Our idea was to bring out the unique ingredient that makes the ale: bread.

We named it ‘Toast’ to both recall how it is made, and how friends often make a toast when drinking together.

We then created a design that was equally distinctive. It features breadcrumbs falling down the label and gathering at the base. As a finishing touch, we placed a decorative yellow bread tag around the neck – the same thing that seals most loaves of bread in the UK.

The bottle’s execution is simple and distinctive.

The label features falling bread crumbs, rendered in a graphic style, which gather at the base, along with simple and bold typography. The label is made of cartridge paper, which adds texture and a premium feel.

Bread tags are commonly used to seal the end of the bag that fresh bread comes in. By adding a bread tag to the neck of Toast Ale, we could give it stand-out in comparison to other beers on shelf, while also recalling the main ingredient and adding a touch of wit to the design. Bread tags carry the best before date of bread, so ours carries the best before date of the ale.

Every batch of Toast Ale produced in 2016 has sold out.

The design has featured on the Channel 4 TV Series Jamie and Jimmie’s Friday Night Feast, and in articles for UK newspapers The Guardian, The Telegraph, Evening Standard, Independent, Vice Magazine and many other blogs and publications. The product also made TV news in the USA and in Australia.

Enquiries to expand the brand have come from the Peru, Iceland, Italy, Switzerland, Czech republic, Ecuador, South Africa and Australia, and dozens of breweries have enquired about collaborating. Celebrity fans and endorsers include chefs Hugh Fernley Whittingstall and Thomasina Myers.

The recipe has now been open-sourced so that anyone in the world can make Toast Ale. Craft beer company Beavertown is now working to launch a version of Toast Ale that comes in a can. The bottle will launch in New York in late 2016.