When is it Legit to apply your own Name to a Brew

[Babybatch]

Maybe this sounds like a silly question but I was just wondering what the brew etiquette is regarding naming your brews.

It would seem that this is entirely relative and subjective so in your opinion:

Is following a recipe and bottling or kegging enough to give a beer your own name? Or does it require that you make some change to the recipe or technique? Does your opinion stand with kits?

Inquiring brewple want to know.

I think that if I follow the recipe of someone else to the "T" it would be an act of homage to keep their name. On the other-hand if a change is made it is a "different beer" so out will come the creative name of my choosing. I recognize that this is a slippery slope since one could argue that every beer would be different in some way even if you followed a recipe to the "T". Still I stand by giving a nod to the source. Granted they could have renamed it themselves.

It seems like people stand by the naming conventions of kits since this makes it easier for others to find them but there is something in me that wants to rename some of them.

What are you thoughts?

 

[AnOldUR]

There've been occasions here where a group of us have all brewed the same recipe and then swapped. No two beers were alike. So much is dependent on the individual systems, water chemistry, technique and other variables that it will always be "your" beer.



But giving the recipe creator credit is always polite . . .

 

[E_Marquez]

There've been occasions here where a group of us have all brewed the same recipe and then swapped. No two beers were alike. So much is dependent on the individual systems, water chemistry, technique and other variables that it will always be "your" beer.



But giving the recipe creator credit is always polite . . .

This is about it I think...
WIthout very strict controls... no two brewers will brew the same beer I think in the end.

 

[Yooper]

You brewed it, it's yours.

That said, if you follow someone else's recipe exactly, it'd be nice if you repost it on the internet or give the recipe to someone else to give credit to the originator.

 

[Jayslay]

For me, if I am brewing a kit I will call it by kit name, as in Brewhouse Pale Ale. If Im adjusting the kit beyond the regular instructions I will call it by style, as in when I concentrate the Pale ale and dry hop I call it "IPA"

But when I partial mash and design the recipe myself, I call it a fully given name. Usually its "Jay's this and that" For Example my last 4 PMs were "Jay's Strawberry Hefe" "Jay's Killer Bees Honey wheat" "Thor's Hammer IPA (Mjolnir) and finally the "Life's Peachy Wit"

I just like to have fun with it, and sort of thought of it as a privilege once I had designed and brewed my own recipe.

 

[frazier]

In line with what others have said - if I use someone's recipe, I keep that name. I've done a bunch of recipes that have "Yooper" in there somewhere - go figure! My clientele no longer has to ask what a yooper is.

When I devise a recipe myself, it usually involves a lot of research, sampling, and averaging a collection of recipes. For example, I recently did a porter that came out great. It was based on recipes I dug up online for Rogue's Mocha Porter, Deschutte's Black Butte, and several others from HBT's database. Is it mine? I suppose so, but it's derivative of a bunch of others. I may give it a name, but not necessarily my name.

In the end, of course, all that matters is the result. If people like the beer, it doesn't mauch matter what you call it!

 

[reverendj1]

For the most part, I follow other people's recipes, maybe tweaking some things here or there. I've only created my own complete recipe a few times. I always rename them and make labels. It's one of the many fun things about brewing for me. Of course, I do also post all recipes/brew notes I make on my website, srvbrew.com and I include a link to either the source or inspiration for each brew in the notes. On each of my labels, it has a QR code that brings you to my notes for that batch. The only one I kept the name for was Skeeter Pee, since the creator asks that people do that.

 

[Waynep005]

I think this is a great question. Where is the line between a new recipe based upon an old recipe and a "plagerized" recipe? Since for the most of us this is not a out money it is not a legal question but philosophical. I guess there are many different answers to the question and most of them are not wrong.

 

[chadkarol]

Am I the only one that doesn't name my beers? I recently created my own black IPA (with the help of beer smith) and I call it my black IPA.

 

[Curtis2010]

I think if you develop your own from research then it is ligitimately yours.

If you tweak a kit or recipe then you should still credit the original.

 

[Waynep005]

I only name a few of my beers. Usually ones I make for a special reason like the strong scotch ale I made when my son was born and am ageing until his 1 st birthday. October 25 can't come soon enough

 

[drainbamage]

I didn't really start naming my beers until I moved on from kits to making my own recipes. If I work from someone else's recipe, I'll keep their name and cite the person that came up with it, even if I run into hops with different %AA and have to tweak my hopping schedule.

