GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Local brewery owner Tyler Gibbons confirmed Tuesday that he liquidated his retirement savings and opened a full-scale craft brewery despite having absolutely no prior brewing experience after spontaneously thinking of the pun-based beer name “Let’s Circle Bock,” last week, confused workers report.
“The second I came up with it, I knew I had no choice. I was sitting in a Zoom meeting for my logistics job and someone said ‘Let’s circle back on that,’ and BOOM, it’s like I was hit by a bolt of lightning. I laughed so hard I had to mute myself,” said Gibbons to his banker while cashing out his 401k. “What am I supposed to do? Not open an entire brewery? Sure, I’d never homebrewed before and I don’t know a hop from a barley, but honestly, how hard can beer be? Cavemen figured it out, I think. Sure, I don’t even have a name for the brewery yet, or for any of the other beers but I am sure inspiration will strike soon enough.”
Friends say the entire business appears to have been reverse-engineered from the original pun.
“I’m just saying it seems like he put the cart before the horse. I think he is going for a whole office worker theme, but all he has is that one beer name,” said neighbor Ryan Mercer, cautiously pushing aside Gibbon’s first attempt at beer. “It tastes like smelted pennies and moldy bread. But he’s already put a down payment on the dilapidated Pizza Hut that hasn’t had a tenant since the ‘90s. So far all he put up is an AI image of a hop cone wearing sunglasses and a tie. He’s already selling merch and he doesn’t even know what yeast does.”
Industry experts warn that the craft beer market may be approaching a dangerous tipping point.
“The entire microbrew economy is currently inflated by pun speculation,” explained Dr. Naomi Stevens, Professor of Beverage Economics at Michigan State. “For years, investors ignored fundamentals like growing, flavor or brewing competency as long as a brewery could produce names like ‘Harvester of Sours’ or ‘Obi-Wan Kölschnobi.’ But eventually the bubble bursts. At some point, consumers realize they’re paying nine dollars for a drink that tastes like carbonated lawn clippings simply because the menu says ‘K-Hop Demon Hunter.’”
At press time, Gibbons announced plans to expand his empire into wine making after coming up with the much less impressive “Let’s Put a Pinot in It.”
