The siren call of microbrewed grains knows no bounds. Thank you for your service little yeast creatures.

We, the privileged gentry, have become a sophisticated lot. We no longer drink a cup of Joe. We imbibe a half-caff soy latte purchased with Apple Pay at a drive-thru window while listening to Enya in our self-driving Teslas. We don’t smoke anymore. We vape or grow hipper still in hookah lounges. And we certainly don’t swill beer from inelegant pop top cans. Instead we quaff artisanal craft beers in boutique microbreweries while pretending to enjoy Manchester United’s 1 – nil football match played on the pitch at Portsmouth.

And that’s our jumping off point. No, not English soccer, but the American craft beer craze. Amidst a flood of competing suds, many are good, some are great and a few are outstanding – not for their herbaceous bouquets or notes of barley malt, but for the eccentric names they’ve appended to their particular brew. Bursting with foamy delight, these quirky and sometimes pretentious names enhance the ordinary experience of drinking fermented cereal grains from an outsized tankard. In a charmingly retro way we’re captivated by these arresting monikers. A kind of appellation chic has taken hold (this is not to be confused with the grunge clothing fad of the 90’s known as Appalachian Chic). It seems we’re intoxicated by both our foamy beers and their frothy names.

So between reading Cigar Aficionado Magazine and visiting my esophageal oncologist, I’ve compiled a list of these jaunty and kitschy names and present them below:

1. Sierra Fail Ale
2. Downward God: Dyslexics Delight
3. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Urine
4. Twist and Stout
5. A Larger Lager
6. McConaughey’s Alright, Alright, Alright
7. Finally Got My GED
8. Not Quite Blotto
9. Olde English Cockblocker
10. Yeast of All Evils
11. And I’m Drinking This Warm Yellow Fluid Because…?
12. McBeer
13. Yup, Passed My High School Equivalency Exam (a sister brew to Finally Got My GED)
14. Wasted Away Again in My Mother’s Basement

It has been said by critics more attuned to the zeitgeist than I, that you can never be too thin, too rich or too hip. They’re wrong of course, but that’s what they say.

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