READING PREMIUM
A pre-prohibition lager, back from the dead
Reading Premium is a 125-year-old Pennsylvania lager first brewed in 1886 in Reading, Pennsylvania. It survived Prohibition, when federal agents dumped its beer into the city's sewers, returned after repeal as Old Reading, and was reborn in the late 1950s under the bulls-eye label that made it famous.
When the brewery closed in 1976, nearly a century of labels, ads, and local pride went dormant with it. Ruckus was engaged to revive the century-old beer company, developing its heritage and classic artwork into a modern brand and carrying that look across packaging, web, and marketing.
Heritage, not nostalgia
More than a century of history sat locked away in aging labels, posters, and newspaper ads that no longer met modern print standards. The revival had to feel authentically pre-prohibition while working as a contemporary consumer brand, on shelves, in bars, and online.
The job called for one continuous identity system across packaging, retail, branded campaigns, merchandise, and a new website, all built from the same restored archive and carried with a single, consistent voice from shelf to screen, town to town, and season to season.
Over 100 years of artwork, rebuilt by hand
Ruckus mined the brand's surviving record: original labels, newspaper advertisements, posters, and packaging from every era of the brewery's run, then rebuilt the classic artwork piece by piece in Photoshop so the originals could live again at modern print and screen resolution.
Eleven historic labels were recreated, spanning the brand's eras from 1886 through 2010, across more than 2,000 hours of Photoshop restoration work. That rebuilt archive became the foundation for the packaging, retail identity, branded campaigns, and new website that followed, every piece rooted in the same original artwork the brewery left behind decades ago, before it ever closed its doors for good.
Sales more than doubled in year one
The relaunch drove sales growth of over 100% in its first year, with distribution expanding from 3 states to 15 states and Canada. The revival also earned Ruckus an Award of Distinction from The Communicator Awards in the Branded Content category.
