Laser Cat Tap Handle: How Medusa Brewing's Double IPA Got a Cat With Laser Eyes

Updated October 2026 by Brad Lugar

Quick answer: Laser Cat is a sculpted resin tap handle Steel City Tap Co. designed and built for Medusa Brewing Company in Hudson, Massachusetts, for their top selling double IPA of the same name. The brief was one sentence: make it as ridiculous as possible, and keep the big paws and the laser eyes. One concept and one revision later, Medusa had an orange cat shooting lasers from a brick tower wrapped in burning hops, with MEDUSA running up the sides. It was sculpted, cast and hand painted through our shop in Birmingham, Alabama.

Who is Medusa Brewing, and what is Laser Cat?

Medusa Brewing Company opened in 2015 on Main Street in downtown Hudson, Massachusetts, with a taproom, a kitchen and a beer list built around clean, hop forward ales. Laser Cat is the one that carries the brand: an 8.0% double IPA that became the brewery's top seller and, in 2023, got a year round little sibling in Laser Kitten, a 6.0% IPA. Soft Machine and Duchovni Pilsner round out the core lineup.

The can art is the whole pitch: a cat with lasers coming out of its eyes. When Medusa called us in January 2020, their draft accounts were pouring their best beer behind a plain handle that said nothing about any of that. The beer had a personality. The handle did not.

What did Medusa ask for?

The brief from Medusa was the shortest one we have ever written down. Bright. Bold. As ridiculous as possible. Keep the big paws and the laser shooting eyes.

That is a better brief than most breweries send, and it is worth saying why. It names the two things the handle cannot lose (the paws and the eyes), it sets the tone (ridiculous), and it leaves everything else to the person drawing. Briefs that list fourteen must haves produce handles that look like a committee. Briefs that name two produce handles like this one.

What did the first concept look like?

Rob Palmer drew the first concept the day after the call. He put the cat on top of a brick tower, the kind that anchors a New England main street, with green fire licking up the sides and a LaserCat banner floating in a purple sky. Medusa's team saw it and came back with two notes, which is about as clean as a first round gets.

First, run MEDUSA up the sides of the handle, in their own typeface, and leave off the word BREWING. Second, they loved the green fire but wanted the hops from their original artwork in it, either replacing the fire so the tower looked overtaken by hops, or mixed through the flames as a burning hop inferno. Rob did the inferno. Concept 1.1 went back the same week and that was the handle.

How does a drawing turn into a cat you can hold?

A drawing is flat. A tap handle gets looked at from the bar stool, from the end of the bar and from above by the bartender, so the cat had to work from every side. We sculpt the character in three dimensions first and check the silhouette before anything gets molded, because a great front view can hide a shapeless back. We walk through that process in How a Sculpted Tap Handle Gets Made.

Once the sculpt is approved it gets molded, cast in resin and painted by hand. Hold the concept next to the handle and the match is the point. The brewery approved a drawing of a cat with laser eyes. A cat with laser eyes is what showed up.

Which details make this handle work on a bar?

The banner reads at distance. LaserCat in red on a purple cloud is legible from across a taproom, which is the job of the top third of any handle. The red beams out of the eyes are the detail everybody points at, and they are the reason the handle gets photographed.

The IPA mark at the base is the quiet one. A bartender grabbing the handle from behind the bar sees that first, so the beer style sits where the hand goes. MEDUSA up the side closes the loop. From ten feet away you see a cat. From three feet you see whose cat it is.

Why build a character handle for your best seller?

Because the best seller is the beer that can afford it, and the beer that gets the most pours out of the investment. A handle this specific does not work for a rotating seasonal. It works for a flagship that will be on the wall at the same accounts year after year, which is exactly what Laser Cat is. The handle went into production in 2020, and Laser Cat is still the beer Medusa leads with.

It also gives customers a word. Nobody at a bar asks for "the double IPA from Hudson." They ask for the cat. For more on when a character handle earns its keep, read Dr. Robot: How Monday Night Brewing's Berry Lemon Sour Got Its Own Tap Handle and Do Custom Tap Handles Sell More Beer?

What does it take to order one?

Fully custom sculpted handles like Laser Cat start at 100 units, with price breaks at 100, 250, 500, and 1,000+. We do not charge new customers a design fee to draw their handle. Every order runs through our shop in Birmingham, Alabama.

Send can art, a logo, or a phone snapshot of a sketch on the custom tap handle quote page, or look through finished work in our resin tap handles and custom tap handles.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Laser Cat tap handle?

Laser Cat is a sculpted resin tap handle Steel City Tap Co. built for Medusa Brewing Company of Hudson, Massachusetts. It shows an orange cat with laser eyes on a brick tower wrapped in hops, for Medusa's 8.0% double IPA of the same name.

How many concept rounds did the Laser Cat handle take?

One concept and one revision. The brewery asked for their name up the sides in their own typeface and for hops mixed into the green fire, and the revised concept was approved the same week.

What is the minimum order for a custom sculpted tap handle?

Fully custom tap handles start at 100 units, with price breaks at 100, 250, 500, and 1,000+. Stock handle shapes printed with your logo start at 12 units, and a blank stock handle can be ordered one at a time.

Do you charge for tap handle concept drawings?

We do not charge new customers a design fee to design their handle. Send a logo, can art, or even a phone snapshot, and we come back with concepts to react to.

Will a custom handle fit our existing faucets?

Yes. Our handles use a 3/8-16 thread, the standard on US beer faucets, so they install without adapters or special hardware.