🔒Strange Brews: When it comes to marketing, Connecticut’s creative craft brewers think outside the bock

Behind every Connecticut craft beer, there’s a story on tap.

Thanks to the explosion of craft brewers and breweries popping up across Connecticut, quaff connoisseurs no longer have to settle for a basic Bud Light. Instead they can wet their whistles with a Fuzzy Baby Ducks, a Disco Pig, a Roadsmary’s Baby or some other colorfully named bottle of brew.

Consumers nowadays will be hard-pressed to find a libation on any brewery menu that’s anything but basic. And the inspiration behind many of those catchy monikers can be as wacky as the names themselves.

Just ask Marty Juliano, marketing director at New England Brewing Co. (newenglandbrewing.com) where the Chubby Merman, the Comb-Over and Fudge Nutter are popular picks.

“Comb-Over was inspired by a history teacher that our art [director], Craig Gilbert, had back in middle school who employed a rather impressive comb-over hairstyle,” Juliano explains. “Fudge Nutter — well, it has peanut butter and cacao nibs in it, that’s it. Sometimes you’ve just got to be simple.”

Juliano says his staff often gets together for after-hours brainstorming sessions to get the creative juices flowing, and you never know what their imaginations will brew up.

“A new, all Citra-hopped IPA was brewed and there was a pulse running through everyone that it could be popular,” recounts Juliano. “The decision was made that the name had to be mildly uncomfortable for some people to order at bars in front of others. A few truly awful names were tossed around — that may still end up on labels — and in a few minutes, ‘Fuzzy Baby Ducks’ just fell out. And everyone laughed.”

Juliano is confident the oddball names supercharge sales.

“The name needs to draw the buyer in to purchase your product,” he says. “If you read a catchy/weird/attractive-sounding name in a market of hundreds of other not-as-unique names, you have a slight edge in getting someone to buy and enjoy your beer. And having a few offbeat, memorable names in your roster ties in to brewery recognition.”

I Dream of Igor

Over at Two Roads Brewing Co. (tworoadsbrewing.com) in Stratford, the beer names are pretty “punny,” with many paying homage to historic landmarks, like “Rye 95,” as well as to famous folks who helped shape the course of the town’s history.

Igor’s Dream, a Russian imperial stout beer, honors Stratford’s aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky.

“When our owners opened in late 2012, they knew they wanted to honor Stratford’s legendary hero and aviation pioneer,” explains Two Roads Senior Marketing Manager Collin Kennedy. “At Two Roads we believe in ‘Taking the Road Less Traveled’ — we celebrate making the decision not to follow the same old path. For us, Igor Sikorsky is and was a kindred spirit, sharing in the same ideals to push the boundaries and reach beyond normal conventions.”

Other brews with a nod to Stratford include Honeyspot Road, inspired by Exit 31 off of I-95 which leads directly to the Two Roads headquarters, and of course Rye 95, which Kennedy said was “inspired by the ever changing, ever evolving, love-it-but-sometimes-hate-it highway that is I-95.”

Two Roads’ staffers enjoy a good pun, which is how Roadsmary’s Baby, named (almost) after the infamous 1968 Roman Polanski film Rosemary’s Baby, was born. Other “punny” names on tap: Bog Wild and Route of All Evil.

Two Roads’ “Lil’ Heaven” series got an interesting start, named for a remote, “almost secret” room between the floors of the Two Roads building, which previously housed the U.S. Baird manufacturing facility. Rumor has it, Kennedy explains, that factory workers snuck off to the secret room, called Little Heaven, “for naps, relaxation and perhaps some other unauthorized activity.”

“When our owners heard that, they immediately knew that a beer had to be named in honor of such a place, and Lil’ Heaven Crushable IPA was a perfect fit,” Kennedy says.

Kennedy said naming beers after local landmarks is Two Roads’ tribute to the hometown they love.

“The state of Connecticut and specifically the town of Stratford have been extremely good to us,” Kennedy says. “We are truly thankful and fortunate to be based in a town with such a vibrant community steeped in a wonderful history.”

Next door to Two Roads is its sister brewery, Area 2, “an experimental facility” exuding a funky vibe as mysterious as its alien-harboring near-namesake, Area 51. The Twoquila, an otherworldly marriage of tequila and lime, is a customer favorite among those on planet Earth.

Two Roads and Area 2 work with the Baton Rouge, La. design agency BRZoom in creating the outlandish artwork adorning its bottles, bringing the unique beer monikers to life.

Crystal Bell of Bridgeport, a craft beer aficionado and an avid fan of Two Roads, enjoys sampling all they have to offer with friends and family.

