Hi there (and happy new year!). 

Your brewery’s name is one of the most important things you own. 

Ideally, it should hint at what you offer, what you stand for, why you’re different and why someone should care enough to buy your beer over someone else’s. 

Most importantly, your name should help you tell your story and grow your business. 

But what if it doesn’t?

We’ve heard this pain point several times over the years: Our name is tied to a hyper-local thing — a town or state, a landmark, a river, a building or interesting historic story or figure. This plays well locally, but means nothing to anyone outside of our town. 

And while wanton expansion isn’t the clear path to growth that it once was, there’s still some merit for targeted expansion to a few additional markets if you see an opportunity.

So let’s explore a few ways you can make your name more compelling, and graspable, to people further afield in case you’re dealing with this issue. 

(Above): Read more about what goes into a great brewery name in our Birdsmouth Beer Co. branding case study.


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1

Can you just change the name?

Yes, you can always change your name. But this is a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency move. 

To wit, we’ve only made this recommendation 2 or 3 times out of the ~50 brewery rebrands we’ve handled. (That is actual brewery brand names. We’re less precious when it comes to swapping out beer names.)

Whenever we’re working with an established brewery, whether we’re helping to launch an extension, or working on a rebrand, we have to be mindful of Brand Equity. So, what are the key messaging and visual signifiers that, if lost, would confuse your existing fans and actually hurt your business?

Your name is a critical piece of this puzzle. 

And unless your name is posing an immediate and existential threat to your business, and/or, there is no clear path towards overcoming its shortcomings, then it’s almost always better to build around it (via a Sub Brand or some other strategy) than to jettison it entirely.

A quick caveat here is if you’re purchasing a brewery and don’t care about the IP or equity. In that case, break out the white board and change that name.

Read more about how to handle a brewery’s brand post-acquisition here: 

> So you bought a brewery… To rebrand or not to rebrand?

(Above): Dixie Brewing changed its corporate name to the much less problematic (though still esoteric?) Faubourg Brewing Co. back in 2020. Read more about this rebrand here.

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2

Your brand identity itself can do a lot of heavy lifting 

An esoteric name can be challenging, but you can mitigate this through your identity design.

Whether through your core logo, or a series of cool supporting marks, your brand identity system can bridge this gap and tell your story much more compellingly than a name alone.

Your logo isn’t everything, but don’t underestimate the power of a killer mark. 

(Above): Learn more about how we build Modular Brand Identity Systems here.

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3

Your beer names can be an opportunity to speak more broadly than your parent brand

If you’re dealing with a localized, esoteric name, you can, with a simple packaging hierarchy shift, retool your storytelling and marketing to focus more on a particular beer’s name than on your brewery’s parent brand. 

And you don’t have to build formal Sub Brands to achieve this either. 

Great fanciful names can give you a great starting point to connect with people, provided your brewery’s name is downplayed. 

Read more about how fanciful names work under a Branded House architecture model here.

(Above): Fernson Brewing's recent package refresh is a good example of a brewery leaning into its beer names for more individualized storytelling beyond the parent brand.

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4

You could create a Sub / Endorsed Brand as an envoy into other markets 

This is a more costly path, but if you’re dealing with a name that can’t travel, and you want to expand into other markets, you can create a Sub / Endorsed Brand (or a new standalone brand) expressly for this purpose. This is an interesting Sub Brand use case we’ve seen sever times over the last few years. 

This can be a great strategy for breweries that are named after a specific town, state or landmark. (e.g. Maine Beer Co, Tampa Bay Brewing)

This was a key part of our brief when helping Virginia Beer Company launch the Cold Drinking Beer brand. 

Virginia Beer Co wanted to expand into a few neighboring states with a light beer brand, but worried that their name wouldn’t travel well. And we agree, why would someone in South Carolina (home to one of the best brewery scenes in the US) care about Virginia Beer Co.?

This opened up a fun opportunity to create an entirely new brand from the ground up. 

See how we built the Cold Drinking Beer brand here.

Wrapping up 

You can’t have it both ways 

The reality is that this is a tough spot to be in. 

If you have an esoteric, hyper-local name, you’re not really going to be able to have that resonate further away the same way a more intuitive, broader-appeal name would. The ideas we’ve discussed here can help you work around this, but the issue will still be there. 

In addition to these suggestions, I’d like you to consider whether you’ve actually hit the ceiling in your local market? Have you captured every single account you can? Are you in every person’s fridge? And in every venue? 

If you see an opportunity for growth, you should expand to new markets. But it might be worth another look to ensure that you’ve truly owned your backyard before doing so.