The name of our brewery came about through strange circumstances, probably not unlike others in the brewing business. It was not easy.

 

To get it right, there had to be a good reason for the name we chose; after all, we were going to be stuck with it. When we set out to find a name, we knew that we had to do well in our home market if we are to expand beyond it, so it was important that our name and backstory pay tribute to our roots while not alienating any other places. 

 

When we set to name our brewery, there were nearly 4,000 breweries already in the United States. If each of those breweries had six beers, that meant there were already 30,000 names off the table. Plus, if you add wineries, distilleries, distributors to the list… you see why selecting a unique name for our brewery was not a simple task.

 

The search went on for six months and became fairly scientific after we realized that everything we liked was already spoken for. We would sit around in the office with a browser open doing our own informal version of a trademark knock-out. It was unbelievably frustrating because every time we came up with something profound and unique (to us) that covered all of our bases, it was already in use.

 

Single word brewery names that fit our needs were almost certainly gone, so then we started looking at compound words and short phrases, and eventually made up words. Our owner still has a spreadsheet we assembled that collated 32,000 compound words that we combed through for weeks looking for naming “gold” … finding nothing. People ask him occasionally what the most challenging or stressful part of starting up was, and he will say for certain getting to a name.

 

Well before we embarked on the name search we needed to fill out the state business registration paperwork. Prompted to fill in “Company Name” field, our owner looked up at the calendar wondering what he was going to write down. It was March 1st, so as a placeholder, “March First Brewing” went on the application. 

 

We searched for that clever name for months and months, put all that thought into it, and in the end, came back to “March First Brewing.” It is a name that fit all of our needs and just took time to grow on us. It was under our noses the whole time. Like we said, strange circumstances. 

 

So what happened on March First? A few very important things, but the two most important to us were the founding of the State of Ohio and the founding of our brewery.