How do YOU name your beers?

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I've only named two of my beers so far, since the others were all recipe kits, and I didn't feel right about naming those.

I'm an artilleryman, so my beers so far have been artillery themed. Fire for Effect IPA and Charge 8 Imperial IPA. I have ideas for future beers like Willy Pete Wheat and VT Stout. Combine the two of those for a Shake and Bake!\

My wife wanted me to name a beer after our dog, an English Springer Spaniel named Enzo, hence the Enzo English Ale (ESB) I'm about to brew.
 
I named my last one Latrine Wheat because the bathroom is the only place in my apartment without carpet. So in case it blew up I wouldn't be cleaning it out of the carpet. And blow up it did.
 
My first all grain, I didnt have a scale, so the whole grain bill was in 1lb increments, since the lhbs sold grain in 1lb packages. I called it K.I.S.S. IPA.

I brewed a wheat beer on Father's Day last year, so I called it Father's Wit.

Ill re-use a name, I have been working on an Rye IPA recipe, adding, subtracting, adjusting, the three batches have all been different, but Ive still named them all Kelly RIPA.
 
I usually do research on what i'm brewing. I'm a big history nut, so if i'm brewing a coffee stout, i look up the history of coffee.

Other times, I use the ingredients and try to think of what relationship each has to another, and derive a name from it there.

My first all-grain recipe i created had 5 hop additions and 5 malts. I was thinking of a name and realized the number 5. So, i googled 5. Low and behold, 5 is the 3rd prime number. Thus the name, 3rd Prime IPA. Since then i adjusted my recipe to having 5 types of hops and 5 types of grain (technically 6 with some acidulated malt to keep the ph down), but it will forever remain, 3rd Prime IPA.
 
I like to use movie character as inspiration for a recipe or an ingredient will make me think of a character. I just found out about Austin's "magic hop dust" so I think a west coast pale ale with that stuff named Pedro de Pacas would be perfect
 
This is one of the most fun aspects of brewing for me. When I brewed on Vancouver Island, the garage was full of Black Widow Spiders (not a word of a lie) I was the "Black Widow Brewery" and all beer names were arachnid related. I sometimes have named beers after whatever awful thing happened on brew day..."Dish Rag Porter" anyone?

I currently brew in Abbotsford BC, Canada. No Craft beer within 25 miles. Everyone goes to church. I call my garage the "Bible Belt Brewery" and the list that follows are the beers I am working on.

Altar Call IPA
Back Row Brown Ale
Communion Cream Ale
Pastor's Kid Porter
Power Point Pale Ale
Secret Sins Saison (The Pastors Demise)
A stout that has not been named yet...

Thanks for starting the thread. Love this stuff.



Jon
 
I didn't name 17 of my first 20. I just labelled the recipe name. If I modified it, I lettered it. "Centennial Blonde A". But another thread got me thinking of names. So Green Flash Clone became Sunrise Ipa, because the sun sets out in Cali and rises here. Fat Cat Pale is my Doggie Style Clone, cause I have a fat cat. My best name and brew is Maureen O'Hara Irish Red. I'm still trying to think of a good name for the fermenting Amber. I don't know if I should relate that to yellow navigation lights or strippers.
 
JohnSand said:
I didn't name 17 of my first 20. I just labelled the recipe name. If I modified it, I lettered it. "Centennial Blonde A". But another thread got me thinking of names. So Green Flash Clone became Sunrise Ipa, because the sun sets out in Cali and rises here. Fat Cat Pale is my Doggie Style Clone, cause I have a fat cat. My best name and brew is Maureen O'Hara Irish Red. I'm still trying to think of a good name for the fermenting Amber. I don't know if I should relate that to yellow navigation lights or strippers.
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+1 for strippers.
why would you even contemplate that....beer and strippers go like peanutbutter and jelly.
 
I've got to come up with some better names for my brews. So far the only ones I have any degree of pride in are:

Four Quarters IIRA - Imperial India Red Ale, mashed as a single batch, bittered in a 90-minute boil, then individually whirlpooled and dry-hopped in four 4-liter batches - 25-Cent, 90-Degree, 3-Month, and 15-Minute.

