The Blessed Town of Dildo Is Opening a Brewery

No one is entirely sure how the town of Dildo, Newfoundland ended up with its name, but some historians have blamed British explorer Captain Cook and his surveyor, Michael Lane, who were more or less the Beavis and Butthead of cartography. According to CN Traveler, when the two of them mapped the Newfoundland coast in the late 18th century, they handed out names like Tickle Bay, Cuckolds Cove, Blow Me Down, and—possibly—Dildo.

Some residents believe that Dildo might’ve been the name of a Spanish explorer or his ship, while others just want to make it clear that it has nothing to do with sex toys. "I feel sure that we've been here a lot longer than artificial penises have been around," postal worker Stella Wright told The Independent. “There's a place in the United States called Intercourse and we don't tease them about that.” (OH YES, WE DO.)

Regardless of where the name came from, the name has stuck for more than 300 years—but it can make things complicated for local businesses. This weekend, a new craft brewery will be opening in Dildo, and it has received a lot of suggestions about what to call its brews.

“This community and a lot of the place names and a lot of the quirky things that people say […] we're going to play with that a little bit and we'll have some interesting names on our beers," Dildo Brewing Company and Museum co-owner Angela Reid told CBC News. “But it is kind of top secret right now." (MUNCHIES has reached out to the Dildo Brewing Company to see if they’d give us a hint, but no word back yet.)

Regardless of what they’re eventually called, the beers will be available on tap and in growlers. Brewmaster Lionel Rodrigues said that he has brewed stouts and IPAs, as well as a red beer that got its color from beets, and a blueberry blond beer that includes Dildo’s own blueberries.

The beer’s names will be revealed on July 1, on the same day that Dildo Brewing Company opens its new pub, which shares a space with the Dildo Museum.

In 1990, a Dildo electrician named Robert Elford launched a petition to change the town’s name. “Things always got a bit sticky for my son when people asked him where he lived,” he grumbled to The Independent. Residents dug in, and flat-out refused to budge on their five-letter heritage—so Elford just changed his own address to New Harbour, the name of the next town over.

You do you, Dildo. You do you.