Naming our Angry Bean Vanilla Espresso Porter Beer Candle

How do you get the names for your beer candles?

This is a question we get hit up with ALL THE TIME! It’s either, “What does this crazy beer label mean?” or “How do you name your candles?”.

Today, I will be telling you the story of how we came up with the name “Angry Bean” for our amazing Vanilla Espresso Porter beer candle.

What’s in a (Beer Candle) Name

The Scent Test

The first craft beer we “scent-matched” was our Vanilla Espresso Porter. For us, starting with a porter or a stout was going to be the easiest and the best received for general consumption. Stouts and Porters tend to have a more coffee or espresso based scent. For the Angry Bean, we used Brekenridge Brewery’s Vanilla Porter as the inspiration. We didn’t try to mimic it’s amazing aroma exactly, simply to get a good feel for this type of brews scent and taste. It is also one of our official brew testers favorites!

For the name, all four of us sit down and do an official sniff and taste test. Just like candles, a craft beer can smell entirely different than how it tastes. If you check out “UnTapped” or “BeerAdvocate” you can read a few of the reviews and see exactly what I mean.

This is how Brekenridge Brewery describes their Vanilla Porter.

“Deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea and Madagascar grows the perfect ingredient for an extraordinary Porter brewed in Colorado. Breckenridge Brewery’s Vanilla Porter. An ale that has all the chocolate and roasted nut flavor of a classic Porter, with an enigmatic surprise thrown in for good measure.”

For us, obviously, the aroma is paramount in the selection process. If you took the time to read the above description, I am quite certain you can see why we choose the Vanilla Porter for our Angry Bean.

Hi. My Name is Angry Bean.

Next, we had to come up with our own unique beer candle name and label. With this beer candle, Marsha nailed it almost immediately.

“It has to be an angry espresso bean…we all know how people get if they haven’t had their coffee or espresso! Worse even, have you seen those people in the coffee shops that have had TOO much coffee espresso???”

Brilliant! As soon as she shared her vision, I had mine! It HAD to be an angry espresso bean stick figure. Super simple but expressive. To make it even better, I added the red necktie. It is always a good idea when the inspiration comes from “Office Space.”

“Hello Peter, whats happening? Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk… oh oh! I will need you to go ahead and design me a label for that new AWESOME Angry Bean Vanilla Espresso Porter beer candle!”

OK, so I made the last part of that quote up. AND I made the tie red instead of yellow.