Fenton • Some of Michael Halbert's best artwork winds up in the recycle bin.

Halbert has made a career out of illustrating beer labels. His work currently appears on beers and packaging from brewers such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors and Samuel Adams, so there's a good chance that if you'd had a bottle of beer or bought a six-pack in recent years, you've owned a piece of Halbert's art.

"A couple of times at bars, I would go up to people who were drinking a particular bottle and say, 'Hey, I made that illustration,'" Halbert, 57, said recently from his home studio. "I don't do that anymore."

Halbert specializes in scratchboard — a technique in which the artist etches black-and-white images into a clay board, giving an old-time, engraved-wood appearance. Breweries' design firms hire him to draw wheat strands or hop vines or malted grains for labels, packaging and advertisements.

Several beers from Anheuser-Busch's Michelob Brewing Co. contain Halbert's label art, including its newest seasonal beer — Michelob Ginger Wheat — which made its debut last month. Halbert created the knuckle of ginger in the label's foreground and the wheat in its background.

"The goal is to develop a label and packaging with an appealing look that clearly communicates the beer's attributes," said Nate Scudieri, Michelob's brand manager. "Beer enthusiasts want to know a lot about the beers they enjoy, which is why we put details about the beer's style and ingredients on the actual label."

Beer labels have a "huge effect" on consumers because they influence purchasing decisions from store shelves to bar menus, Washington University marketing professor Joseph Goodman said.

"At a grocery store, we look to labels for information about what's in the product; but at a bar, a beer label doubles as an advertisement, which makes it incredibly important," Goodman said. "We're more likely to buy what other people are buying, so if you see someone else drinking a certain beer, that's going to influence you."

Even breweries without the marketing budgets of A-B InBev and MillerCoors recognize the importance of having labels that stand out.

"Beer labels are to beer drinkers as honey is to bees," said Chris Lennert, vice president of Left Hand Brewing Co., a craft brewery based in Colorado that is rolling out all new labels this year. "They help attract people for the initial purchase, and if the nectar is good, they'll come back for more." Left Hand hired a Colorado firm for the design work.

Halbert didn't become an artist to help create beer labels. In fact, when he started back in the late 1970s, he wanted nothing to do with beer.

"My wife was very religious and did not drink, so by extension, neither did I," Halbert explained. "The company I was working for at the time did a lot of ad work for Anheuser-Busch, but I told my boss I didn't want to work on that account."

Halbert eventually split with his wife and started taking on work from beer companies. Since then, he's sold thousands of the scratchboard illustrations that he creates in a cramped studio off his bedroom.

Although he won't talk about how much money he gets from a typical beer-label illustration — it's a one-time fee, no royalties — Halbert says it's enough to allow him to work on his own schedule and log plenty of time on his motorcycle.

"I rode 23,000 miles last year," he said about the bike, which has an "inkart" vanity tag — the name of his website.

Halbert catalogs hundreds of his illustrations, as well as time-lapse videos that show him in action from start to finish, on inkart.com. Besides the work he's done for beer companies, Halbert's art has appeared on book covers, wine labels and airline television commercials.

Not bad for a college dropout from Potosi who worked on the assembly line at the old Chrysler plant in Fenton while building his art portfolio.

Even though his own artwork — including a large framed sketch of a Clydesdale that hangs over his fireplace — adorns the walls of his one-story home, Halbert is modest about the reach of his work.

In his kitchen, where he keeps a few six-packs filled with empty bottles of the Michelob beers he has worked on, Halbert smiled at the suggestion that millions of people have held his art in their hands.

"It's possible," he said. "Being on the label of Michelob Light — that's a pretty big deal."