 

[Yooper]

I don't usually "name" my beers either. I mean, right now I have four beers on tap- "Mosaic APA", "Freezer Cleaner APA", "Galaxy APA", and "FYB".

They aren't really "named", though- They are differentiated just so we can tell which one we're pouring. FYB is fizzy yellow beer, but the rest are APAs and so I have the taps labeled so you know which one you're getting. Mosaic and Galaxy are pretty self-explanatory. The Freezer Cleaner beer is made up of hops that I had in my freezer from last year's hop harvest in my yard, so I had to use some up to make room for this year's.

I normally don't have three APAs on tap at the same time! Otherwise, they just say "IPA", "APA", "Nut brown", etc.

 

[Randy_Bugger]

You can't name your beer unless you started from a blank slate and built your own recipe based on what you wanted to achieve. You are prohibited from even thinking about emulating a beer while you make the recipe.

Your thoughts should flow like this:

I want to make a light orange color IPA with citrus, pine and floral flavors and aromas.


Not like this:

I want to brew a beer that tastes just like Pliny! Then you type "Pliny recipe clone" into the search engine and brew the clone recipe without modification and call it something other than your Pliny clone.

You can't name a kit beer either. Don't even think about it! In other words, you can't name a beer, if the recipe was made by someone other than you. Anything else is perpetuating a fraud.

 

[JimRausch]

Ok, my story:
A couple weeks ago I met John Palmer and gave him a bottle of one of my brews.(He actually accepted it!)
The label said: 'Belladonna Took's Oaked Mild'
'Recipe by John Palmer'
'Brewed by Jim Rausch'

 

[Yooper]

Ok, my story:
A couple weeks ago I met John Palmer and gave him a bottle of one of my brews.(He actually accepted it!)
The label said: 'Belladonna Took's Oaked Mild'
'Recipe by John Palmer'
'Brewed by Jim Rausch'

That's cool. And it's awesome that you have the label like that. It's flattering to both of you, and it's a great story to tell us. :rockin:



(But I've never seen Palmer turn down a beer, especially a free one. )

 

[fuzzy2133]

Brew the recipe unchanged give credit to the creator.

I would only call a brew mine if you could taste the difference from changing the malt and hop flavors.

 

[Randy_Bugger]

Ok, my story:
A couple weeks ago I met John Palmer and gave him a bottle of one of my brews.(He actually accepted it!)
The label said: 'Belladonna Took's Oaked Mild'
'Recipe by John Palmer'
'Brewed by Jim Rausch'

Nope, sorry. You can't name that beer. Since Palmer probably didn't name it, you have to call it:

Mild Ale
Recipe by John Palmer
Brewed by Jim Rausch

Which is a more of a designation than a name.

 

[Babybatch]

For the most part, I follow other people's recipes, maybe tweaking some things here or there. I've only created my own complete recipe a few times. I always rename them and make labels. It's one of the many fun things about brewing for me. Of course, I do also post all recipes/brew notes I make on my website, srvbrew.com and I include a link to either the source or inspiration for each brew in the notes. On each of my labels, it has a QR code that brings you to my notes for that batch. The only one I kept the name for was Skeeter Pee, since the creator asks that people do that.

Cool idea with the QR code. That meshes with my geeky persona. I agree that naming the beer must be a fun part of the whole process. In fact that is what has drawn me to certain recipes. Why even now I'm wanting to run a search on Skeeter Pee. In some ways I think of brewing someone else recipe as doing a cover song. "Most" of it is the same as the original. I like those cover songs or "Mash-ups" that even tweak the song title. Same but different. But "Let's have a home brew." is always music to my ears.

I only name a few of my beers. Usually ones I make for a special reason like the strong scotch ale I made when my son was born and am ageing until his 1 st birthday. October 25 can't come soon enough

I'm expecting my firstborn son in January 2014. I'm definitely doing something similar. It will be named and labelled. In fact it is the inspiration for the username "Baby Batch" I'd like to do a Baby Belgian Batch (Triple B) - Still deciding what recipe I should use and still getting my bearing on home brewing but it will happen. It's as sure as dirty diapers.

I don't usually "name" my beers either. I mean, right now I have four beers on tap- "Mosaic APA", "Freezer Cleaner APA", "Galaxy APA", and "FYB".

