All the good names have been taken

[mount_oregano]

You may have noticed a trend to give strange names to beer. (Wines, too.)

For example:
Arrogant Bastard Ale,
Great Big Kentucky Sausage Fest Imperial Brown Ale,
Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout,
Bitzkreig Hops Double IPA.

Does this help sell beer? Maybe the first purchase. I wanted to buy a six-pack and I saw Space Station Middle Finger. I like science fiction. It sounded like fun.

The carton said: “From the dawn of time, humans have looked to the sky for answers. Space Station Middle Finger replies to all from its eternal orbit. Behold and enjoy Space Station Middle Finger, a bright golden American Pale Ale.”

So I bought it, and it was a fine brew with a citrus-like tang, not as highly hopped as some American pale ales, and overall very satisfying. As I drank, I admired the artwork on the label, which could have appeared in an episode of Red Dwarf, and that was a pleasant thought.

Tasters at Beer Advocate also had a good opinion of the ale.

Would I buy it again? Sure. But wandering through a beer aisle or perusing a display cooler yields no shortage of tempting fermented adventures. A brand has to find a way to stand out. A strange name helps, I guess, but what happens when all the strange names are taken?

Comments

[cmcmck]

I think all brewing cultures do it:

Pig's arse porter

Ill tempered gnome

& Apocalypse cow

to name but a few locally! :o)

[mount_oregano]

So much beer, so little liver.

[asakiyume]

All the strange names will **never** be taken ;-)

I have a beer label on my fridge that I loved: Czech'ered Past. It's got a woman and a gun and so on. Very atmospheric, very noir. I can't remember the beer, though. Space Station Middle Finger sounds like it was good!

[mount_oregano]

Czech'ered Past sounds like great fun. I had Daisy Cutter IPA beer last night at my writer's critique group, a Chicago brew made just up the street.

[captlychee]

I use the strange name as an indictor of drinkability. The weirder the name, the more repellent the brew is. But they have to stand out on the shelves in the US, assuming they can get shelf space. And they're pitched at young drinkers, like cocktails with names that are innuendoes—a Long Slow Screw Up Against the Wall, for example.

The craft beers usually avoid getting too stupid here, but the essence here is to convince the buyer that they are from microbreweries, when in fact most of them are made by the supermarket chains in the same breweries.

I think IPA's are growing in shelf space, and maybe popularity, simply because no-one knows what a good one should taste like. APa's are designed so that you can only drink two at a time before you need some mouthwash, thus keeping you sober at an exorbitant price.

[mount_oregano]

I was wondering why there are so many IPAs.