Naming A Recipe

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Plastic Brewkettle

Plastic Brewkettle

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I think a brewer gets to name a recipe (attained from an outside source) when they change: a major grain type, a grain amount by a pound or more, a hop type, a hop amount by 2 oz or more (pellets of course - all the purists agree), or a yeast type. Anyway, I like to name my beers with portmanteaus such as Persnickety Limpet Pale Ale, Capable Rodent Brown Ale, Ritual Migration Pale Ale, and Feral Centipede Scotch Ale. I like that last one because it suggests that the ancestral centipedes were domesticated. I'm interested to know how others name their recipes as well as what the popular protocols are for naming rights.
 
I like plays on words. I usually only name my beers that are going for competitions, but sometimes I just have to name one that is staying at home so it looks cool on the kegerator door. My "signature" (gawd stupid descriptive) IPA is done with Citra and Sabro hops, and is named Sabrotooth; last competition it was in I got some good comments on the name. I usually try to work in something to do with roads or streets, since my brewery name is Speedbump; but sometimes that doesn't work. Right now I have the Sabrotooth, a pilsner urquell called Did I Do That?, and a fermenting Moose Drool clone that I'm calling Nothing Up My Sleeve. Not only do we get to brew what we want, we can name it whatever we want. Win win.
 
I name all of my beers after things that are part of my world. The look on my friends faces when I roll into a White Sox tailgate with a batch of "35th and Shields IPA." Or "O'Galiens Irish Stout" named after the local river (putting an "O'" in front luckily makes it sound Irish). Or "Scooter's Diamond Cutter IPA" named after the equipment manager of my favorite hockey team. I also put all my work on Untappd. I'm usually the only one who ever logs a beer of mine in but for some reason I get a big kick out of seeing something I brewed show up on the same site as the big boys.
 
I told myself that I wouldn't name my beer unless it was a recipe I wanted to repeat many times. It seems strange to me to have to conjure up a name for a beer that may never resurface. What if I think of a name that's really clever but I never get around to brewing it again? I may not be able to come up with another cool name and my one cool name has been lost.

I'm a type of brewer that likes to change things up so I have yet to name a beer.

But I hope that my brewing skills and experience will one day establish 3-5 recipes that will be name worthy.
 
My brewery is called Terrapin Station Brewing. I have a house ale Kolsch that's named Estimated Prophet,and a Pils called Sunshine Daydream. The Grateful Dead also had a song Stronger Then Dirt that I named my series beers after, cause that way more beers can be called STD's. All of them are 10%+ and 90% are barrel aged. I only name beers I design and did about 40 kits before designing my own.
 
Well, lots of reasons.
Thadius Hop, named for a friend who ,at one time said, there can not be too many hops, and yes I found his limit.
Rippin Ronnie of course, for Ronnie . He only likes fresh hop ales.
cleanup beers get clean up names like special mess, chocolate mess, bin sweeper ale, etc.

latly I have been brewing hole hop ales, so, hole hop #1 and so on. I am up to-hole hop 29.

Standard stouts get Irish, chocolate etc, special, stouts can be by ingredients. At one time I had a excellent Hawaii connection where I could getspecial coffees, coco nibs, passion fruit mangos etc. some of those were the yellow king due to the yellow bourbon coffee, chinamans hat because one of the artisanal coffee roasters could see that island from his kitchen. Lovers ale,, obviously passion fruit.

fruit beers are due to the fruit, blueberry Belgian, raspberry solude, SBS for smoked butternut squash ale, raspberry solude.
You get the idea
 
I name the beers I brew regularly. The names are chosen for a variety of reasons. Some are just because i liked that particular name. Some are named to give people something to laugh at if they get it and go “WTF” if they don’t.

My Brown ale is very similar to Moose Drool. NB had already claimed Caribou Slobber for their Brown Ale kit so I call mine Bullwinkle Brown with a pic of the moose on the label. My Cali Common is California Dreamin’ with a pic of Mama Cass. My Blonde Ale is called Taidragger Blonde with a pic of a J-3 Cub. Aviation buffs will get it. I actually resurrected that name from a Blonde that was brewed by a now defunct brewery in NW MT that was located adjacent to a grass airport which was also the drop zone for a skydiving club. The label had a stylized image of a blonde woman wearing a Snoopy style helmet and goggles with impossibly long hair streaming behind.

So, essentially, I name and label my recipes to amuse myself, and if anyone else cares, or not, I’m not losing any sleep. :cool:
 
Many of my recipes are concocted from leftover ingredients I have on hand, so it's "Leftoverture" plus an appended style name. Currently putting together ingredients for Leftoverture Pale Ale.

Sometimes, a self-deprecating name is in order. Planning a variation of Yooper's Fizzy Yellow Beer that I will call Piss-Yellow Lawnmower Beer. Don't like the name? Get off my lawn!
 
I've given my beers different names for different reasons. Some have been named for landmarks around a cottage we once owned in northern NY - South Bay Pale Ale; Boldt Nut Brown; Canoe Point Pale; and Guzzle Milk Stout. One was named after a friend's mishap in his wood shop - Hacksaw Revenge, an Irish Red Ale. One of my favorite names was 85 Miles IPA, named for the straight-line distance between the highest point in the continental US (Mount Whitney) and the lowest point in the continental US ( Badwater Basin in California's Death Valley). And others were named after songs, such as Deep Dark and Dreamless (stout), and Year of the Cot (apricot wheat).
 
