A few years ago I wrote an article for the Brewer’s Association I called Papa’s Got A Brand New Beer that was for Father’s Day. It featured a number of names that beer people have given their kids, celebrating their love of beer. My old friend, Adam Lambert — who I’ve known since he was in college and working part-time for SLO Brewing — recently tweeted “I think we need a blog for beer related kid names.” While setting up an entire new blog on that topic seemed too much, at least for me, I figured a page of People’s Beer Names could work.
I can only assume there are more that I haven’t run across. If you know of any to add to this list, please let me know by commenting here. I’m especially interested in names that parents have already given, so if you know a name that’s already been bestowed on a child, please let me know who (I don’t need exact name, just something like “employee at x brewery/bar/distributor/etc.”) so I can refer to without naming names.
Here are the names I already either know of, or seem possible.
Boy’s Names
- Brett: confirmed — Brett Porter is head brewer at Goose Island/ABI, and formerly with Deschutes
- Brewer: theoretical — appears in baby name books
- Bud: fictionally confirmed — Bud Bundy, character on Married… with Children, named after Al Bundy’s favorite beer
- Cooper: confirmed — son of a man with 20 years in the draft dispensing business
- E.S.B. initials: unconfirmed — rumored story told to Jay R. Brooks for a name like “Ethan Sebastian Brown”
- Flanders: possible — for the Belgian beer style, Flanders Red
- Porter: confirmed — son of Jay R. Brooks, and also the son of Chris Graham, COO of MoreBeer
- Stout: confirmed — A Facebook friend knows one
Girl’s Names
- Abbey: possible — for Abbey-type breweries
- Amber: confirmed — daughter of Geno Acevedo, El Toro Brewing, and middle name of the daughter of Colorado beer write Dan Rabin
- Burton: possible — for the beer-brewing city in England
- Cascade: possible — for the hop variety*
- Crystal: possible — for the malt variety
- Genny: possible — for Genesee Cream Ale, nicknamed “Genny”
- Heather: possible — for the shrub used in brewing
- India: confirmed — A Facebook friends knows a couple whose daughter got her name at least in part because they love IPAs and homebrew
- Iris: possible — for Cantillon Iris
- Kate: possible — for Portsmouth Kate the Great
- Mara: confirmed — daughter of British beer writer Martyn Cornell, Hebrew for bitter
- Matilda: possible — for Goose Island Matilda
- Sierra: confirmed — daughter of Ken Grossman, Sierra Nevada Brewing
- Sofie: possible — for Goose Island Sofie
- Vienna: confirmed — daughter Jennifer Talley, Auburn Alehouse
NOTE: * – I’ve seen many suggestions for different hop variety names, but most seem somewhat forced. Understanding that a name could conceivably be anything, I only want to list names that seem reasonable or have actually been given to a kid by his or her parents. For another example, I’ve seen several mentions suggesting “Bock” or “Lambic” as names, but unless someone’s actually named their kid those, they don’t really seem that likely to me. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of suggestions like that out there on the internet. really more bad suggestions than good ones.
It should be noted that Ken named Sierra first and the brewery second.
Yeah, I did note that in the article I wrote that’s linked in the post.
My wife and I named our 8 mo. old son Cooper.
It obviously has a close relation to my part of the industry, with my background in draft for the last 20 years.
Oh, that’s a great one. I knew about it as a last name, but that works well as a first name, too.
My daughter is called Mara, which is Hebrew for ‘bitter’.
Brett seems to be a common first name in the US brewing world, and of course Goose Island has a brewer actually called Brett Porter.
Oh, cool. I did not know that. Added.
Good memory. I’d forgotten Brett, even though I’ve known him since he was at Deschutes. Feel bad I didn’t thing of him given how perfect his name is for a brewer.
We named our kid Jeremiah Red. It is a great beer at BJ’s restaurants.