My name is Sarah Hedlund, I’m the in-house illustrator and Creative Director for TG. I went to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for Illustration, have worked as a professional artist for over 13 years as well as a freelance illustrator. I started here just over 5 years ago when the company was still quite small, I was the 9th full-time employee we now have over 80. Since starting here I’ve rebranded the company and created the artwork for over 100 beer cans/labels/brands. I do all the illustration work for the brand, I design the cans, boxes, tap stickers, all sales tools, merch, and custom graphics for distributors and accounts.

Toppling Goliath was founded in 2009 here in Decorah, Iowa by Clark and Barb Lewey. This year we should brew about 54k barrels, and we are distributing in 32 states. We also ship a limited amount to international accounts. We are most known for Pseudo Sue and KBBS, IPAs and barrel-aged stouts are what we are loved for. 

We have been growing the creative team for many years now, currently, we have a Marketing Director (Sarah Moellers), Merchandise Assistant (Jacki Frank), Social Media Content Creator (Jennifer Olsen), Associate Designer (Gillian Klien), and myself. That is the largest creative team TG has ever had and it’s wonderful to have such a robust crew to create all the assets needed to promote our product.

In the past it was the lack of help, for the first 2.5 years I worked here I was the only member of the creative department, and it was TOO MUCH. I often get asked how I did it all before we hired the four other team members, we have now I always say, “Not very well.” Now that we have a legit department the challenges are few and far between honestly, our team is super driven, focused, talented, and organized. We each come in and work hard every day which makes it easier for everyone to do their work, I can’t complain! 

HA! Well, my family was geeked about it, to be honest, my uncles love a good beer, so they were pretty damn happy when I told them I got the gig. I’ve taken TG beer to Thanksgiving so everyone can enjoy trying the brew while talking about the can art. My family has always been very supportive of my artwork and my career which is a big part of how I ended up going to art school in the first place. I’m dyslexic so growing up school was a struggle—I had a knack for art, and it was legit the only thing I was interested in. Lucky for me I have a family that supported the idea of me going to art school and didn’t try to talk me into a “safer option”. Now we all joke about the fact that I get paid to draw dinosaurs all day, life is weird, and you never know where it’s going to lead. I think the funnier part is that the kid with dyslexia is now in charge of typing words that get printed on hundreds of thousands of cans and boxes! 

On the packaging no, in our taproom, our highly trained staff does a great job diving into the flavor profiles of the hops and food pairings with our kitchen. 

Gut checks all the way: Toppling Goliath is 90% gut check, I would say. We talk through new brands and see how it hits us or “does it tickle your ivories” if it doesn’t then we move on to the next idea. 

We just launched a line of Hard Seltzers called Pseudo Seltzer that people are very excited about, we have Watermelon, Mango, Pineapple, and Strawberry flavors currently. We might have a few other projects up our sleeves, but my cuffs are buttoned up. 

When it first hit our taproom was impacted severely as you can imagine as it was shut down for a while when the country went into lockdown. But the company worked hard to reshuffle work to bring serving staff back as quickly as possible. Beyond that, the team has really buckled down and worked hard to get through the last two years which as few bruises as possible. 

To be honest I don’t. I try to avoid looking at a lot of alcohol packaging unless I’m in the store, I find that sometimes I can get in my own head about it too much and get down on myself like this label is “SO MUCH BETTER THAN MINE I should stop making art”. So, I try not to feed that self-doubt demon and just keep to myself. But when I’m in a physical store I love looking at all the art, fonts, foils, paper, print processes.

I put women on Toppling Goliath’s packaging, before I started there weren’t any women on the labels. I’m a proud feminist and showing women on beer packaging as something other than sexy pin-up types was important to me. I’ve really enjoyed seeing people respond to the Intergalactic Warrior rebrand I did a few years back. She is a strong, muscular woman and I’m glad to have brought her to the craft beer scene. I also recently hid a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference in the artwork of a new brand and THAT makes me very happy.

We are looking at more innovations than ever before, lots of new rotational brands, and great events here at the taproom. The last year has been the most creatively productive time for me at TG and I look forward to all the new collaborations, brands, and projects they will throw my way. 

Happy to chat, thank you for reaching out and taking the time to learn a little about me!