No Longer on Tap: Remembering Lowell Beer Works in Watercolor

This 11×14 watercolor came with a bit of a challenge: Lowell Beer Works no longer exists.

My client sent over an old Google Maps image of the Massachusetts restaurant so I could recreate it, along with a request to include the company's bottle cap logo. So basically, I was illustrating from a digital relic—and trying to make it look a little more charming than a screenshot.

The logo was tiny. Really tiny. The kind of tiny that has you questioning your career choices and reaching for the magnifying lamp. Instead of randomly sketching it off to the side of the building, I decided to work it into the painting above the entrance. It ended up being one of my favorite details.

Beer Works had a long run in Massachusetts, beginning with its original Fenway location in 1992 before expanding to several locations, including Lowell. The Lowell location eventually closed along with the rest of the Beer Works locations in 2021 due to the pandemic.

That's one of my favorite things about painting places that no longer exist. A restaurant can close, the sign can come down, and the building can become something completely different—but somebody's memories of that place don't disappear with it. Sometimes a watercolor illustration is the best way to keep the memory alive.

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