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What’s
in a name?
 For many geologists, an ice-cold
Rolling Rock beer at the end of a long day in the field is a fine tradition.
What better way to wind down than to drink a beer that honors a geologic
setting? First made in 1939 and named in honor of the smooth-pebbled streams
that flow off the Alleghany Mountains, Rolling Rock stood out for many
years as one of the only brews with a geologically themed name.
Deschutes Brewery’s
Obsidian Stout takes its name from the Big Obsidian Flow at the Newbury
Volcano, 30 miles from where it is brewed in Bend, Ore. Image courtesy
of Deschutes Brewery.
That designation, however, has begun to change in recent years with the
advent of microbreweries and a new breed of beers that seem designed especially
for geologists. Referencing features and rocks from the pre-Cambrian to
the Holocene, these beers give geologists one more reason to get out and
do field work.
Consider Lake Superior Brewing Com-pany’s Agate Amber or Hematite
Stout. Made in the town of Grand Marais, Mich., they reflect the petrologic
passions of the brewery’s co-founder, Karen Brzys. “I am a rockhound
and decided to name the beers as well as the menu items after local rocks.
I also decorated with the same theme,” Brzys says. She also coined
Granite Brown, Jasper Cherry, Pudding-stone Light and Sandstone Pale Ale.
Many beer names take another tactic in honoring the interfingering of
geology and people. Another Lake Superior Brewing Company, in Duluth,
Minn., produces Mesabi Red, a reference to the region’s vast iron-ore
deposits known as the Mesabi Iron Range. “We made a red beer that
needed a name,” says head brewer Dale W. Kleinschmidt. “We generally
use something locally recognizable in our brand names and this moniker
fits well, since the mine dust (before taconite) usually stained everything
around a very rusty red.”
Brewers also honor the tools of trade. Pick Axe Pale Ale and Pick Axe
Porter come from areas famed for their mineral riches, Tommyknocker Brewery
in Idaho Springs, Colo., and Fox, Alaska, respectively. Unfortunately,
no brewer has created a Brunton Bitter, Estwing Export or Hastings Triplet
Hefeweizen.
Most lithic quaffs, however, simply reflect the landscape where they originate.
Obsidian Stout, from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Ore., refers to the 1,300-year-old
Big Obsidian Flow at the Newberry Volcano, 30 miles south of Bend. And
Balcones Fault Red Granite and Balcones Fault Pale Malt come from a Miocene-age
normal fault that cuts across the Austin-San Antonio region.
Other petrobrews simply derive their name from qualities that any geologist
can appreciate. “We are right on the beach, so a little dark humor
plays in to the name as well. Dark humor, dark beer,” says Darron
Welch, head brewer at Pelican Pub & Brewery in Pacific City, Ore.
He claims that the taste of his Tsunami Stout “will bowl you over.”
Bill Millar also embraces this concept at the San Andreas Brewing Company,
in Hollister, Calif., the convergence zone of the San Andreas, Hayward
and Calaveras faults. “We attract a few geologists with the names,
but I mostly do it because it’s fun,” he says. His brewery produces
Aftershock Wheat, Seismic Ale, Earthquake Pale Ale and Earthquake Porter.
Perhaps most fitting is the Oktoberquake brew, which came in handy for
the Oct. 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake, when the San Andreas made its
biggest move since 1906. “We stayed open and everyone was drinking
Oktoberquake,” Millar says. The beer is still available, and, of
course, the faults are still moving.
David B. Williams
Geotimes contributing writer
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“The most
direct influence of geology is with beer — which one rarely hears about,”
says Alex Maltman, a geologist at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. “The
link comes about because beer is mostly water, and for most brewers this is
obtained from a local aquifer.”
Geologist John Hickenlooper,
now mayor of Denver, and his partner, a geophysicist, founded the Wynkoop Brewing
Company in Denver in 1988. Geology and beer share a long history, rich in scientific
discoveries and cultural connections. Image courtesy Wynkoop Brewing Company.