They aren't really "named", though- They are differentiated just so we can tell which one we're pouring. FYB is fizzy yellow beer, but the rest are APAs and so I have the taps labeled so you know which one you're getting. Mosaic and Galaxy are pretty self-explanatory. The Freezer Cleaner beer is made up of hops that I had in my freezer from last year's hop harvest in my yard, so I had to use some up to make room for this year's.

I normally don't have three APAs on tap at the same time! Otherwise, they just say "IPA", "APA", "Nut brown", etc.

If I ever expect to get my buddy to even try a home brew some sort of FYB will have to make it's way into the fermentation chamber. Freezer Cleaner is cool. I suppose when you can make beer that is outstanding you can cull away the fluffy and frivolous names and stick to "IPA", "APA", "Nut brown". One day I will get there. But they will likely be "Yooper IPA", "Yooper APA", "Yooper Nut brown"

You can't name your beer unless you started from a blank slate and built your own recipe based on what you wanted to achieve. You are prohibited from even thinking about emulating a beer while you make the recipe.

Your thoughts should flow like this:

I want to make a light orange color IPA with citrus, pine and floral flavors and aromas.


Not like this:

I want to brew a beer that tastes just like Pliny! Then you type "Pliny recipe clone" into the search engine and brew the clone recipe without modification and call it something other than your Pliny clone.

You can't name a kit beer either. Don't even think about it! In other words, you can't name a beer, if the recipe was made by someone other than you. Anything else is perpetuating a fraud.

Oh crap! I'll never have a named beer. Either that or I'll just call it "Ponzi Pa" and let my flimflam be known. Shoot! That's a great name in fact. Maybe we could do another... "Chicory Chicanery" the Chicory Stout clone of DFH.

Ok, my story:
A couple weeks ago I met John Palmer and gave him a bottle of one of my brews.(He actually accepted it!)
The label said: 'Belladonna Took's Oaked Mild'
'Recipe by John Palmer'
'Brewed by Jim Rausch'

Now that is the classy sort of stuff that I would like to be know for! Good on ya mate!

 

[reverendj1]

Personally, I really don't think it matters if you keep the name or not. If someone wanted to be credited, they'd say it (like with Skeeter Pee). I don't pretend that I create most my recipes from scratch. If a friend or family member sees C.R.E.A.M. or Biermuncher's Cream of Three Crops Cream Ale on the bottle, it doesn't make a difference to them. They aren't going to know who Biermuncher is or care. If a fellow homebrewer wants to know/make it, I'd tell them where it came from (that's why I have a QR code right on the bottle). I only have one recipe on here, but I am going to have more as I tweak some of my original recipes, and I don't give two craps if you credit me. No one who drinks it will know me anyways.

 

[Hello]

You can't name your beer unless you started from a blank slate and built your own recipe based on what you wanted to achieve. You are prohibited from even thinking about emulating a beer while you make the recipe.

Your thoughts should flow like this:

I want to make a light orange color IPA with citrus, pine and floral flavors and aromas.


Not like this:

I want to brew a beer that tastes just like Pliny! Then you type "Pliny recipe clone" into the search engine and brew the clone recipe without modification and call it something other than your Pliny clone.

You can't name a kit beer either. Don't even think about it! In other words, you can't name a beer, if the recipe was made by someone other than you. Anything else is perpetuating a fraud.

Well that's just hardcore right there.
In my case, I'll never name a beer then I guess.

 

[reverendj1]

As an analogy, when you make a pie for a family gathering and there are a few pies next to eachother, you may want to make a little label for them. Now, would you write Apple Pie and Blueberry Pie, or would you write "CookingMonster37's Best Apple Pie 3 from recipes.com" and "Betty Crocker Blueberry Pie"?

 

[adiochiro3]

First let me say that I always give credit where it is due.

I guess I kind of think of this issue like naming a horse; I like to keep something of the original name to honor the brewer(s) before me, but tweak that name (even if I did not change anything) because it is my interpretation and my labor. As someone has already mentioned, no 2 brewers will end up with the same result.

If you really think about it, we have to admit that we don't brew in a vacuum, nor do we come up with recipes in a vacuum. Can anyone here claim to have developed a truly original recipe? I believe the answer is no. These things are a reflection of who and what has gone before us.

Just the act of brewing honors those who kept the tradition alive, IMHO.

 

[Rhumbline]

If I were selling it, it would have to be something that I came up with myself before I'd put a name on it.