I only name ones that I like enough to brew again. They are usually references to various things and somehow associated with what I was thinking about when I brewed that particular beer. I like to let my kids help with the naming. Here's a few.
Sassy Bandit Midwest IPA - named from a Lonesome Dove quote beloved by my Dad and his best friend.

Possum Holler County Common - basically a cream ale named for a cool swampy area of the river bottoms close to our home.

Robin's Merry Band Hoppy Amber - named by one of my daughters because she was reading a book about Robin Hood that had captured her imagination.

I'm sentimental and more than a little sappy. I like to incorporate that into my brewing.
 
Dr_Jeff said:
I don't use clever, catchy names, just call them what they are, IPA, IIPA, Saison, Wit, RIS, etc.
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damn i just remembered reading that, i didn't post my last batch in "how many gallons"....it was all base malt and 3lbs of white flour....think i'll call it "baker's pride"! :mug:
 
Just yesterday while sharing a few my buddies said, "Damn dude, this is good! Maybe to good. Might have Trouble stopping!" From those words of wisdom came, "Trouble in a Bottle." I like the name. That's the first time i even thought about naming my brews. Over 30 + years brewing and it seriously hadn't crossed my mind. Until now. I figure Why not? There's certainly label design resources on line. Just saying
 
I have mostly not named recipes and when I have I just used numbers. Like Mild Ale #5 was one of the best I’ve made. Recently I’ve been naming beers after songs I like. I once made a beer with Spalt hops and called it “Gimme Spalter.” Only the old fogies like me will get that.

I’m not that creative. I can’t name a cat. Fortunately the strays we adopted already had names.
 
bwible said:
We got them from a shelter
Click to expand...
I figured it must be something like that. Just having bit 'o fun. We adopted two strays as well a few years ago, a mama and her baby boy, who was just a few weeks old when we brought them inside. Guessing somebody dropped off a pregnant female to let her fend for herself. Neighbors tell us she once had 4 kittens in tow but sadly the coyotes likely got the others.
 
By trade I'm a mechanic, so I named my brewery Hop Mechanic Brewing. Taking that into account, I normally don't name my beers unless I want to repeat them. My usual MO when designing recipes is to look for other recipes in the style and if I use them, I'll just appropriate the current name, mostly because I'm lazy. If I design a recipe from scratch, I'll usually make up a name using some aspect of the beer. My latest hazy uses BRU-1 hops so I named it "BRU Me a Beer".... until the wife re-named it Hella Hazy.
 
My beers are named for ingredients, attempted styles, or current affairs (as you can see below if you have signatures visible).

Some of my favorite names: Cottonwood Ale, from when the cottonwood seeds drifted into the boil; Galaxy SMaSHer, because it was a SMaSH using 2-row and Galaxy hops, and European On My Leg, since it's mostly European ingredients with what's going on in Europe right now.

As for recipes and naming rights, I don't think I've ever followed someone else's recipe. So that's not an issue for me.
 
The last few years my wife and I have hosted an Oktoberfest where I brew all the beer for the party. Here’s a picture of my tap list from last fall.
47D59FF3-1869-453B-9EE5-B0A01A84DDB6.jpeg
 
Naming recipes for me typically only falls on who is receiving the beer. If it's just for myself then I like to humor myself and come up with something like I were naming a username in a video game. Other than that I typically only come up with my best names in the shower and then build the recipe around the name :p
 
I name beers once they’ve earned a medal or two and been in rotation for a year or so. Names are either from “inspiration” or a random Spotify song during the brew day.

Stone Blue - American light lager and the name of a Foghat song

EZ Action - Std American lager and a T. Rex song

HopTruck - a West Coast IPA w/ a truckload of hops

Megra Nodelo aka Just Add Tacos - an annual brew for Summer Taco Tuesdays. I call “Taco Tuesday” for a future Pacifico clone!!

Das Millionendorf - Helles… Munich’s nickname for a tiny town of a million people.

Dark Star Lager - Schwarzbier and a Dead song

Naming is fun, but the beer has to prove itself worthy! 😁
 
Joe P said:
Just yesterday while sharing a few my buddies said, "Damn dude, this is good! Maybe to good. Might have Trouble stopping!" From those words of wisdom came, "Trouble in a Bottle." I like the name. That's the first time i even thought about naming my brews. Over 30 + years brewing and it seriously hadn't crossed my mind. Until now. I figure Why not? There's certainly label design resources on line. Just saying
Click to expand...
This made me laugh and reminded me of a beer I named a few years back, Bad Decisions Brew it was deemed by my neighbor and I and it stuck. Basically we had a couple to many one night and after rehashing some of the dumb shi* we did the beer got its name... hmmm, think it's time to brew it again.
 
I just use whatever the beer makes me think of. Sometimes it's a song, sometimes it's from a movie or tv show, or just something random. Having served at a homebrew-only fest before, I can attest that branding (naming) matters if you want attention. We had people come up to our booth saying "I had to try the beer called (blank)!"
 
I used to let my beer name itself. Like my Redheaded Whore, a red IPA that liked getting passed around. Now I name them after my dog and style. Snow Roll Winter Stout, Couch Potato IPA..... Although some will get renamed. That's sort of the fun with brewing for me, the whole "I have my own brewery in my garage" game.
 

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