By Yvon Gauvin
Times & Transcript staff
Published Thursday July 26th, 2007
Appeared on page C2
The label on the bottle says it all for Shaun and Lilia Fraser, owners of Moncton's award-winning Pump House Brewery business.

Their Burns Scotch Ale label, designed locally, has been nominated as one of the top 10 labels in the country by beer memorabilia aficionados.

The Canadian Brewerianist Society, consisting of 200 plus Canadian brewery memorabilia collectors, choose the Top 10 beer labels of noteworthy design each year and then the 'Label of the Year.' The winner for 2006 will be announced Aug. 11 during the group's 27th annual convention in British Columbia.

"When people who are keen about your industry, basically your peers, recognize what you do it becomes that much more special," said Shaun Fraser after hearing of the competition.

The label was actually designed a few years ago with the help of Mark Little James Guidry of Incolor Inc., he said.

The scotch ale is one of the more popular beers for Pump House which won the designation of Canadian Brewer of the Year for 2005 and came in second last year. It won silver in 2004 for its scotch ale in North American competitions and gold in Canada for 2005-6.

The announcement "came out of the blue," he said. He didn't even realize the label was in the competition.

Since then, Pump House, which is the largest micro-brewery in Atlantic Canada, has adopted a more uniform design for all of its labelled beers to better identify them as Pump House products, he said.

Sales of all beers are doing very well, he said, adding that demand sometimes outstrips supply.

The brewery bottles 150,000 six-packs of Moncton-brewed beer a year, with expectations of expanding sometime in the future. Three-quarters of its production is sold in the province with exports to five other provinces so far.

The company is also looking to tap into the New England market with its popular ales and fruit-based beers.