I’ve tried some delicious new beers recently and my list of favorite breweries has grown, specifically Stone Brewing Co., Duck Rabbit Craft Brewery, and New Belgium. A recent post on Blogfish, the Dogfish Head blog, answered the question of where Dogfish Head conceived their name and since I’ve always been curious about some of the other breweries and their names, I decided to do some research. Here’s what I came up with:
- Atlanta Brewing Company - Obvious…
- Dogfish Head Craft Brewery - Named after the a cove behind founder Sam Calagione’s parents’ home in Maine; suggested to Sam by his father. [1]
- Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Named after an illustration in Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein, a throwback to head brewer Paul Philippon’s previous life as a philosophy teacher. [2]
- Flying Dog Brewery - Named after a painting the founder, George Stranahan, saw in Pakistan while attempting to climb K2 in the Himalayas. [3]
- Left Hand Brewing Company - Named after Chief Niwot, a tribal leader of the Southern Arapaho people in Colorado; Niwot is the Arapaho word for left hand.
- New Belgium Brewing Company - Presumably after head brewer Jeff Lebesch’s bike rides through Europe. [4]
- Stone Brewing Co. - A quick email to the brewery told me Stone was chosen to elicit thoughts of “old school European architecture, strength, simplicity and craftsmanship…the opposite of the plastic and aluminum culture which (regrettably) dominates the beer drinking world of today.”
- Sweetwater Brewing Company - Presumably named after Sweetwater Creek in west Atlanta near their original brewery.
- Terrapin Beer Company - Named after the Grateful Dead album Terrapin Station, a favorite of founders Brian “Spike” Buckowski and John Cochran. [5]
This gets me thinking…if I were to start a brewery what would I name it?