The Lukewarm - a half-grain batch of the Westvleteren 12 clone on the forum, for building a yeast cake for the full-on clone. The clone is named "The Pious", so "The Lukewarm" is my less-devoted starter/mini-Belgian.

I still need better names for my Wedding Wheat, Wedding Pale Ale, and the as-yet unnamed RIS I've got bulk-aging.
 
I put medical & psychological terms into a hat, then I wear the hat for 4 days & 3 nights, then I take off the hat, slap a sea lion, take a badger dancing, then ask my friends what I should name my beers. this is pure science. you can't front on that.
 
Had never brewed a black ipa before. Never seen a recipe for one, but I put something together on a whim. Called it shot in the dark.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Im planning a Stout.... Simce I live and brew at 211 South Central I think ill name it 211 Stout Central
 
I name them after what I'm doing at the time of coming up with a recipe. I came up with an ipa idea on my son seeleys birthday, called it seeleys second spring ipa. Came up with a rye ipa while in the hospital when my next son was born, Parker's perfict rye. Came up with a stout while fishing on the snake river, snake river mud oat stout
 
Need a name for the Oaked oat stout I'm making this weekend....nothing great happened to name it after.....guess I'll call it Oaked oat stout :/
 
I named an APA that I brew Freedom APA because I brew it on Memorial Day and serve it at my 4th of July party.
 
I'm boring. I just write the style on the tap-board and call it good. "Bock", "Altbier", and "Cider" are the names I guess.

When I have children someday, I am just going to name them "Son" and "Daughter", apparently.

I guess I don't care much about beer names. When I walk into a bar and ask what you have on tap, I don't want to hear "Thirsty Goat, Altered States, Bucket Head, and Bombshell"; that doesn't mean anything to me, unless I'm familiar with those beers already. I want to know that you have an Amber, Altbier, IPA, and Blonde Ale respectively.
 
Usually ours are either:
-Something to do with one of our names, friend's names, wive's names, etc. Like Abby the Bavarian is our latest Bavarian Hef, take off of Abby's hef which is a Widmer clone. or Erik for President and Erik for Emperor, simple easy beer everyone can like, i.e. buy some votes with it, and then the sorachi ace version = Japanese = emperor.

-Something location based. Home brewery is called L-Town for Longview and this old mullet sweatshirt logo we saw one year that said welcome to L-Town. Just horrible and funny at the same time cause we still have mullets around if you look hard enough. We have also had Mt St Helens Stout.

-Something funny/nerdy/cool based on movie, famous person, character, etc. Stormtrooper IIPA cause its an imperial. Or Snow Patrol Winter Ale.

-Clever (or not so clever) take on existing beer name. Like Pliny the Barbarian, Pliny clone brewed with Heady Conan yeast
 
My Dog is Bobby Boucher...so a Biere de Garde aptly named Biere de Boucher, Monk Tophula Quad well sometimes my oldest brother calls me Count Tophula while surfing so trappist needing a Monk instead of a Count. My O'Connor Red (Irish Red) is aptly named after my wife's Irish side, Honey Nelson Saison- Honey additions and Nelson hops, Aigi Dubbley came about as my first All Grain Dubbel, and there's just a few.
 
Oh and I bottled my Belgian Pale Ale on the night of the Bloodmoon so ya get Pale Bloodmoon Ale and I added 1 tsp of Rosemary fresh from the garden to my Blegian Blondie hence Rosemary Blondie
 
I posted my comments before I read all the others. Surprising how many people commented in a thread about how you name your beers, that they don't name theirs, or they number them, or use a letter along with the recipe name. I guess its the other side of the discussion, but would prefer to just hear people's beers names and leave out the non pertinent posts.