“It’s always a lot more fun to drink a beer when there’s a good story behind it,” says Bell.

Heron Today

At Stony Creek Brewery (stonycreekbeer.com) in Branford, customers have “No Egrets” when throwing back a Big Cranky or a Ruffled Feathers.

The brewery’s mascot, a blue heron, is an avian indigenous to local waters and serves as the company’s logo. A blue heron is also known as a “Big Cranky,” according to Director of Brewing Operations Gordon Whelpley, Stony Creek’s top-selling Double IPA.

Stony Creek also digs puns, with its No Egrets brew and others. The Crankenstein experimental series pays homage to a fledgling heron coming out its shell, according to Whelpley, with artwork by Lisa Sotero.

Stony Creek’s resurrection of its 203 brew brand, with a nod to southern Connecticut’s telephone area code, has met with critical acclaim from quaffers.

“It’s a name and a look that help to distinguish our brand,” Whelpley explains. “The beer inside is paramount. We’re thrilled at the success we continue to enjoy throughout New England with our Cranky series.”

Mike Student, brand commander and co-owner of Bad Sons Brewery (badsons.com) in Derby says creative and memorable names brew up more business.

“Craft brewing is all about being creative and innovative without many boundaries,” Student explains. “Same applies when naming beers — keeping it fun, creative and catchy are what grabs people’s attention and can help pique their interest to want to try a particular beer.”

A new line of sour beers launched at Bad Sons boasts a Willy Wonka theme. Veruca’s Demise is named after the bratty girl in the cranberry-colored dress who turned out to be a bad egg. The cranberry sour beer, with its bold, red color, captures the spirit of Veruca Salt herself, says Student.

The Milkman Cometh

Other names just sort of happen naturally, Student explains, as when employees found an old milk crate in the former factory-turned brewery, and created a milk stout dubbed the Mechanical Milkman.

Student lauds label designer Dan DiSorbo, of Derby-based PB&J Design, for bringing the funky beer names to full living color on Bad Sons’ bottles.

At Connecticut’s only Irish brewery, Shebeen Brewing Co. (shebeenbrewing.com) in Wolcott, the more outlandish the name, the better. Take Baby Seal Dance Party, inspired when brewery employees had a wacky vision to put baby seals in bizarre situations just for the fun of it — at a nightclub, a slumber party, a pool party.

“We don’t take ourselves too seriously, so we decided several years ago to just have fun and make each beer its own identity,” explains Rich Visco, Shebeen’s owner and master brewer. “Most of our beer names are just flat-out attempts at jokes or puns or parodies or homage to something we like. ‘Stuck in a Roundabout’ is a good example. We had this awesome recipe for a London Milk Stout, so we thought [of the 1985 film National Lampoon’s] European Vacation, Chevy Chase, and the scene where the car couldn’t get out of the roundabout. It’s a ton of fun.”

Black Hog Brewing Co. (blackhogbrewing.com) in Oxford prides itself on its love of food, family and craft beer. Brothers Jason and Tom Sobocinski hail from a Polish/Italian family where food and drink have always been the focal point of every family gathering. From weddings to birthdays, the family always celebrates by roasting a pig. When the brothers’ friend, Tyler Jones, a former brewer in New Hampshire, moved back to Connecticut, the trio combined their love of food and family, and thus Black Hog was born.

Paying tribute to the beloved hog mascot is a must, says Taproom Manager Molly Gajdosik. The Disco Pig series brings the “funk” to customers who want to “get down” and boogie with their beer.

A local favorite here is Hog Water, dubbed a “hop lover’s wet dream.” Customer Mike Alterio, an avid Harley Davidson rider from Beacon Falls, enjoys throwing back a Hog Water with friends and his fiancée Jodee D’Agnone.

“Harleys are hogs, and Black Hog is a natural fit for a Harley fan,” Alterio explains.

Another fan favorite here is Ginga Ninja, a red ale brewed with fresh ginger and named for the brew master’s ginger-haired wife, emblazoned on a can to depict her “badass” personality and fiery, flowing locks, according to Gajdosik.

Life’s a Beach

At Milford Point Brewing (milfordpointbrewing.com), honoring historical landmarks is the name of the game — from its flagship IPA, Silver Sands IPA, named for one of the town’s favorite beaches, to the 06460, named simply for Milford’s ZIP code.

So the next time you step into a local bar, go ahead and order a Budweiser — which, by the way, got its iconic name in the 19th century when brewer Adolphus Busch and his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser, had a friend who traveled to Budweis, in what is now the Czech Republic. The rest, as they say, is history.

But why order a Bud when a Baby Seal Dance Party can be so much more fun?