How do you come up with beers?
It’s a question a lot of people ask.
I wish there was a magic beer recipe and viola! magic beer name machine. Stick a quarter or two in…great ideas pop out.
No such luck.
Put here’s what happened when Brian and I were drinking and listening to music on our back patio last summer….As the marketing person in this operation, I was thinking ahead to 2025 and the marketing materials–names, labels, sell sheets, etc.–that I would have to create within the next couple of months. Not to mention that I wasn’t even sure what beers Brian would agree to create and brew on a large scale.
The mood was right, and the conversation started flowing about beers to brew for our 2025 release schedule. We were deep in a lager love stage at that point. Makin’ Hay, our summer pilsner for 2024 had just come out. It was so good, and we were proud of the product. We know that summer beers need to be easy to drink, thirst quenching, great on a hot summer day, perfect for a float trip (if you’re not drinking float trip).
“I just want to brew a lager,” Brian said. “You know, just a pretty good lager.”
“Okay, I’m fine with that,” I said.
The music played.
“Let’s call it that. Pretty Good.” I like to keep it simple when we can.
A beer name was born. And shortly thereafter Brian determined that Pretty Good would be a helles lager.
This was John Prine and his band opening for The Avett Brothers at Red Rocks (Scott Avett on banjo here). What a memory!
However, it’s important to know that we did not come up with the idea of something being pretty good. John Prine, the great American songwriter and Midwestern boy, has had all of us thinking about “Pretty Good” and how things will all shake out in the end since he wrote the song “Pretty Good” in the early 70’s.
We sneaked away early from Fall on the Farm in October 2019 to see this show with John Prine in Springfield. It was the last time we would see him live; covid took his life the next April. Thanks to his songs, we know John Prine’s in heaven, smoking a cigarette that’s nine miles long.
“Pretty good. Not bad. I can’t complain.” is the song’s refrain.
How many times in life are we lucky enough to feel that way?
Because we consider John Prine to be an American treasure in our family, we put the words from his tune on the label.
Thank you John for inspiring us to this day. We miss your wisdom and songs. We are still hanging on to the musical treasures you left behind.
Pretty Good Lager is a German-style helles lager. “Helles” means pale, and this beer is pale yellow in color. It’s very lightly hopped with a full mouth feel and a clean and crisp finish.
Crank up the John Prine. Have a pretty good time on the back patio with a Pretty Good Piney River beer.
