Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s not about sex. It’s about good beer from eastern Pennsylvania. Intercourse Blue Ball Porter is Ale with Natural Flavor. Intercourse Brewing Company is located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country.  Blue Ball is a small community also located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It’s not about this. It’s not about this. The funny looking silo above is just a silo. Intercourse is quite popular and as of today, this Facebook page confirms that 415 people “like it.”

If you like your warnings big and graphic, you will love the alcohol beverage warnings under consideration in Thailand. The Wall Street Journal of September 17, 2010 shows the photo above, as an example of one of the warnings under consideration.

If you think it can’t happen here, take a look at this tobacco website which explains: “New legislation passed in June 2009 requires pictorial health warnings on 50% of the front and back of US cigarette packages within 24 months, in addition to a 15 month implementation window.” At least 13 countries already require graphical warnings to cover more than 50% of the cigarette pack. At least 38 countries have finalized requirements for picture warnings.  The Wall Street Journal article explains:

Alcohol companies world-wide are lining up to fight a Thai plan to require graphic warning labels about alcohol on the country’s domestic and imported beer, wine and liquor bottles.

The proposed labels—which would cover 30% of the bottles’ surface area—include unusually explicit warnings about risks associated with alcohol use. One picture shows a shirtless man grasping a woman by the hair and raising his fist to hit her, accompanied by the words, “Alcohol consumption could harm yourself, children and family.”

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We have not seen wine products with added beer or hops. But here, just in time for epic Ten Ten Ten festivities, is beer with added wine or something very closely akin to it. Vertical Epic is made by Stone Brewing of Escondido, California. It is classified as Ale Brewed with Muscat, Gewurztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc Grapes and Chamomile. We find it interesting that TTB could have, but apparently chose not to, say something like, please remove the grape names as they tend to misleadingly suggest that this is wine. The back label has some good information, such as pointing out that this is the ninth in a series, beginning with a 2/2/2002 beer and so on, “Each one released one year, one month and one day from the previous year’s edition.” The back label also has a helpful link to “a detailed home-brewing recipe.” Stone’s blog, with lots of videos, further explains:

Initiated in 2002—when the notion that Stone might still be around in 2012 was more hope than certainty— the Stone Vertical Epic Ale series has given Stone brewers an avenue for creative expression while helping spread the good word about the benefits of cellaring beer.

Stone Head Brewer Mitch Steele, who studied enology at UC Davis and...

This post will start short but is likely to grow long over time. Very long. We will try to show the enormous range of foodstuffs from which wine is produced. With each post we will add to the list, and I predict it will grow way past 50 60. Today we add Gooseberry wine to the list.

1. Avocado wine
2. Banana wine
3. Cantaloupe wine
4. Dandelion wine
5. Elder flower wine
6. Fig wine
7. Gooseberry wine. Made by Ackerman Winery, of Amana, Iowa.
8. Grape wine
9. Jasmine fruit wine
10. Kiwi wine
11. Linden flower wine
12. Lychee wine
13. Mangosteen wine
14. Marionberry wine
15. Onion wine
16. Pomegranate wine
17. Pear wine
18. Pepper wine
19. Persimmon wine
20. Pineapple wine
21. Rhubarb wine
22. Strawberry wine
23. Tomato wine
24. Watermelon wine

Until about 10 years ago, there were quite a few beers made with hemp available in the US. Then TTB/ATF put out a policy and also said:

On April 6, 2000, ATF issued a policy on the use of hemp or hemp components in alcohol beverages and on the use of the term “hemp” or depictions of the hemp plant on labels for alcohol beverages. The policy does not ban the use of hemp in alcohol beverages, but was created to assure that beverage alcohol products do not contain a controlled substance (tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)). ATF also determined that the appearance of the word “hemp” or depictions of hemp plants on labels was likely to create a misleading impression as to the true identity or quality of the product. As of this writing, there are no approved certificates of label approval for products containing hemp.

Slowly but surely, however, in recent months various beers with hemp are starting to re-emerge and three of them are highlighted in this post. For the uninitiated, hemp happens to be a member of the cannabaceae family, a cousin of hops and close kin of marijuana (or cannabis). Above is O’Fallon’s Hemp Hop Rye, an amber ale brewed with hemp seeds and approved earlier this year. The label mentions...