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So, what's with the two names?

Club members variously refer to the club, and themselves, as the Underground Brewers or the YAHOOS. The names are used interchangeably. Why two names?

Back in the dawn of history, when homebrewing was still technically illegal, the group adopted the name "Underground Brewers of Connecticut" to acknowledge its illicit nature. That was fine for a while.

After the American Homebrewers' Association (AHA) was formed, they asked local clubs to register, so that brewers could find them. The registration forms sent to us each year wanted to know the names of the club officers, official contact numbers, information on membership rules, and all of the other administrative overhead that we've never been interested in. So most of the form went back blank or, if the responder was feeling generous that day, with "the lads don't go in for that kind of stuff" written in the blanks.

As homebrewing became more popular, other groups wanted to know the same sorts of things. Where could they find our by-laws? When were elections held? How many members did we have? What were the yearly dues? Did we have a tax ID number? It was obvious that we were surrounded by tight-sphinctered types who wanted a locked-down world. There seemed to be no place for a group of people who would rather brew beer than memorize Robert's Rules of Order.

And so, the club's second name was born: Yankee Association Of Homebrewers Objecting to Organized Societies, or YAHOOS.

(This was all decades before Yahoo! existed -- they plagiarized from us, not the other way around.)