Explain That Name

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Brewsmith

Home brewing moogerfooger
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There are some interesting names floating around here for people's homebrew. Anyone care to explain how or why they named their beer whatever the intersting or wacky name it got? Here's a few of mine:

6/4 Stout - Has to do with musical instruments. 4/4 or "four quarter" is a full size instrument. One of the instruments I play is the tuba. A few manufacturers make very large instruments in the 5/4 and 6/4 sizes. I figured 6/4 seemed good for a stout. I think I may religate this name to my imperial stouts from now on.

Carly Jo Pale Ale - My brothers first daughter, and my first niece. She was born a few months ago and I named a brew after her, in lieu of cigars.

Belgian Tire - Fat Tire clone, but with belgian yeast

L.A. Uncommon - CA Common style and I'm a resident of Los Angeles. You get the rest.

Old Helicon Barleywine - More tuba lingo. The helicon was the precursor to the sousaphone, or marching style tuba, and was in use a hundred years ago. Since many barleywines have "Old" and something to fit that description in their name, I thought it was appropriate.
 
I know it sounds oxymoronic, but I have a Hefe Weizen that I called "Corn Dog Weizen" because I was eating one at the time...:D

Oxymoronic because of the corn and wheat. I know, not a true oxymoronic.

When I was in college I was asked what my ideology was and I said that I am a liberally-conservative-radical.:rockin: That's 3 opposites so is that an oxymoron also? I don't know.:drunk:
 
Paul's Picnic Table Porter is a beer I originally brewed to honor the retirement of the guy who introduced me to home brewing.

Windy Winter Brown was brewed outside on a very windy day in January.

Other than that I can't seem to come up with good names for my brews.
 
Hefe Weiβbier - German spelling for Hefe Weissbier (aka Hefe Weizen)

"Alles Neu Macht Der Mai" - This is a German phrase that translates to "The May makes everything new", don't worry if this doesn't sound right to you. phrases or sayings don't translate very well ;)

Chubby Angel (American Pale Ale) - Not a Magic Hat Fat Angel clone as one may suspect. I just liked this name and will keep it for my standard American Pale Ale interpretation

Imperator- Doppelbock - I needed to find something with "ator" at the end. I thought the Imperator will be a good Match for the Kaiser.

Kai
 
Well, first of is my "Brewery" name....

The Angry Chihuahua Brewing Co. : Named after one of our dogs, a 6# chihuahua that thinks he is a 100# German Shepard.

Now the beers.....

Crazy Uncle Crimson Ale : My first Irish Red..brewed for my uncle's 70th B-day

Fat & Tired Ale : Fat Tire Clone

Winter Warmer: Self Explainatory

Krueger Clan Kolschbier : Kolsch named after wifes maiden name...my drinkin buddies ;)

Daddy's Little One Lager : Oktoberfest Lager brewed from my daughter's birth

-Todd
 
I don't have any snappy names as I'm still fiddling with recipes, but I loosely refer to my garage as Terrible Creek Brewery. The street we live on is Terri Creek Drive, and while we were investigating the purchase I noticed that Terrible Creek runs behind the backyard and that the street namers probably didn't want to call it Terrible Creek Drive. Now, how it got that name in the first place (it's basically a flat, barely moving, tiny creek) I'll probably never know.
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
Now, how it got that name in the first place (it's basically a flat, barely moving, tiny creek) I'll probably never know.

It's probaply a terible place to be in the summer when all those mosquitos hatch from that muddy water ;)

Kai
 
I have a series of labels that I call my Americana Series. They each feature a classic black and white photo related to the name. The names include:

Indigenous Pale Ale is an IPA and my thumb at PC phrases and features a Sioux Chief on horseback in full war dress

Czecher CAB is my classic american pilsner (Classic American Beer) with Saaz hops. Yellow CAB is my non-Saaz version. The photo is a 1966 Marathon Cab

Pullman Porter is my memorial to Robert Jackson, and old friend from Chicago who was a Pullman porter with the railroad. The photo is a Pullman Porter with his name badge showing

NASA Cream is my North American Sparkling Ale (NASA) and features an early NASA photo

Elvis Died Stout was first brewed on the King's death anniversary and features a "Thin" Elvis

The Great Emancipator is a Bock was first brewed on April 15th, the anniversary of Lincoln's assassination and features his picture

Duck and Cover Barley Wine features children under their desks

Rye Bitter is a rye beer with an image of the Dust Bowl and the phrase "because sometimes life just sucks"

Uncommon Common is a Bastard lager that has Jimmy and Billy Carter sitting in Lazy-boys eating ribs
 
So far, I've only brewed one batch because of my tight budget and inability to drink it quickly. It's called Sif Stout, after the Nordic goddess of grain, Sif (Thor's wife, incidentally, and she had golden hair flowing past her knees, just like me, so I thought it appropos).

