Beer labels can be beautiful, too. Here are five cool ones from Colorado brewers.

Jonathan Shikes | September 29, 2011 | 8:31am

When Longmont's Left Hand Brewing hired Boulder-based Moxie Sozo to redesign its labels a couple of years ago, the results opened a lot of eyes -- and landed Left Hand beers on a lot of best-designed beer label lists. As an added bonus, Moxie, a Boulder design and advertising agency, incorporated the hidden face of at least one Left Hand or Moxie Sozo employee in every label.

But there's much more cool beer-label art out there, and since this is Great American Beer Festival week in Denver, the time is right to celebrate it.

See if you can find the head of a Left Hand or Moxie employee in this awesome label. Hint: It's not one of the skulls. This beer hasn't yet been released, but when it does come out this winter, it will replace another cool New Belgium bottle, 2 Below. Both labels really evoke winter and make you want to drink beer by a raging fire. This label no longer graces the sides of Fort Collins-based Funkwerks Brewing's bottles of Maori King, after a controversy over the Maori image; the name of the beer was also changed to Southern Tropic. But the design was elegant, beautiful and really well done, so it's a shame it had to disappear. Odell Myrcenary came out in 2011 with the awesome sidecar theme, and this distinct label. Grimm Brothers Brewing in Loveland has also received a lot of attention for its unusual labels. This is one of my favorites.

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