THE BEER ART OF A LOCAL ROCKER

CARTOONIST AND REAL LIFE ROCK STAR JAMES KOCHALKA was commissioned by MAGIC HAT BREWING in Burlington, VT to create the label for a new saison called “Local Rocker.”

We wrote about this in KITCHEN TABLE #2, but presented here for the first time in this digital exclusive, for your edification and enjoyment, are James’ preliminary sketches and drawings.

“MAGIC HAT APPROACHED ME ABOUT THE CAN,” says James. “They had the beer name picked out already. I love beer, and trying different beers, so I was excited to draw the can.  Local Rocker is a farmhouse saison and it’s actually my favorite of all the beers Magic Hat produces. I did a bunch of prep drawings… but then they really liked a gig poster I did for my 50th birthday party rock show better than any of the prep drawings, so I ended up basing the final design on that instead.”

JAMES KOCHALKA IS A MUSICIAN AND CARTOONIST who worked with Kitchen Table publisher Brett Warnock for almost twenty years at Warnock’s comic book company, Top Shelf Productions. He created a one-page autobiographical comic in KITCHEN TABLE #1, documenting his time waiting tables—like so many aspiring artists have done for decades—at a Chinese restaurant before his career took off.