An upcoming batch is set to be called Rotating Hedgehog, because of a joke that started in one of my classes this year. Most of the people who drink my beer are people in my department, so they'll get the joke. Just gotta find a decent pic for the label!

I'm tempted to make an IPA, even though I hate IPAs, as another linguistics joke. We language geeks use the Int'l. Phonetic Alphabet all the time, so it'd be an IPA IPA. :D
 
dancingbarefoot said:
I'm tempted to make an IPA, even though I hate IPAs, as another linguistics joke. We language geeks use the Int'l. Phonetic Alphabet all the time, so it'd be an IPA IPA. :D
India Alpha Papa IPA?
 
RichBrewer said:
India Alpha Papa IPA?


I believe in this case it'd be India Papa Alpha IPA. :D

As for my few brews, nothing special about how they got names other then I looked for homorous takes on the name.

"Zwei Dice Dunkelweiss" for the rhyme (originally "No Dice Dunkelwiess, but I liked the german zwei better so I added two).

"Kennedizzle Red" because that's what one of my buddies calls me Kennedizzle (For shizzle :cross: )

"Bitter? I hardly knew her!" for the pun.

My next brew will be "Ctrl-Alt-Del Altbier" for the pun as well.
 
Jackassery, My brand name.. Comes from how my Co-workers and I describe what goes on daily at the command.

Sleeper Black Bitter = I fell asleep brewing a light APA and boiled it down into a Carmely and Black ESB (it actually tasted good when racking to secondary)

Leftover suprize = I got 6 lbs of DME scraped the yeast from the bottom of the hellfire ale.. and used leftover hops, steep grains.. no real style just leftover stuff.

Silly Scotch ale = is a Silly Belgium style wee heavy.

WTF Ale = The recipie was a clone attempt that turned out really good but tasted nothing like Sam Adams Boston Ale, so it got its name WTF is it? (it was good enough to repeat hence WTF2).

Spice White is going to be an attempt at Cloning Sam Adams white Ale, using a blend with 11 different spices.
 
Arm & Hammer Wiezen because I dropped a hammer into the bucket when racking and had to feach in with my arm & fish it out.......

Bust a Nut Brown Ale because I brewed ten gallons of it in February and had to lug it into the house to chill it and busted a nut in the process..........

Red Baron Bock because, well just because.

:mug:
 
mezman said:
"Bitter? I hardly knew her!" for the pun.

spit9hk.gif
 
Gruagach 80/-
The gruagach is a spirit from Scottish lore/mythology. It was a fairy like creature that was drawn to campfires and rewards those who judge the spirit by character rather than appearance (the gruagach is very ugly). I thought that was a good name for my smokey scottish ale.

This is a female gruagach on the label:

1917-gruagach_80_old2.jpg



Kaduva IPA
Kaduva is one of the Hindi words for 'bitter'. I wanted an indian name for my IPA. I also wanted something indian for the label, and I found this picture that seemed to say both "indian" and "bitter" all at once:

1917-kaduva_ipa.bmp


Pandora's Box
This one named itself. There is a history on this forum in several threads that chronicles the total cluster f*ck that was thie beer, from brew-day to bottling, to off flavors that settled. It was supposed to be a Fat Ture clone, but took on a life of it's own.

No need for an explanation of the label:

1917-pandorasbox_00.jpg


Holy Grail
This is the porter that I have never been able to nail down. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I have not yet made the label for it.

-walker
 
Walker-san said:
Kaduva IPA
Kaduva is one of the Hindi words for 'bitter'. I wanted an indian name for my IPA. I also wanted something indian for the label, and I found this picture that seemed to say both "indian" and "bitter" all at once:

1917-kaduva_ipa.bmp

Heehee love that tiger. Where the heck didja find that image? Our cat (of the 10 lb variety) used to make that face every time when he was on medication a couple years ago. He's not with us anymore, but I'd love to send that pic to my wife as a fond reminder... It's really dead-on with the expression. :D
 
I don't have all the fancy labels like Walker and friends do.....

