As we've mentioned once or twice, we are changing the name of our brewery for legal reasons. This week we will say goodbye to Bona Fide Brewing Co. and we'll announce the new name. I'm sure you're all anxiously awaiting this news, but we've got to pretty up our website a bit before we make that announcement. In the meantime we're going to share with you some of our runner up candidates for a new brewery name. Our more astute readers may notice a lot of attempts to find a good name using "bone" in the title somewhere, and the reason for that is twofold:

a) our logo is a skeleton, so employing the word "bone" would make some sense
2) it would sound kind of similar to the name we already know and like

Now, without further ado, here is our brainstorm list.

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Avuncular Ales
Justification: Avuncular is the best word in the English language (it means "like an uncle").
Rejection Reason: Awkward to say, nobody knows what it means.

Bone Orchard Brewing
Justification: It's old timey slang for a graveyard.
Rejection Reason: Kind of morbid, possibly already taken.

Forward Upward Brewing
Justification: We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward! And always twirling, twirling toward freedom!
Rejection Reason: Kind of generic sounding, based too strongly on Simpsons quote.

Boneshaker Brewing
Justification: Bones.
Rejection Reason: Taken.

Rumpy Pumpy Dingbangling Todger
Justification: N/A
Rejection Reason: Too British (we're not British).

Legitimate Business, LLC
Justification: We tried finding some synonyms for "bona fide" and this is the best we could come up with.
Rejection Reason: Nobody finds this funny except our head brewer. 

Prefrontal Brewing
Justification: The prefrontal cortex is the first part of your brain to be affected by alcohol (also, our logo is a skull, which is generally near the brain).
Rejection Reason: Too dorky, kind of awkward to say.

Mouth Parts
Rejection Reason: Ew.

Extra Naked Brewing
Justification: It's the name of our flagship beer, so this would kind of be like a band having a self-titled album (except backwards and a brewery).
Rejection Reason: It's a little too juvenile sounding, and we would like people to take us a little seriously. It works for a beer, not for a brewery.

Hey Ladies
Justification: That's... why did we seriously consider this?
Rejection Reason: It should be pretty obvious.

Breen Demon Brewing
Justification: This is a cocktail our head brewer made up. It consists of whiskey and absinthe, which also sort of explains why he thought this would be a good name for a brewery. 
Rejection Reason: While it is fun to say "breen," we didn't want to name our brewery after a throwaway joke from Rocko's Modern Life.

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So there are some of our runners-up. We hope you enjoyed this enlightening and possibly terrifying glimpse into our creative process. Check back next week for a brand new name and a shiny new site!

We signed our lease! All the paperwork for our space is in order, so now we can start making beer, right?

...right?

Don't be ridiculous! This is the alcohol industry, it's still gonna take months before we can even think about brewing. First we need to order our brewing equipment, then (and only then) can we fill out the application for our federal brewer's license. 

Now, I know what you're thinking: "that can't be right. There's no way they'd need to sign a lease and buy equipment before they can even apply for a license." But that's how it works for some reason. And the fun doesn't end there! Once we get our federal permit (which takes an average of about three months), then we're allowed to apply for our state permit. Then once we get that we're allowed to apply for our town permit.

Long story short, we won't be making beer until springtime at the earliest. 

But let's focus on the positive news. We've made some big strides towards getting beer into your hands/mouths, and lots of big things are going to happen soon. Oh, and we'll be located on Tileston Street in scenic Everett, MA. Well, sort of. The entrance to the building is on Norman Street, but the address is technically Tileston Street. 

As part of our exhaustive "efforts" to make this "brewery" something that "exists," we took a trip today. Specifically, we went out to the space that will hopefully house our brewery. We can't tell you where it is yet because we haven't signed the lease, but that should be happening soon (yes, we've been saying that for months, but we really mean it this time). But never fear, we've got something better for you! Assuming, of course, that you like pictures of rough, unfinished industrial real estate (and who doesn't?).

And when I say rough, I do mean rough. As in, when we post before and after pictures of the brewery space, the "before" pictures will be of a space that is considerably more polished than what we looked at today. 

Regardless, we thought it would be cool to show you the space. It may not look like much now, but by the time we swing open our doors we expect to have removed up to 80% of the unused ventilation tubing and huge pointless slabs of beat up plywood! 

Anyway, once we get all that crap out of the way, we're going to build a great lookin' taproom for you to enjoy. We'll have a gorgeous wooden bar with about a dozen seats, some tables, some games for you to play... and beer. Lots and lots of fresh, delicious beer. And you see that bay door in the pictures up there? We'll be popping it open when the weather warms up again to let some light into the place, though we do hope to eventually have our own lights installed for when it's cold or nighttime outside.

Exciting times indeed! 

"Why are you telling me this," you're probably asking out loud to your computer screen "nobody cares about homebrewing except maybe homebrewers." Well I'm glad you asked, fictional strawman. First and foremost, we at Bona Fide Brewing* plan on making bespoke beers for events and people and things. Admittedly, it's mostly bars that would be interested in this on a commercial scale, but we enjoy the experience of working with people to custom-tailor a beer to meet their needs. So even if you're not a bar, give us a ring if you want a beer made extra special just for you.

Incidentally, we're in the process of making another pair o' wedding beers (on our "pilot system" of course, since we can't use our big boy brewing equipment yet). In this case, the happy couple are friends of our brewer Jimbo, so she whipped up some beers based on their wedding theme. The theme was "coffee and tea" for some reason, so Jimbo made a big batch of golden strong ale and infused half with tea from the groom's Irish homeland, and the other half with Honduran coffee beans to represent the bride's heritage. So now here's some pictures of that thing we did! You know, some pictures of homebrewing for you to ignore.