The West Michigan Whitecaps will change their team name to the Beer City Bung Hammers for one game in August. What's a bung hammer? I'm glad you asked!

To honor Grand Rapids nickname as 'The Beer City', the West Michigan Whitecaps will become the 'Beer City Bung Hammers' for one night. On August 4th the team will don new colors and new uniforms as part of "Salute to Beer City" night in honor of the beer tradition here in GR.

So what exactly is a 'bung hammer' and what does it have to do with beer? The team's web site explained it this way:

The answer to that is: A bung hammer is a specialized tool for sealing and unsealing the bung in the side of a barrel when aging craft beer. Now to answer the question of "What is a bung?" A bung is a wooden stopper for the opening in a barrel. So, the bung hammer is used to fit the bung into the bunghole of a barrel.

Barrel aging beer involves using old wooden whiskey barrels. The wood barrel and the whiskey it once contained influence the flavor and complexity of the beer in a way that stainless steel tanks can't. Eight of the current top 10 Michigan beers on beer rating site beeradvocate.com are barrel-aged.

Got it? Good. Now go buy some 'Bung Hammers' gear at the new website the team has set up, bunghammers.com.

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