Finding a perfect name can be one of the most frustrating steps of opening a craft brewery. More often than not, that perfect name, the one you’ve been dreaming of, sketching out on your Trapper Keeper, and telling friends and family about ever since tasting your first batch of home brew, has already been taken by some small outfit across the country. Damn.

In the previous chapter, we wrote about what goes into a good craft brewery name—things like availability and ownability, reflective of your biggest differentiator, and how easy it is to spell and say. Now, let’s look at how to get from an initial concept to an original, ownable, and trademarkable name in an era of 9,000+ craft breweries.

So we’re not so abstract here, let’s make up a fun example: you and your partners are all into old motorcycles and have found a perfect brewery location in an old auto shop. You’re opening a small brewpub that focuses on session beers.

Starting off, we’d say that brewing session beers isn’t novel, but your cool location and the start of a deeper theme and culture surrounding motorcycles gives us some fun stuff to work with.

Using this hypothetical brewery-in-planning as an example, let’s dig in and look at what “buckets” or ideas we can explore to find a great brewery name.

In no order of importance, let’s explore the following concepts:

In a real project, we would repeat this exercise many times over, gathering several hundred words and concepts. The goal is to get a lot of raw material to work with so we can whittle down to the very best. Skipping ahead, let’s either take some of these words wholesale, or combine them with other concepts to see what we can come up with.

Pull some cool bike words from the batch we came up with above. Trust your gut on these and grab anything that sounds cool and feels right: bone shaker / canyon carver / bronson rock / big block / cHOP shop (eh?) / flywheel / clutch / iron head / monkey wrench / nomad

Let’s combine ideas surrounding session beer and motorcycles. Maybe something along the lines of a starter bike: 250 club / 250 CC / 2 banger / 2-stroke / low rocker / easy rider / 1-percenter / glide / waxer / Sunday rider / fair weather rider / training wheels / sissy bars / tassels (woo hoo!)

Google these words in conjunction with industry terms. Example: “Bone Shaker” + “brewing” “beer” “alcohol” “food” “wine,” etc. You want so make sure, at this step, that you’re clear from similar names.

Now here’s where the frustration begins; “Bone Shaker” immediately shows as a beer name. And a bar. Damn. There’s a Carver Brewing Co. And there are several breweries with Canyon as a part of their name (not a complete deal breaker, but it’s not 100% differentiated and ownable, either). Surprisingly, there’s a “Bronson Rock” bar. Big Block, Flywheel, Iron Head, Monkey Wrench, and Nomad are all either beer or brewery names. “Clutch” is a New Belgium beer, and ‘2-Stroke’ is a beer by Motorworks Brewing (great name!).

“250” brings up a Keurig Coffee Brewing System. That could be a problem since they’re in the food and beverage industry (coffee “brewing” no less) and have deep pockets (think potential legal action). However, We would feel comfortable presenting “250 Club” as an option. Low Rocker only brings up one similar brewery name. This one may be worth exploring, assuming your team likes it.

And finally, the most compelling concept surrounds the 1% monitor (biker slang for gang members). We could spin this into ‘Low Percenter’ or ‘4-Percenter’ Brewing Co., a nod to your focus on session beer.

And that’s why this process can be so frustrating. Granted, we tooled through these ideas quickly, but we only generated three or four possible options. Every time we’ve helped a client name a brewery, we’ve found several options that are absolutely perfect. Except they’re already taken. But that’s okay. Go back to your concept and don’t be afraid to scrap what you’ve developed and start over. Maybe even give it a few days and come back to it fresh.

After all that, let’s say “Low Rock Brewing Co.” is the winner (with a seasonal beer program called the “cHOP Shop Series”). Everyone on your team loves it and it appears to be available. After your lawyer gives us the official go-ahead, the next step is to immediately buy the domain name and claim any social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Untappd, Instagram, Christian Mingle, etc.) before heading into the identity design process.

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