The Namesake

@bhopps83 @run_beer #BeerRun

A Thirsty Beaver, The Backhand of God, and a bottle of Moose Drool.

Sadly, There isn’t a witty punchline to follow this list of unrelated items. Okay, I lied. These three objects do have something in common. They’re all great names for beer I’ve come across in my adventures of tasting the latest and greatest lagers and ales.

While there are no guarantees you’ll enjoy any one of them, the chances of remembering their distinctively creative names are slightly higher.

Big breweries are trying desperately to cover markets where the craft world has caught, and in some cases, surpassed them. One area the craft market does exceedingly well in is the naming of their product. I truly believe the right name for a craft beer can build an audience on its own accord. A proper moniker has to be distinct and easy to remember.

“It can be a challenge,” says President of Paddock Wood Brewing, Steven Cavan. “Generally, we have a product created, and then we sit around collectively and brainstorm first, a catchy name people will remember, and two, a piece of imagery we can take to our graphic artist.”

Names like: “Red,” “Blonde,” “White” and “Dark” certainly give you a clear description of what kind of beer you’re drinking. Both Alexander Keith’s and Rickards have used these names for their latest beers, appealing to a selective audience. However, without a gimmick to help consumers remember one red from another, a craft brewer’s creation is in danger of being lumped into a box of empties and forgotten about. A brewmaster’s worst nightmare!

“We have the Red Hammer, and Black Cat and you have a general sense of what you’re drinking,” says Cavan, “but we tend to stay away from that way of naming in favour of the imagery. The Graphic Artist plays a bigger role than you might imagine.”

One of Paddock Wood’s Flagship beers, the 606, has a very distinctive image on its packaging.

“I went to our artist and asked him what we could do with the imagery, it’s just a number, and he responded with the concept of identifying trains by their numbers. If you ask a train geek though,” says Cavan. “They know trains don’t have 3 numbers on them, they have 4. We were actually approached by a jazz festival to come up with a concept beer. The 606 club in London is a very famous jazz club there, and that’s where the name is derived from.”

According to Cavan, this isn’t an unusual request.

“Three or four times a year we’ll get approached by organizations to create a beer for them. Sometimes they are very specific in what they want to see in a recipe or even the name, other times it’s an open-ended challenge.”

As a result, a number of the Saskatoon brewery’s creations have been aided in the naming process by different groups and agencies.

For the past few years Paddock Wood has participated in Saskatoon’s Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan by providing themed beers. Each Summer has brought a new concept to the Fesitval’s open-ended challenge, and that tradition will continue this July.

The naming process doesn’t always have to be complex, the President of Paddock Wood ponders, as he explains several rituals he’s gone through to name a creation . The story behind his Czech Mate brew is quite simple.

“I like Czech beer, and I like playing chess, simple as that,” says Cavan.