Beer Names Gone Wild

It’s not often that craft beer brings Shakespeare to mind, but a recent trip to a large beer store got me pondering a line from Romeo and Juliet. To paraphrase, “What’s in a name? That which we call a saison by any other name would sell as well.” Right?

Consider the following phrases: “Even More Jesus,” “Big Tasty’s Back Door” and “Mine Is Bigger Than Yours.” What do they have in common you might ask? They’re all names of beers.

It seems that long gone are the days when a brewery built up its name into a reputation that carried its individual beers. Brewery Haus might name its beers such uninspiring things such as “Dunkel” or “Helles Lager,” while SoCal Beer Co. had “Pale Ale” and “IPA.” But since Brewery Haus and SoCal Beer Co. have both been around for decades, consumers trusted the brands to produce tasty beers. They didn’t need any fancy gimmicks.

As the craft beer market becomes more crowded and more competitive, both new and established brewers have started embracing modern marketing tactics. Flashy packaging that pops off the shelf as well as funny, and often ridiculous, names or branding have become the new norm for the hip new generation of upstart brewers.

The trend has been led mostly by the so-called “gypsy brewers.” These brewers build up their brands without actually owning a brick and mortar brewery. They rely on either renting space at breweries that are not running at full capacity or contracting those breweries to brew beers based on the gypsy brewer’s own recipes.

Since most of these gypsy brewers don’t have a home market per se, they have to be aggressive about marketing their beers. This is where the crazy names and flashy packages come into play. The three names that I started this column with are from Evil Twin (now based in Brooklyn, N.Y., formerly Denmark), a Stillwater (Md.) collaboration with West Brook Brewing (S.C.) and To Øl (Denmark) respectively.

Besides just seeming like a simple attempt to catch shoppers’ attention, I think there are other forces at work in the realm of naming beers. The new class of brewers, including, and perhaps led by the gypsy brewers, are bucking traditional styles and stretching their creative muscles. Every week I see beers that don’t fit into any specific style guideline. My favorite example is from Hopfenstark (Quebec): “Boson de Higgs” is a singular beer that combines characteristics of a Belgian-style saison, a Rauchbier (smoked lager) and a Berliner Weisse (sour wheat ale) and is a mere 3.8 percent alcohol by volume.

Since modern brewers don’t want to be confined by the old school convention of defined beer styles they can’t really give their beers simple names like “Pale Ale” anymore. They’ve got to utilize phrases or names for their brands. As I’ve said, some go the route of insanely long strings of puns like the gypsy camp, while others like Hill Farmstead (Greensboro) and Hair of the Dog (Ore.) have chosen to use people names. Hill Farmstead brings us Edward, Abner and Edith while Hair of the Dog offers Adam, Dave and Ruth. It’s a unique way to name beers, but the drawback is the same as the crazy oddball names: There’s no style information associated with these names leaving the average consumer wondering was Abner the double pale ale or was it Edith?

Another driving force in the modern beer naming blitz is also likely trademarking and patent concerns. If you follow beer news, you’ve likely seen all the articles about breweries suing each other over copyright infringement. With the market getting more crowded, there’s more businesses attempting to protect their hard work through legal means. I’d venture to guess that almost every conceivable hop pun IPA name has already been registered. This is forcing brewers to be more creative in their naming conventions. They can either go retro and stick with “SoCal Beer Co. Pale Ale” or go for something more post-modern like, “SoCal Beer Co. Amarite or Amarite? Pale Ale” (translation for those not versed in Internet slang: Amarite means “Am I Right?”)

This trend has also affected established brands to reconsider their packaging and beer naming strategies in order to stay relevant.

Both Ballast Point (Calif.) and Long Trail (Vt.) recently rolled out redesigned packages. Ballast Point had relied heavily on drawings of fish on its labels since most of its core beers are named after aquatic species. These packages felt antiquated and looked like they were stuck in the 1990s. For Ballast Point’s rebranding, it kept some of the fish artwork, but modernized it and played up the nautical theme a little more. The new packages are sleek and almost have a retro 1950s look, like something your grandfather may have enjoyed at a barbecue.

Long Trail’s packaging also felt stuck in the last century. Cartoon bears and an out-dated hiker were employed to sell the same beers that had been around for decades. After a few failed starts with its “Brewmaster Series,” Long Trail finally found some modern looking graphics on its newest IPA called “Limbo.” The package is three-tone (black, white and red) and features a skeleton sitting under a tree in which a crow is perched. The Long Trail logo is ditched in favor of “LT” surrounded by some filigree. Long Trail has rolled out other successful and distinct lines of beer such as its “Farmhouse Ales,” which have a very earthy, all-natural look to them, as well as the “Brush and Barrel” series which showcases artwork from Vermont artists front and center on a clean, white label.

With the success of these new packages, Long Trail turned to its core brands and did a complete overhaul of its packaging. The bears are gone and the hiker put on a ball cap. The layout is more modern but still feels like Vermont.

Post-modern beer aficionados are a promiscuous bunch when it comes to shopping for beer. They want what’s new and fresh which can make it difficult for some brewers to keep up. They need to appear like they’re staying relevant and hip so they often employ this slick new marketing techniques. But this can also come off as just following a trend. Only time will tell which brands and tactics prove successful and which brands are still around in five years.

So in the meantime, pass me another glass of “Even More Jesus” and a copy of Shakespearean verse.