Beer Naming

Greetings all!!! I am needing help to name to of my beers. The first beer that I need help with naming is a Imperial Stout and the second one is a Baltic Porter. I was wandering if any one had a few good names for these types of beers where the name is not taken by some one else.

First of all, welcome to the hobby and the forums.

I try to incorporate family names or nicknames. You can comment on the color or strength.

My Old Ale is named “The Old Ball and Chain”. It was first served at a friend’s wedding reception.

You can name Imperial Stouts after night topics, “After Midnight”, “Before the Dawn” (It’s always darkest before the dawn), “Black Hole” or “Sagittarius A*” (the name for the black hole at the center of our universe), etc.

Baltic Porter is dark too, or you can try some Slavic names, etc.

Just RDWHAHB or 2 and you’ll come up with your own names that are meaningful to you and yours.

I named my Imperial Stout Paul’s Imperial Strong Stout, or P.I.S.S.

That only worked for me because my name starts with a P.

Mine just come to me at odd times. One of those, “I’ve gotta write this down” moments. Or you’ll hear something and think, “that would be a great name for a beer”. Next thing you know you’ve got recipe notes on a napkin. :roll:

I love to fly fish, so i like to incorporate that into my beer names. My latest beer was an ipa that i made for my steelhead trip that I called it “8 wt ipa”. 8 wt is the line weight common for larger fish. So I guess if you have any other hobbies you could use that as help for names.

I agree with Baratone Brewer… these things just come to you. For awhile I thought it would be cool to name the beers after sports. I already have a Bases Loaded Blonde, a Home Run Red and a Long Ball Bock but then I stopped that. My Memory Lapse Pale Ale was named after the name of a font that I downloaded and liked the name of. If you go to a place called DaFont.com
http://www.dafont.com/
and just look at the fontnames, some are absolutely hilarious (UndieCrust, Dimestore Hooker, Flaming Poo, etc). You just have to keep your ears and eyes open and something will come to you. I was at my son’s baseball practice and one of the kids slid and tore up his knee. He lifted his pants and had a big scrape and one of the kids said, “Eww, a hideous abnormality!” and I said, “That would be a good name for a beer!”. Another time my son saw a “large man” jogging without a shirt on and said, “Dad, check out the unsightly man-flab”, which of course would be a great beer name as well. Cheers.

you are not going to know if a name was taken by someone else.
I dont name any of my beers so I cant be any help

You didn’t post a recipe so I’m not sure if this will work for you but I try if possible to play off of some of the ingredients in my beers. For example; I did a small experimental batch with a bunch of grains I’ve never used and came away with the Smoken’ Warrior Stout which was a Smoked Imperial Stout hopped once with Warrior hops. Or I have a recipe yet to be brewed that is called the C-4 Hop Explosive which is an IPA with 4 types of hops that start with C.

[quote=“grainbelt”]you are not going to know if a name was taken by someone else.
I dont name any of my beers so I cant be any help[/quote]

Very helpful post, sure the OP appreciates that…

To echo what some others have said, your own hobbies/interests are a great place to find inspiration, whether that be sports, fishing, cooking etc. The best names are going to be the ones you come up with on your own and have meaning to you. And nothing gets the creative juices flowing like a couple of good homebrews.

[quote=“BPBCo”][quote=“grainbelt”]you are not going to know if a name was taken by someone else.
I dont name any of my beers so I cant be any help[/quote]

Very helpful post, sure the OP appreciates that…

To echo what some others have said, your own hobbies/interests are a great place to find inspiration, whether that be sports, fishing, cooking etc. The best names are going to be the ones you come up with on your own and have meaning to you. And nothing gets the creative juices flowing like a couple of good homebrews.[/quote]

he asked about a name that others have used? How would you know that or if so what is the big deal?

I once used 8 or 10 different grains in a beer and called it “Crop Circle American Lager”. :expressionless:

I like other posters like to use ingredients as a place to look for names but I also use local ares, foreign languages, word play and rhymes.

Two of my favorite are

“Golden Summit Pale Ale” an APA w/ Golden Promise as the base and EKG plus Summit as the hops.

