage opted for a retro, stubby form factor. It has almost the exact same dimensions as a regular aluminum can, but manufactured in satisfyingly hefty dark-brown glass.

The new bottle comes from its unique marketing strategy: In an industry filled with big competitors experimenting with flavor sub-categories , separate low-calorie offerings, and gimmicky marketing stunts , Garage keeps its product simple and unpretentious. It’s an inexpensive, light beer that only comes in original and lime flavors. And while most craft breweries are struggling , Garage is posting record sales. According to Eric Torgerson, Garage’s chief operations officer, any additions to the brand have to hew to its distinct, no-frills aesthetic. A throwback bottle felt like a natural extension of the company’s ethos.

The design of the new packaging represents a measured approach to branding that aligns with the core identity of the product itself—not just adding new bells and whistles for the sake of it. “We wanted to make sure we were staying true to our brand identity of old school beer the way it should be; beer–flavored beer,” Torgerson says. “This is a ‘bottle-shaped bottle.’” From classic can to retro stubby Garage is the brainchild of founder and CEO Andy Sauer , who acquired the brand from the Kentucky-based Braxton Brewing and relaunched it in 2023. Since then, the brand has been on an astronomic trajectory.

Over the past three years, Garage has shown triple-digit year-over-year growth , with sales increasing more than 500% in the 12 months ended in early April 2025. As of a September report from The Wall Street Journal , it’s valued at around $200 million and is continuing to grow, despite an overall slump in the beer industry. Just this month, the trade group Brewer’s Association ranked Garage as the 12th largest craft brewer in the country.

[Photo: Garage Beer] In 2024, Sauer told Fast Company that, when people picked up the brand, he “wanted it to feel like that first beer they had with their dad in the garage.” Nowadays, all of the brand’s product design choices point back to that north star. While Garage keeps a tight edit on its recipes and flavors, it sees packaging as one area to get more creative. The brand has already produced five-gallon kegs of its original beer and is gearing up to launch a branded bucket filled with 24 cans of beer in the coming days. However, Torgerson says, the form factor customers request the most is, by far, the glass bottle.

Their social media DMs and comments are filled with demands for glass. “It’s been something that we’ve always wanted to attack,” he says. A ’70s homage in a bottle Figuring out the appropriate glass bottle design began with the brand’s fans. Torgerson and his team set up a survey with various different glass bottles, including traditional high necks alongside a few chunkier iterations, to get a sense of what the Garage customer liked best.

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The article discusses a notable packaging update from a brand that emphasizes nostalgia and simplicity, which is significant for brand strategy professionals looking for innovative ways to differentiate in a competitive market.