legally interesting/controversial

Port Brewing LLC recently got its wit caught in a wringer. The beer label depicts a witch being burned at the stake. Various wiccans, pagans, shamans and others were not amused and The New York Times was there to cover it. About a week before Halloween, the Times article quoted an offended person thusly:

“Can you imagine them showing a black person being lynched or a Jewish person going to the oven?” she wrote. “Such images are simply not tolerated in our society anymore (thank the Goddess) and this one should not be, either.”

To witch which the brewer responded:

We have been accused of inspiring violence against women, and we have been compared to the violence in Darfur. … It has run the gamut from people saying politely, ‘This is offensive to pagans,’ to people saying we are responsible for all that is wrong in the world.

Port seems to be in the process of changing the label. Port’s co-founder said he was “‘totally in favor’ of changing the label and that he and his co-workers had been ‘ignorantly unaware of the mistake’ they had made.”

The brewery explained that, far from being...

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...

Now we learn that it’s not a good idea to name your beer after a disease, if you want to avoid controversy. Above is Tyranena Brewing Company’s Scurvy Ale Brewed with Orange Peel. TTB approved the label in 2008 and again in March of 2010. Beernews.org reports that it has not been easy:

Tyranena Brewing finally got label approval late this past week but not without some headaches from the TTB first. Here is the lowdown on what went wrong.

The following is based on one or more Tyranena newsletters.

The Government Is Back On My Nerves And Throwing Off Our Whole Schedule. … Yesterday, we were informed that the TTB rejected our new label… apparently they thought the name “Scurvy” together with the government-mandated Statement of Composition “Ale Brewed With Orange Peel” implies a health benefit from the consumption of the product.

Our new six packs were one the verge of being printed and fortunately we were able to stop them. We will be submitting a variation of the label hoping to get it through… but it is unknown whether it will meet their criteria… or how long it will take them to approve it. … Now our whole schedule is in disarray.

Stacey has been communicating...