I don't, and almost certainly never will sell my beers so it's a moot point. When I share my brews I tell people it's a Russian Imperial Stout, or a Saison or whatever. My friends all know I'm brewing from kits.

That's my take on it.

 

[chadkarol]

If I were selling it, it would have to be something that I came up with myself before I'd put a name on it.

I don't, and almost certainly never will sell my beers so it's a moot point. When I share my brews I tell people it's a Russian Imperial Stout, or a Saison or whatever. My friends all know I'm brewing from kits.

That's my take on it.

Exactly. Unless you're selling your beer, you can do whatever you want. If you want to brew from a kit or use someone else's recipe, and you want to give it your name, do it! If you want to modify an existing recipe or create your own from scratch, and you want to name it, do it!

 

[kombat]

You can't name your beer unless you started from a blank slate and built your own recipe based on what you wanted to achieve.

In other words, you can't name a beer, if the recipe was made by someone other than you. Anything else is perpetuating a fraud.

I disagree. Some recipes are so simple that it doesn't make sense to require everyone who brews it to credit the originator.

You think you're the first person to mash 10 pounds of Moravian Pilsener malt, boil it with 2 ounces of Saaz, and call it a Bohemian Pilsener? What about SMASH brews? 10 pounds of 2 row and 3 ounces of Cascade doesn't entitle you to immortality every time someone else stumbles upon that combination.

Also, as others point out, even if you brew the same recipe, it can taste wildly different based on your process, equipment, water, variations in that year's crop of barley and hops, fermentation temperature, fining regimen, etc.

 

[Beernik]

I'm kind of with Randy_Bugger. Maybe it's because I've been tinkering with recipes since my second beer and writing my own for years.

I compare it to cooking.

Example 1: Opening a can of Campbell's soup and warming it on the stove is enough to call it "home made". But it's still Campbell's soup.

Example 2: when I make pasta sauce, I buy a can of pasta sauce. Then I put it on the stove and add a bunch of stuff to it: herbs, wine, saizon, mustard powder, artichokes, and olives. It's my pasta sauce. The canned sauce is just one ingredient in it. But I don't hide the fact that I started with someone else's base. I just don't want to stew the sauce from scratch every time I want pasta.

Example 3: I pull a recipe off the Internet or a cookbook. Sure, I made it from scratch. But I don't call it mine unless I substantially changed the recipe. My grandfather's waffle recipe for instance. The only thing I changed is using olive oil instead of shortening. It's still his recipe.

Example 4: when I make salsa for canning. I started with my mother's recipe. But I have substantially transformed it. Hers has bell peppers, mine doesn't. Mine has tomatillos, hers doesn't. Hers had 3 jalapeños, mine has 6 plus a variety of other peppers. I call it my salsa. No one would ever try both salsas and think they are the same.

My bottom line: if you want to put your name on it to tell people that you made it, sure go ahead. You made it. But don't present it as "this is my recipe" unless it is your recipe. It's disingenuous.

 

[DonMagee]

You can't name your beer unless you started from a blank slate and built your own recipe based on what you wanted to achieve. You are prohibited from even thinking about emulating a beer while you make the recipe.

Your thoughts should flow like this:

I want to make a light orange color IPA with citrus, pine and floral flavors and aromas.


Not like this:

I want to brew a beer that tastes just like Pliny! Then you type "Pliny recipe clone" into the search engine and brew the clone recipe without modification and call it something other than your Pliny clone.

You can't name a kit beer either. Don't even think about it! In other words, you can't name a beer, if the recipe was made by someone other than you. Anything else is perpetuating a fraud.

I'm typically in the middle. My recipe creation goes like this:

"I want to make a oatmeal stout!"
"What is the typical oatmeal stout grain bill?"
Internet searches, books, etc later I've found that most of the highest regarded oatmeal stouts use 8-9 pounds of base malts, half a pound of roasted barley, 1 pound of oats, and a 3/4 a pound of chocolate malt. Crystal is a variable that seems to not be consistent between a lot of people's favorite recipes.

Start building recipe from there. Add some crystal that aligns with the flavors I like in oatmeal stouts, select a hop type for the style, determine how bitter I want it (IBU/OG) and build it up.

I post it here to see if any mistakes are detected and I brew it. If I like it, then I name it. If I think it has potential, I'll keep tweaking.

