This AI Program Was Designed to Pick Names for Craft Beers

Microbreweries no longer serve a niche market. Thanks to high demand for craft beer, bottles with quirky labels and names like Backwoods Bastard and Gose Gone Wild are easy to find wherever booze is sold. This also means that coming up with original names for new products is harder than ever. In the not too distant future, beer companies may depend on AI algorithms to do the creative work for them.

As Gizmodo reports, scientist Janelle Shane has developed a neural network whose sole purpose is naming craft beers. A neural network is an artificially intelligent computer algorithm that, after being given a list of data points, can come up with new data that fits the given theme. She’s used this method to generate Star Wars character names (like Rantar Tanter and Captain Kreet), Broadway musical titles (Hot Stans and The Wither Bean are sure to be hits), and "ancient" proverbs (including, "A good anvil does not make the most noise").

Shane fed her beer-naming neural network a dataset of hundreds of thousands of beer names pulled from BeerAdvocate.com. For the IPA category it came up with such colorful names as Dang River, Heaven Cat, and Bigly Bomb Session IPA. The strong pale ale section includes winners like The Vunker The Finger and Brother Panty Tripel.

While many entries are bizarre, there are also plenty that would fit in at the craft section of any beer seller. Names like Cherry Trout Stout and Frog Trail Ale are marketable enough. Selling a beer with the name Oarahe Momnila Day Revenge Bass Cornationn Yerve Of Aterid Ale, on the other hand, might be a tough sell. You can view Shane’s full list of names on her blog.