When I first heard of Blind Pig Brewing, I was a little bent out of shape because I dislike breweries that give negative-sounding names to their beers, such as blind pig, duck’s breath, or hog swill.

I mean, why give a deprecating name to a product you are proud of? Then I received a bottle of Blind Pig India pale ale through the mail. “It couldn’t be very good with a name like that,” I thought. My first swallow proved how wrong I was.

“Wow! This is a wonderfully fresh, hoppy IPA. I can’t wait to get my hands on some more of this stuff,” I said. My wife claims I even began to contentedly grunt, oink, and wiggle my nose a little. Despite any reservations about the name, I was in hog heaven.

When I called the folks at the brewery to tell them what great beer they made, co-owner Vinnie Cilurzo set me straight on the name. The phrase goes back to Prohibition, when “pig” was the slang term for a mason jar and “blind pig” was an unmarked mason jar. Many legal saloons served bootlegged booze, which was always served in blind pigs. So if you wanted the good stuff, you asked the bartender for a blind pig. Eventually the code name for the saloons themselves became blind pig.

In Temecula, Calif., Joe Winkels ran the local blind pig. Fronted by the Ramona Inn, the tavern housed a motel, boxing ring, and a brothel. Winkels’ blind pig was so successful, even some Hollywood celebrities ventured out to Temecula to partake in its many pleasures. By the ’50s the Blind Pig Saloon faded away and became part of Temecula’s history.

Cilurzo and his partner, Dave Stovall, decided to name their brewery after the infamous blind pig to make the connection with Temecula’s colorful past. After all, their beers were to be made locally, by locals, and sold to the locals. Identifying microbreweries with local heritage is an important element in the American beer renaissance.

Cilurzo and Stovall have continued the historical connection with their other brands. They include Winkels Winter Warmer (their Christmas beer), McNeill’s Last Stout, Santa Rosa Plateau Porter, and Old Blue Granite, a barleywine. All the names come from stories Cilurzo heard while growing up in Temecula. A good friend who is also a local historian has helped him with some of the details. McNeill was a local blacksmith who committed a crime and was hanged — the last official hanging in the state of California.

The Santa Rosa Plateau is a nearby ecological preserve. Old Blue Granite is named for the blue granite for which the valley became famous during the early 1900s. Many of Temecula’s old buildings were constructed of the local blue granite. And Blind Pig India Pale Ale is soon to be renamed: They Passed This Way IPA, after a local monument to celebrities such as Kit Carson who have a connection to this small town.

Cilurzo says the colorful names and logos get potential customers to try the beers for the first time, but what is satisfying is that so many of those customers come back for more. He says this is due to the handcrafted nature of his beers, which were formulated from his award-winning homebrew recipes.

Cilurzo started out in the winemaking business at the tender age of 8, working in his parents’ business, the Cilurzo Vineyard and Winery. Founded in 1968, it was the first winery in the valley. From there he got into beer making and when he was only 19 years old began thinking about opening his own brewery. Three years later he began working on the brewery in earnest after returning from a 10-week tour of Europe. On the trip he tried beers in many different countries but related best to the ales made in England.

To bolster his extensive homebrewing background, Cilurzo attended three short courses on the beer business offered by the University of California, Davis. In the process he met Stovall, who was interested in opening a microbrewery. Stovall had a background in international resort management and had good marketing and sales skills. The two became partners and then found a local investor who was willing to put up most of the finances for the little brewery. They also obtained two loans, including a local redevelopment loan.

The pair started on a very small scale. With an initial investment of only $160,000, they were able to install a seven-barrel brewing and kegging system. Cilurzo says it bothers him sometimes when other microbrewers laugh at how small his system is. But he keeps reminding himself that other successful breweries started just as small as his did — Sierra Nevada, for example - and he remembers it took his father 10 to 15 years to get his winery rolling. Starting small can also be an advantage - the consequences of your mistakes are small as well; whereas the bigger you start, the bigger your mistakes are.

Cilurzo and Stovall had to cut many corners with the equipment, purchasing some from Electric Dave Brewing, which had just closed in South Bisbee, Ariz., and the rest from local wineries and dairies. The fermenters come in every shape and size but add up to an impressive 140 barrels in tankage. And there are 120 more barrels in bright beer tanks, which are all second-hand Grundies from England. Once Blind Pig went into production and began to generate income, the team started trading for better equipment. One area where they didn’t economize was kegs. They went with sanke kegs because they were easier to work with than other types. Cilurzo says a used sanke keg goes for about $80. When the brewery opened, they had actually invested more money in kegs than anything else. In the long run, he says, it was a wise decision.

The brewery is located in an industrial park and offers 2,000 square feet of working space. Very little retrofitting was needed, the biggest tasks being the installation of floor drains and the construction of a cold box.

Their original plan called for adding a bottling line after two years. However, two things happened soon after opening. First, there was a great influx of microbrewed beers in Southern California, saturating the tap market. Second, customers were clamoring for Blind Pig beers in bottles so they could have them at home. The partners decided to jump into the bottle market ahead of schedule. They purchased a second-hand Meheen bottler from Whistler Brewing in British Columbia.

They spent $120,000 to bottle, though a new Meheen costs under $30,000. Cilurzo explains that because they couldn’t keep up with the demand for their draft beers, to bottle they would have to continue to increase production for draft beer and add more production for bottled beers. This required more fermenters and bright beer tanks, not to mention more hours brewing, bottling, and labelling the beer bottles. The additional investment proved to be a smart move because the bottled beers took off in popularity and now account for 70 percent of their production.

Cilurzo brews a fuller-bodied ale, with the original gravity ranging from 13° to 15° Plato (1.052 to 1.060) and uses hops liberally. He uses two-row pale malt, mostly from Great Western in Washington, with some six-row pale-ale malt and specialty grains and malts from Hugh Baird from Scotland and Briess from Wisconsin. Cilurzo dry hops quite a bit, putting whole hops in the ESB, IPA, and Old Blue Granite. The water in Temecula is very hard and alkaline, so hard that in addition to gypsum, they have to use phosphoric acid to lower the mash to the proper pH.

In just two years Blind Pig has reached the 2,000-barrel-a-year mark and is distributed throughout the Los Angeles-San Diego area. The Blind Pig tasting room has been extremely popular, with more than 200 visitors weekly. They have a full-time employee to operate the tasting room and offer tours. Cilurzo says most visitors are tourists who are interested in wine and learn about Blind Pig through brochures from local wineries.

By the end of the year, Cilurzo and Stovall hope to bring in more investors to expand the brewhouse to the 25-to-50-barrel size and make brewing less labor intensive. For the more distant future Cilurzo says he would like to start making some Belgian ales, which he fell in love with on his trip to Europe. He was especially fond of the abbey ales, something that both beer and wine lovers can relate to.

The next time you are in Southern California, stop by the brewery and tap room. Located at 42387 Avenida Alvarado #108, Temecula, CA, it is open to visitors daily from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information call (909) 695-4646.

Steve Johnson is the author of three brewery guidebooks: On Tap: a Field Guide to North American Brewpubs and Craft Breweries, On Tap New England, and On Tap Northern California.