I feel I'm making new and unique recipes that are just standing on the backs of giants. I'll give giants their due if anyone asks how I came up with my recipe, but I still feel these are my recipes.

 

[roastquake]

I almost always make my own recipes, some of them have been named for:

1. the person who likes it so much it becomes their favorite. i.e. "Fox on The Run cream ale" halfway named for a great bluegrass song and halfway named after my friend whose maiden name was Fox who didn't like beer at all until she tried this one. before that it didn't have a name.

2. If someone gives me ingredients: "Generous Jim's brown ale"

I like for there to be a story behind a name, like Sweetwater 420 what was formulated on 4/20

 

[freisste]

+1 to the previous two posts. If you make substantial changes, its you're recipe. If you brew someone else's with a hop substitution, its still someone else's recipe.

I also look at other recipes to determine where to start mine. Then I adjust to my tastes. There are so many homebrewers out there that I doubt my efforts come up with a recipe that has never been brewed. Someone else (on their own) probably came up with an identical grain bill and hop schedule. I tell people where I got my recipe if I copy and I tell people where I got my inspiration if I tweak.

Anyone who says their recipe is ENTIRELY their own is a liar, brewing something completely off the wall, or is at least several hundred years old.

I guess my point is this:
If you think you brewed something pretty original without minor tweak to someone else's recipe, or you brew something to pretty classic style (like a SMASH IPA, APA, etc.) call it your own. Else, credit the recipe you found.

 

[Beernik]

Anyone who says their recipe is ENTIRELY their own is a liar, brewing something completely off the wall, or is at least several hundred years old.

Too true. Every time I think I've come up with something unique I google it and find at least 30 people who already had the same idea.

I think hop substitution is more of a grey area. If you take someone's Pilsner recipe and use Hallertau instead of Saaz, that's not much taste difference. If you use Citra instead of Saaz, that's a huge taste difference.

 

[freisste]

I think hop substitution is more of a grey area. If you take someone's Pilsner recipe and use Hallertau instead of Saaz, that's not much taste difference. If you use Citra instead of Saaz, that's a huge taste difference.

Absolutely, but at the same time I can taste the difference between a pie with a crust using lard and a pie with a crust using butter. If that is the only difference, I wouldn't say the recipe is particularly unique. It's somewhat standard practice to sub butter for lard.

In your example, is citra a standard sub for saaz?No. Still not a big enough difference though, IMHO.

Just tasting different isn't a "real" difference. Same as adding strawberry extract to someone else's blonde recipe doesn't make the recipe yours.

Again, all just my opinion. To me, if you truly think your recipe is your own, name it. If you delude yourself into believing your recipe is entirely new because you swapped crystal 20 for crystal 40, I'm sorry about that. It really is up to the individual to decide because (as this thread has clearly shown) the whole thing is a gray area.

 

[Aboo]

When I brewed kits, I call them by style. I never have enough around to have 3 different Ambers, or Stouts, etc...

I'm making all-grain now and use the recipes from this site almost exclusively.

I have a chalk board over my kegerator that tells me/SWMBO/friends what's on tap at the moment. (One tap, two kegs).

One keg pretty much always has Apfelwein in it, SWMBO freaking loves the stuff.

The other one differs, but I always label it with the name given by the recipe creator unless I horribly screw it up on brew-day and it comes out nothing like expected, which happens. And I still drink it, but I call it something similar.

For instance. Cream of 3 Crops goes on my board as "Co3C - 8/23/2013", people ask what it stands for, I tell them. But I'm to lazy to write out the whole name for that one lol.

 

[Beernik]

I don't disagree with you freisste. When I make my grandfather's waffles, I use olive oil instead of shortening. I don't call it my recipe.

If it was me making the Citra - Saaz substitution, I'd say "I used this recipe and made this substitution" because I take pride in the recipes I write from scratch. But subbing Citra for Saaz is enough to change the sub-style of a beer and I wouldn't begrudge someone calling it their own.

My recipe formulation process usually starts with "I want this flavor" and start plugging in grains and hops. After I figure out the flavor, I select a style it's close to and refine towards that style. After I have it 95% of where I want it, I do a double check by looking at other recipes.

Rarely do I start off with "I want this style of beer". Those recipes I have a tough time making. The Brett IPA I have fermenting right now was like that. I played with that recipe for two years before I got it where I wanted it to be. Even then, when I went to buy the ingredients, I had to make a hop substitution because they didn't have what I wanted.

