Beer is popular throughout the world, and unlike many other popular alcoholic drinks, it’s fairly easy to make. While homemade distilleries tend toward creation of extremely potent spirits deemed inappropriate for casual use, home brews are often used to create a variety of flavors with a far lower alcohol content. This fact, and the ready availability of equipment through e-commerce, sparked a surge in home brewing which in turn encouraged the growth of microbreweries.
It this environment, it was inevitable that beer manufacturers would use labels and names to distinguish their product. While many have resorted to naming beer after local places and others have attempted to make the names outlandish, offensive and even dangerous-sounding, some others have attempted to lure consumers by association with the famous.
Here are three of them.
Larry Bird Haircut beer is produced by the Cambridge Brewing Company. It is described on the label as “Tall, blonde and kinda goofy strong ale”. Larry Bird, for those unfamiliar with sports, is a legendary basketball player and coach and was the white guy in the shot-challenge commercial with Michael Jordan.
Rogue makes Iron Chef Morimoto beer. It’s available at his restaurants. I have yet to find it in even well-stocked liquor stores, which irks me because… it’s Morimoto beer. The only thing I fear is that after quaffing one or two I’d start trying to make a mock-hamburger out of sushi rice buns and high grade yellowtail.
Those are kind of strange, but they’re obviously respectful. Not all beer namings are. In 2015, a New Jersey beer maker, Cape May Brewery, apparently decided to see just how tacky it could possibly be. The answer was received with 500 gallons of their special #YOPO beer… “You Only Pope Once”. It had an image of Pope Francis, who was visiting Philadelphia at the time.
A quote featured on their website said ““If you can’t get to Philly to actually see the Pope, having #YOPO is the next best thing.” It really wasn’t.
Question of the night: what’s your favorite beer?
