Golden Cock Brewery: What's In A Name?

What’s in a name?

Yeah, we’ve heard it before either through our personal life or business career. Perhaps your fifth grade teacher used the phrase in order to provide a meaningful example for sharpening impressionable minds. Even a major shipping conglomerate used, “What’s in a name,” as a basis for a recent Super Bowl Ad. Think about the agonizing days, weeks or months that soon-to-be parents spend debating and arguing over what to eventually call their unborn child.

A name defines us. It provides information, right or wrong, to others with whom we have had no previous interaction – verbally or physically. What’s the major difference between Bob, Bobby or Robert? The difference is the personal analysis that we place on that person. Bob is the nuclear-family father who lives two houses down from you and drives a Volvo. Robert is his father. Bobby is the son/grandson. Formulation of opinions and pre-conceived views, without evidence, is dangerous at the best of times. I have never met you and yet I know your name and I already have an impression of who you are. Is it any wonder considering the innumerable influences of culture on personal identification - real names, proper names, birth names, first names, middle names, last names, given names, full names, forenames, married names, maiden names, surnames, nicknames, etc.

Muddying the proverbial naming pool further, we humbly submit the influence of a business’s name on the business, itself. If a personal name is a representation of who and what you are, then a company’s title is paramount as it provides vital information to their respective demographic.

Think Staples.

Wonder what they sell?

Granted, other corporate names are rather amorphous. Contemplate for a moment the restaurant, Applebee’s. To my knowledge, they do not sell either apples or bees outright. They are not a roadside, organic fruit stand in the mountains of North Carolina selling recently harvested orchard apples and cold-spun bee labor. Yet, they are a multi-million dollar business which capitalizes on an aggressive ad campaign of fun, family, value and locale.

Good for them! Have at it!

So, finally, we get to who and what we are.

We are Golden Cock Brewery!

Yeah, go ahead, laugh it up. What a joke. Let indignation reign. Be offended. Outrage leads the masses. Think that a bunch of immature, post frat boys decided to attempt an ill-conceived foray into the burgeoning world of microbrews.

And yet, you would be both right and wrong. Golden Cock Brewery started as two people sitting in a garage over a batch of homebrew debating what to call their mutual endeavor. One looked up and saw a family heirloom passed between generations – an actual golden rooster weather vane. The Golden Cock concept was born. We witnessed and experienced growing pains as we slowly moved from beginner and novice partial mash brewers into the potentially scary world of all-grain brewing. We rapidly moved from infancy directly into our brewing adolescence and we struggled with eventual conclusions to our labor of love like any other teenager whose body coursed with a volatile cocktail of hormones. Many a colorful and off-color attempts at humor were uttered by us in regards to our identification as the loved ones in our lives shook their heads at our perceived immaturity. A multitude of successes and outright failures were apparent to those we asked to taste our experiments in brewing. We floundered in our direction.

And yet, we never stopped brewing. We never stopped learning. We never stopped communicating. We never stopped enjoying the actual brewing process and the camaraderie of “we happy few” who were lucky enough to form the bonds of friendship over something so trivial to others who had not experienced our pursuit of excellence. Others heard, “Golden Cock Brewery” and assumed an “Americanized” opinion. And honestly, we joked and created names for our beers much like frat boys after several trips to the proverbial keg. We made t-shirts which read, “Golden Cock Brewery. Nothing Goes Down Smoother than a Golden Cock.”

As the months and years of brewing passed quickly, an underlying notion acquired shape. We had a tendency to want to brew traditional style ales from Britain, Scotland and Ireland but we wanted to add our own unique twist to the combination of water, grains, yeast and hops. Our heritage, history and family pastimes are heavily influenced by islands of Britannia and Ireland. The business venture sprung forth with a healthy dose of maturity as our conception took shape. Don’t believe me? Simply perform an internet search for “Golden Cock, England” and you will see a major difference of attitude toward the potentially humorous, immature, or offensive word, Cock. The cock is a rooster. It is a majestic bird which is emblazoned on many a family, business, or sporting teams crest or emblem in England, Scotland and Ireland. We opted to not change our name, even under pressure from others we hold dear, but decided to emphasize the societal and cultural aspect of the British Isles and Ireland. Hence over a couple of pints one evening, the tag line for our business was born

Golden Cock Brewery

Traditionally Non-Traditional

With a nod to our heritage and history, we brew traditional style ales of England, Scotland and Ireland with an intensification born of creativity and inventiveness.

So, what’s in a name? What alters and influences our societal and cultural perception of a proper name? Opinions without observations keep us from experiencing a truly wonderful world of adventure and exploration.

We humbly invite you to that you take a magnificent journey of both convention and innovation with us.