But a couple from my sig:

Lake Walk Pale Ale: Part of the name happens to be the name of the street I live on (Lake Walk Crossing). I think LWPA was my first attempt at a recipe on my own, and it actually turned out good so I named it after a place I'll always remember as where I started brewing. :mug:

Liquid Panty Remover: This is a sweet stout that SwAMi and I tried to clone from a beer we had at the NHBC. We named it that at the conference club night because the women kept coming over to our table for refills of that stuff. FWIW, I almost got slapped by one chick after I told her what the name of it was. :rolleyes:

Snatch Patch IPA: This is actually SwAMi's "Standard IPA" recipe, but I named it this for a buddy of mine who moved to Tejas. He and I and a bunch of buddies brewed it last summer before he left. The name comes from one night when we were at Greene Leafe cafe (a collegey hangout with a great beer selection) in Williamsburg, and we were sitting in this really big booth with about 10 pretty good looking women. Hence the name of the section we were sitting in. Classic. :mug:

Mexican Blackbird: Named after a classic ZZ Top song. If you listen to the lyrics, it just screams "brew a beer for me". It is a chile beer, which makes it even more fun. :rockin:

I've had others, but they escape me for the moment, and/or are probably stupid.
 
I gave up on names not too long ago. I got tired of thinking of some meaningless name for my beer. Now I just make a lable with the beer style, the date it was kegged and the ABV.

Tapsnew1.jpg
 
I'm kind of in Monster Mash's opinion on naming my beer unless I use someone elses recipe that I like then I'll keep their name for it. I do have one that is sticking:

Frank's Robust Porter - neighbor's name is Frank Porter. He doesn't drink but he likes to yap a lot and it is a robust style of porter. And its an awesome porter.

Two others that won't be used again are:

Burnt Monkey Gut Brown for when the starter DME got stuck in the pan and I spilled some hot wort on me belly.

Buggy Beligum Wit for the weavils that were crawling all over the grains. Beer was still good but better not get more weavils from my HBS.
 
Old Bog Water Barleywine: My first one and I wanted a little peat, 8 ounces is too much. But, it grows on you.

Church of Chocolate Brown: Part of the complex history of Pastor Dave singing the paise of Chocolate.

Revenge: A black berry cider best served cold. If you've ever picked wild blackberries ...
 
Fat Pug ale: Named for my 28 pound pug, Hercules Rockefeller, and For Fat Tire ale, for which is it a lame clone (for now I'm working on improvments for the next batch)

Hercules Rockefeller Pug Stout: Again named for my stout 28 pound Pug

Apu's Quickie Mart IPA: named for Apu from the Simpsons.

Dr. Nicks's wound sanitizer chili beer: a chili beer hot enough for Dr. Nick Riviera to use it in surgery.

Cletus the Slackjawed Yokel's hillbilly Pale Ale: another Simpsons's charachter

So far I'm stuck with the two themes for my name ideas, so I might just switch to just naming them for the type of beer.
 
Holy heck Monster that's quite a setup you've got there. I get flak from SWMBO for hogging all the space in the closet under the stairs with my 6.5 gal buckets... But one day... :cross:
 
Vienna Hausfrau Lager: Wife had three college friends for the weekend. They went out on a ladies night out. The dog & I stayed home and brewed a Vienna style lager, but w/ ale yeast. :cross:

Big Boob Blueberry Brew: Many months ago my wifes friends came up to visit, they all went shopping for bras w/ inflatable bra inserts. They all posed for a busty photo before heading to the bar. The photo now on the bottle label.
(Sorry no photos):D

Cali Pale Ale: California beer style....

Northern Brewer Cream Ale: Cream Ale Hopped with Northern Brewer Hops

Bamberg-Style Weiss Rauchbier: Soon to be a 1st attempt to clone Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier (Original Wobbling Smoke Beer - Wheat) :mug:

http://www.schlenkerla.de/indexe.htm

Makes you want to go there. Its inspired this clone.;)
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Man, I've been to the Schlenklera a hundred times! (Last time was last July):D Although it's not a weissbier.

Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier (Original Wobbling Smoke Beer)...substitute "wobbling" with "staggering".:drunk: :D

From looking at the website it looks as if they have several types; marzen,wheat, bock, lager, lent. (All smokey I guess)

I envy you having been there. I think staggering is correct! :cross:

I believe the one of the original owners was handicapped. The patrons could never tell if if he was plastered due to a bum leg. Hence the name Schlenkerla.

I can say I was schlenkerla-like in 1987 with Fox Battery, 2nd Battalion, 10 Marines up in Keel. Somewhere in Northern Germany. I was also in Pirmansens & Zweibrucke in '04. However I was with work and better behaved!
 
I've never been to Kiel, but I worked in Bamberg for 5 years.

I left in Feb '04, but was back there last year when I was modifying the the M120 120mm Mortars. They don't have any in Bamberg, that was a side trip. I visited my old neighbors and some American and German friends during my 2 weeks back there.:D
 
The only one I've names so far is my Chasin' the Tail Ale. After finally settling on a recipe, it's become very popular with my friends. Seems I keep chasin' my tail trying to make enough!
 
I have a name, but not a recipe, for my next Lager with a maritime theme. I was thinking "Davey Jones' Lager"
 
I dont realy do the fancy name thing for my brews. I just acll them by what they are; Irish Red, Scotch Ale; Blueberry wheat; etc . . .

About the closest thing Ihave to a fancy name is what I call my set up in the garage St Fuad Brewing. It's a acronym for what I want to say to 99% of everyone since deep down I'm not a people person, all though I usually put up a good front . . . The last 2 letters are just a tack on kinda deal since if I am brewing I would rather be drinking . . .

Anyways St Fuad stands for "Shut The F*** Up And Drink"
 
MrBulldogg said:
Holy heck Monster that's quite a setup you've got there. I get flak from SWMBO for hogging all the space in the closet under the stairs with my 6.5 gal buckets... But one day... :cross:


My wife is pretty forgiving but I almost pushed my luck too far this weekend. I made a starter on Monday to brew on Sunday and I was going to let her know what my plans were when I looked at the calender, her birthday is Sunday...DOH!!! :eek: I jokingly told her I was brewing but then told her I would take Friday off instead...

I got the flu on Wednesday and Im still sick....:mad: Karma got the best of me....
 
Since Brewtopia wanted to revive the topic in another thread, here are the reasons behind the brew names in my signature:

Midnight Oil - it's a very dark beer, and I brewed it in the evening, finishing at midnight
Thunderstruck - a freak thunderstorm hit in the middle of my brew day
Yuri's Better Brew - Alton Brown calls his recipe "Good Brew"
White Christmas - REALLY creative (or not)...it's a spiced Belgian White style
 
I figured this must have been a topic of discussion in the past. Just didn't do the search. Here's mine.

I am a huge film buff and a fan of Film Noir and classic films of the 30's and 40's in particular, so I usually pick names inspired by films of that era. For example, I call my home brewery Naked City Brewing Company after the great 1948 Jules Dassin Film Noir "Naked City" starring Barry Fitzgerald and Howard Duff. Examples of beer names are listed below:

Films
Dubbel Indemnity Belgian Style Dubbel
Gilda Flanders Style Red
Casablanca Belgian Style Wit
White Heat Imperial Wit
Brigadoon Scotch Ale
Impact IPA
Hopacalypse Now Imperial IPA
Open City Alt

Actors
Bing (Bing Crosby) Spiced Cherry Dubbel
Ginger (Ginger Rogers) Ginger Peach Hefeweizen
Edmund Gwenn Grand Cru
Bogart Barley Wine
Cagney Imperial Red
Edward G. Robinson Baltic Porter
George Raft Oak Aged Imperial Stout

And one of my favorites is this year's winter ale
I want a legendary official Red Ryder 200-Shot Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle with a compass and this thing which tells time built right into the stock. "You'll shoot your eye out" Winter Ale (Red Ryder Winter Ale for short).

I hope to post some of my tap handle designs on the label forum soon.
 
Add another to my list:

Floor Kill Ale - My Dead Guy inspired recipe. A "floor kill" is what happens when you scrape your adversary off on the ground in an air-to-air fight (dogfight)...almost always resulting in at least one "dead guy."
 
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