“Neck Tie N’ Kolsh” Not technically a Kolsch since I’m not in Cologne if you say neck tie n kolsch a little different it could be heard as “nicht ein kolsch” or not a kolsch

Here are a couple of ideas for your beers
“Bitsar (pronounced bizarre) Stout”
and maybe “Malty Balts” for the porter

Although I think that The Malty Balts sounds like it could be a homebrew club in the Baltic region.
Hmmmm I wonder if there is one?

You need the Randon Beer Name Generator!

http://www.strangebrew.ca/beername.php

[quote=“Denny”]You need the Randon Beer Name Generator!

http://www.strangebrew.ca/beername.php[/quote]

Hah! That’s awesome, Denny. I was going to call my Imperial Stout, ‘Vader’… but now I’m seriously considering:

Obi Wan Kenobe’s Frisky Porpoise

Also works for a fantasy football team name :slight_smile:

I generally try to name mine after things that are going on in my life at the time of brewing/bottling/kegging. For example, Independance Rauchbier brewer last 3rd of July, Colored Eggs Kolsch on Easter, and my favorites, Slaughterhouser Stout to commemorate my fantasy football championship and Repeat Porter the following year for the same. Helps me keep track of when I brewed and entertwines my two favorite hobbies: Brewing, and the rest of my life!

I was on submarines in the Navy… So all my brews names rotate around submarine stuff… Including my brewery name… HY80 Brewery… HY80 for all you “nubs” is the type of steel they use for the submarine.

Oh that is except for the first batch that is ALWAYS named after a woman… “Bitchin’ Blonde” :slight_smile:

Yeah, I have two basic naming trends: Heavy Metal songs/bands, or those things that might be considered in that genre, or names of places.

For example, I spend K-5th grade in Davenport, Iowa. Then I happend to make a beer with equal parts Pilsner, Vienna, Munich and Koelsch malts. Davenport is part of the Quad Cities, but this is also a “Quad City” lager. I use one font for all my beer labels - Ghostwriter, and I have a format (I call my brewery “Westchester” for the street I live on) with the name of the brewery going up the side of the labels, and then I find an appropriate picture on the internet and use an old version of Paint Shop Pro to put the name on the label. Other place names I have:

Wiesbaden - Pilsner
Pensacola - White ale
219IPA - my area code (same one as Three Floyds)

I actually developed a “Rock and Roll Series”. I have the Black Sabbath Imperial Stout, which I make about every other year. I started the labels with the first album, and every year, I change the label to the next album in their discography. I made an amber called “Rocka Rolla” based on the Judas Priest album of the same name, and “Parallel Lines” a blonde ale, based on the Blondie album of the same name (I know, original!)

Krampus (doppelbock - it’s a devil/evil rock thing)
ESPer (Dark Czech Lager - a song name off Loudness’ “Disillusion” CD)
E.T.I. (Red Imperial Pilsner, a Blue Oyster Cult song)
Satan (Tripel)
Satan’s Cheerleaders (Patersbier, also used to make the yeast cake for SATAN, get it, “cheerleaders”?)

Then I have just random names that came to me: Red Rooster is a red ale, Bulldog is an ESB…but mostly I try to keep the names to one or two-word names. I think I sort of stole that from Surly. I just liked how all their beers had one name. Sun King does the same thing. Still, I think I’ll keep “Frances the Talking Ass” as the name of my Sticke.

Submarine batches so far… Periscope Porter… Akula Amber… Ballast Tank Blonde… and soon to come… Rain Locker Red… just some ideas :slight_smile:

I name based on what happens to be going on at the time.

When I created my stout recipe I had just put down one of my dogs and I always used to call him “handsome boy”; thus Handsome Boy Stout.

I was trying to brew my first Belgian Wit and had several problems including wrong base malt, forgot to buy citrus peel and coriander, and the tornado siren kept going off causing me to have to duck and cover a lot and stop my boil. Thus Ill-Fated Belgian Wit was born.

Made a cream ale to celebrate a new house; Christening Cream Ale.

My Octoberfest recipe grain bill portions were 2 lbs, 4 lbs, and 6 lbs so 246 O-fest.

etc. etc.