Today, June 26, in 1997, the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published in the United Kingdom. If that title looks wrong to you, that’s because in America it was titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone because the publisher “thought that a child would not want to read a book with the word ‘philosopher’ in the title.” They may have been right, but it’s still a little sad. At any rate, in the seven novels there was something called “Butterbeer,” described as a drink that “can be served either cold with a taste similar to cream soda or frozen as a slush with a butterscotch-like foam on top.” Basically, it’s fake beer for kids. More interestingly, a Los Angeles artist or designer by the name of Anita Brown did a series of imaginary labels for beers based on the titles of each the seven books.

And here’s each title in order:

A fun exercise, with some fairly clever names. I wonder if the beers she chose would pair with the individual stories themselves? I only read the first two books, but didn’t really care that much for them; they never really grabbed me the way they did a lot of people. Another, somewhat similar, series that was published around the same time, the Golden Compass and the His Dark Materials trilogy was, in my opinion, was far richer and more interesting, but Harry Potter certainly was a phenomenon and anything that gets more people reading is a great thing in my opinion. Happy Harry Potter Day.