If Andy Serkis and bored Redditors have taught us anything, it’s this—ape alone weak, ape together strong.
Indeed, simians all express varying degrees of sociality, but what if you’ve been a city’s symbol for nearly a century? You might have a desire to get away, explore other worlds, and go on some adventures. Perhaps a respite from celebrity and wanderlust are the motivation behind Alfred the Gorilla’s space travels depicted on New Bristol Brewery’s labels.
Alfred became an international sensation and icon for the city of Bristol, England. First arriving in 1930, the great ape’s personality and quirks endeared him to the visitors of the town’s zoo. He continued to charm the locals after his death in 1948, as Alfred was mounted by London taxidermists and then placed in the Bristol Museum.
Now, you can also see Alfred in a series of bright and colorful fantasy landscapes donning a spacesuit. The labels, designed by Tom Moore, incorporate familiar elements, such as earthly plants and architecture, with fantastical color palettes and imagined world-scapes. In every scenario, Alfred explores the new, strange terrain he finds himself in like some distant traveler; at times, he appears to take in his foreign surroundings, and then on the Moments Not Things label, Alfred is riding a zebra through the desert.
Moore’s fantastical labels give depth to Alfred’s character, and tinier details like cats perched on cacti suck the drinker into his adventure while leaving so much unexplained, an invitation to fill in the gaps ourselves.
Of course, this is British ape space wanderer territory, so pretty much everything’s on the table.