Naming beers is my favorite part of this. I have buddies who just opened a brewery, and every time they call their next beer Ashtown Porter or Ashtown Stout I want to scream at them. Having names makes them more interesting, akin to free marketing. How do you not have 5 minutes to come up with a name while planning it, brewing it, fermenting it, kegging it, serving it, drinking beers and talk about... That's just crazy talk. Gotta have a fun name. Just gotta.
 
fijigus said:
I have buddies who just opened a brewery, and every time they call their next beer Ashtown Porter or Ashtown Stout I want to scream at them. Having names makes them more interesting, akin to free marketing.
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I wish all breweries followed that naming convention. :p





fijigus said:
That's just crazy talk. Gotta have a fun name. Just gotta.
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:mug:


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
hunter_la5 said:
I don't want to hear "Thirsty Goat, Altered States, Bucket Head, and Bombshell"; that doesn't mean anything to me,
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Just because I feel an urge to, I should point out that Bucket Head is also a quite talented guitar player, known for usage of an inverted KFC bucket on his head. According to Guitar Hero II, similar attire will not improve your guitar skills.

But onto the matter at hand, I have yet to make a beer worth naming. They're all non-spectacular variants of particular styles. May as well brew one of each type before I commit to perfecting one style. When I get to the point I want a name, I'll probably use something that is simply a description of the beer itself.
 
I currently have a few naming ideas.
Porters are named after boats/ships in books/tv/movies etc. Idea from black pearl porter
Browns are named after members of the tuatha de Dannan (irish deities)
English styles are named after mythical sprites/goblins etc
Stouts are Aesir/Vanir/Norse mythos
Pales are ghosts/dead in mythos. this ones pending still
Blondes are famous females/from media

anything with honey in it is named after a folk hero or warrior hero ie heracles, Achilles.
With wheat it's named after a land of the dead
Ciders are named after myths with apples, trees, or random deities.
Examples include
Avalon cider
The waters of Lir. Blueberry cider
The Wild Hunt, a nutty imperial brown.
Nuadas oatmeal brown
The Chaeth, a high abv dry cider. Named after an evil creature From a book series.

bjorn ironside (porter/stout hybrid with honey) since it's a joke about iron side boats as well as being a nordic folk hero
There's more, this was otoh.
 
I named my stuff by what perks my interest and fells right in my head. My 9% scotch ale was "samuel jackson" after the one dave chappell skit with a beer of the same name, i gotta watch it again. I remember him yelling "it'll get ya drunk"
 
My plan has been to name the beers I brew something descriptive that either solely consists of the style or has an added qualifier for whatever specific thing I'm doing with the recipe, like my Simcoe IIPA or my New Zealand Blonde, and after I find a recipe that makes me rebrew it several times, I then name it. I've got 68 batches and haven't done too many with the exact same recipe, so I have only added more qualifiers like 2.0, etc and haven't christened any proper names. I've got a list that someday I hope to find a tried and true beer worthy of em.



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
hunter_la5 said:
I wish all breweries followed that naming convention. :p
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I like creative names, but naming the style in the creative name (or as a subtitle) is almost always a good move ala Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale or Torpedo Extra IPA.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I need to start naming more of my beers...

Let's see - 黑墨 (black ink) for the RIS.

红云之东 (red cloud of the east) for the tea wheat - it uses black tea ("red" tea in Chinese) from Yunnan (literally "cloud south" province), and the wheat malt is also Chinese. When I started writing this, I thought it was grown in Xinjiang, which along with Yunnan are two of the three provinces on China's western border, so it was going to be red cloud of the west, but it turns out it's from a central Chinese province. Boorrriiinng! Still, China is one of the great "Eastern" nations, so east it is.

阳伞 (parasol) for the caramel amber ale, which came out significantly lighter than intended, since parasols are intended to prevent sun exposure and maintain lighter skin.
 
Usually just call it what it is. I have only named 2, well actually 1 as my cousin dubbed the other.

Trying to get my cousin interested in brewing, he came over for a brew day to do an IPA. While brewing he asked what we should call it and i said doesn't matter, so he wrote on some paper and taped it to the fermenter "Good Friday IPA". Not much of a religious person but the name stuck and that fermenter is in a permanent cycle of said IPA, as it turned out really well!