 

[kombat]

I'm typically in the middle. My recipe creation goes like this:

[...]

I post it here to see if any mistakes are detected and I brew it. If I like it, then I name it.

What if, after all that, someone comes along and points out, "Hey! That's EXACTLY the same as my recipe I posted here 2 years ago! <link>"

You still came up with it entirely on your own, but by virtue of the fact that most of these styles have pretty narrow ingredient constraints, and random chance, your recipe ended up exactly matching the same one someone else devised, completely independently of you. Not to mention, theirs will taste completely different because they have different water, different equipment, different fermentation schedule, etc. than you. Do you now lose the right to name your own recipe?

 

[DonMagee]

What if, after all that, someone comes along and points out, "Hey! That's EXACTLY the same as my recipe I posted here 2 years ago! <link>"

You still came up with it entirely on your own, but by virtue of the fact that most of these styles have pretty narrow ingredient constraints, and random chance, your recipe ended up exactly matching the same one someone else devised, completely independently of you. Not to mention, theirs will taste completely different because they have different water, different equipment, different fermentation schedule, etc. than you. Do you now lose the right to name your own recipe?

Good question. To me, it's still my recipe. I spent hard work and time coming up with it. It's a lot different then just copying a recipe off the site and giving it a new name.

 

[kombat]

I still think people are being WAAAY too defensive here. The ingredients in most styles is fairly strictly constrained. There simply aren't that many ingredients in beer to really justify claiming intellectual domain over any given combination. "You use Crystal 40 in your Pale Ale? That's genius! Every such brew will forever be known as (YourNameHere) Pale Ale!"

If I take a common grain bill (say, 9 lbs 2 row) and brew with 2 ounces of Simcoe, can I call that my own? If you take the same grain bill (if you can even call it that!) and brew with 2 ounces of Centennial, is that your own recipe, or are you a fraud, cribbing off my grain bill and just "tweaking" the hop schedule? What if you and I make the same SMASH with 9 lbs of 2 row and 2 ounces of Cascade, but I add all my hops at 30 minutes, and you add 1 oz at 60 and 1 oz at flameout? Is that enough of a difference, or are we stealing each others' recipes? What if I take your recipe and add a half-pound of Carafoam (because I like extra lacing in my glasses)? Is that enough to make it my recipe?

You know what REALLY makes the end beer taste different? Fermenting at 63° vs. 70° F. But nobody is even talking about how such nuances drastically affect the beer's flavour and could be considered a different "recipe."

Wendy's didn't invent the hamburger. They didn't even invent putting bacon and cheese on thier burgers. But they still call it the Baconator(TM), rather than "Tex's Bacon Cheeseburger sandwich" or whoever the first guy was to try it.

My point is there are so few variables, and so many of these combinations are patently obvious, that it seems arrogant to me to try and claim intellectual domain over such self-evident recipes.

 

[AnOldUR]

Besides, if I brew your recipe and it comes out tasting like monkey balls, do you really want your name in the credits?

 

[DonMagee]

I just had a thought, I'm going to write a program that builds out every possible combination of grain, hops, and yeast. Give them all silly names and post them here. Soon every recipe will be mine!

 

[freisste]

Kombat, I think you and I are on the same side, although I will submit that you present an argument better than I do.

What I am basically saying is that no one should get a trademark on a name of a simple beer. If you come up with something individually (even if you find later that a hundred other people have done the same thing) it is your work and you can name it if you want. When someone finds it, they will probably wonder why you named something so simple, but its still the brewer's prerogative.

I still hold that if I take someone else's recipe and brew it (even with a minor edit), I cannot rename it as MY recipe. Whether or not the recipe I found was (or should have beer) named after its brewer (or maybe original copier - or even copier of a copier) is irrelevant, at least to me.

An example to illustrate my point:

If I brew Biermuncher's Co3C and add a pound of crystal XX, it is not my recipe. As such I should not rename it. At least without giving some credit.

At the same time, I have no idea if Biermuncher stole the recipe or not. I don't care because I'm not him (her). As I said, it is not up to me to determine what everyone else should do. I'm not the beer police. I can only do what I think is right - if I truly believe that I came up with a recipe on my own, however simple it is, I believe I should be able to name it. At the same time, no matter what I do (or what I name my beers), I cannot stop anyone else from stealing my recipes so it doesn't really matter to me.