Kingston Standard
Every Beer Tells a Great Story
Our Role
Investor, Art Direction, Brand Identity, Packaging, Signage, Brand Writing, Motion Graphics, Physical Environment, Research and Strategy
Celebrating rich local history
Kingston is defined by its spirited history. This city’s aging architecture and industry, antique signage, and rich folklore are emblems of the omnipresent past, giving the city an inimitable patina that is distinctly of the Hudson Valley. Through settlement, revolution, independence, civil war, reconstruction, gilded age, prohibition, great depression, to this very moment, Kingston has weathered the fortunes and follies of American history. Each period has deposited its own stories, structures, and characters in stratifications of compressed time.
Kingston Standard seeks to cut through this historical stratification to reveal a compelling cross-section of American life from settlement to present. From the grave of soldier-statesman George Clinton, to the old Beaux-Arts Post Office, to the Clock Tower Demon, to the wave of creative energy breathing new life into the city, Kingston Standard finds inspiration in local stories old and new, making beer that reflects this history’s enduring relevance.
“At Kingston Standard Brewing Co., another new place that opened in Midtown over Memorial Day weekend, locals and weekenders seemed to easily mix. Over 300 people of all ages packed into the former transmission shop. There were wooden tables, a stainless steel bar, and a gravel beer garden outside. At the brewery all the beer is served in batches, which means styles get changed often when the keg empties.”
Mining local myth for inspiration
The brewery pays homage to this remarkable American city by referencing its visual, historical, culinary, and architectural legacies through product and brand, integrating found typography, details, local mythology, and surprising narrative moments that can only be found in the nooks and crannies of Kingston’s story. The devil is in the details. As homogenization and globalization iron out the differences from place to place, we want to keep alive the phrases, symbols, and stories cherished by Kingston residents old and new — preserving those elements that differentiate Kingston from anywhere else in the state, nation, or world.
“The premise of a public house is to offer a place for like-minded individuals to gather, socialize, and enjoy good beer, and the Kingston Standard Brewing Co. aims to bring this old-school simplicity to Midtown Kingston. The city’s latest small-batch brewpub strays from the new norm of IPA-driven brewing and commercial-sized systems to create a community-centric pub focused on light, drinkable beers and fresh, succulent oysters.”
Drinking with friendly ghosts
Kingston Standard invites visitors to drink alongside Freemasons, fur-trappers, founding fathers, aldermen, skippers, tories, planters, redcoats, Hudson River School painters, carters, barrowboys, constables, whalers, barristers, teamsters, schepens, millers, industrialists, refugees, cobblers, gangsters, militiamen, West India Company traders, dowsers, schouts, musketeers, freed slaves, mercenaries, stevedores, tanners, rakes, rogues, distillers, robber-barons, fishermen, mutineers, chandlers, coopers, farriers, blacksmiths, bootblacks, turncoats, sextons, lobsterbacks, bootleggers, highwaymen, swindlers, magistrates, hunters, trappers, armorers, Livingstons, rebels, factorymen, railwaymen, merchants, masons, urchins, idlers, sharps, drovers, scoundrels, and rebels. When you visit the brewery or drink its beers, you become part of the story.