The other one, that i named, was named due to a mistake. Was looking to brew a nut brown but had no victory, only biscuit so used that and added a bunch of flaked oats and was intending to name it "Breakfast Brown". Was a late night brew and i was tired which led me to forget the chocolate malts but was still 'dark' looking so thought nothing of it. Come bottling time, discovered it was actually a very nice amber so had to change the name i intended for it. So it went from 'breakfast brown' to 'afternoon amber'.
 
Baseout said:
Usually just call it what it is. I have only named 2, well actually 1 as my cousin dubbed the other.

Trying to get my cousin interested in brewing, he came over for a brew day to do an IPA. While brewing he asked what we should call it and i said doesn't matter, so he wrote on some paper and taped it to the fermenter "Good Friday IPA". Not much of a religious person but the name stuck and that fermenter is in a permanent cycle of said IPA, as it turned out really well!

The other one, that i named, was named due to a mistake. Was looking to brew a nut brown but had no victory, only biscuit so used that and added a bunch of flaked oats and was intending to name it "Breakfast Brown". Was a late night brew and i was tired which led me to forget the chocolate malts but was still 'dark' looking so thought nothing of it. Come bottling time, discovered it was actually a very nice amber so had to change the name i intended for it. So it went from 'breakfast brown' to 'afternoon amber'.
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A couple pints of a nice IPA can certainly help one along to a Good Friday - nothing religious about that! :mug:
 
Agreed! It is 6.6% and leads a good whatever day it may be, but it was named as was originally brewed on the Good Friday. Regardless, it turned into a good brew.:mug:
 
Seeing as I named my brewery after my dog...Beagle Brewing Co, the names usually involve him...like Shaved Belly IPA because he recently had surgery and it was a mid percent alcohol IPA.
 
After I completely screwed up and added too much Burton-on-Trent water salts to my last brew, it was easy to name it Slug Killer. Other beers are named using various processes, like Dirty Deeds Pale Ale that I brewed while listening to AC/DC, or Dad's Dunkelweizen that--you guessed it--I brewed with dad.
 
My last brew was made on Memorial day. I had some ingredients lying around and decided to make something.
Had Marris Otter, wheat malt, carapils/dextrine, and some six row.

So I named it Mem*MO*Whe. Which pronounces memory with a lisp.
 
I love reading through this thread. It gives me some ideas to work with because I struggle to name my beers.

We named the brewery "Chicken on a Goat" because the day my wife and I were moving into our current house, we drove past a neighbors house who has chickens and goats. My wife saw a chicken literally standing on a goats back. We still laugh about it a year later.

I try to use a farmhouse theme for most of my beers... Old Barn IPA (red IPA) for example. I also have an American Amber that I call Podium Sweep after the 3 US Men who took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Men's Slopestyle competition in the winter Olympics. I brewed it the weekend after.

My wife is pregnant and due this Thursday. When I created my original Wee Heavy, I called it Wee Lad in hopes of having a boy. We still don't know what we're having, though! Baptism Ale is named that because we're planning on tapping it at the christening.

Most of my beers are just descriptive names... Summer Saison because it's a Saison I made for drinking in the summer.
 
Regal Beast Porter - my kids wanted a label with my dog on it. And, well, he's a regal beast.

White Knight IPA - I was thinking of doing a bunch of Chess themed names. Beer turned out like crap and no other Chess names have come forward.

A Clockwork Orange Blonde - I love the book and I added some orange zest to the boil...hence the name.

Pound on the Floor IPA - I lost a bunch of my grain bill on the garage floor during milling.

Mr. Potter's Christmas Cheer Porter - It made for an awesome label. My favorite to date.

Bane of Dagwood - It is a blonde ale. Dagwood's wife was Blondie...
 
I like to look up translations of words for a beer from another country the beer was conceived (babblefish.com, at least I think that's it). Anyways, I'll translate words that have to do with beer, the beer style or something interesting. I'll also use names of an abby, church, monastery, beer words or whatever.

Cheers
 

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