speech

Right there on the label of this beer, almost every part of it, Austin Beerworks makes it clear that you should proceed with maximum caution. You should not even think about consuming this beer with KFC, while wearing lederhosen, or while operating heavy machinery of any sort.

The label is not new, but it is a tad out of the ordinary. It pokes gentle fun at the oh so serious Government Warning Statement, mandated by Congress since the 1988 Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act. In the early years, after this Warning became required on most every beer, wine and spirits label in the U.S., it would have been essentially unthinkable, to allow any fun-poking, aimed in this general direction. To wit, one of the Government’s biggest objections to the Black Death Vodka labeling and packaging, was that it tended to mock the — oh so serious Warning. This label shows that a lot of beer has flowed under the bridge since then, and there has been a general chilling out.

It probably also helps, that the real Warning does appear at least twice, and with good, solid prominence and contrast. But, that base having been covered, Austin revs up for a snarknado. I can’t list all the snarky comments and warnings, because there are so many....

The Washington Times and CityPages claim that TTB recently rebuffed a Minnesota brewer, in its efforts to hint about LSD on a beer label.

In doing so, the CityPages article took a few tough shots at TTB, calling them a “bunch of unchill tightwads,” “notoriously persnickety,” and describing the anatomy of people who work there, in an even less flattering way.

But if the label at issue looks anything like the above, why should a government agency give it a thumbs up? What’s the point of a review process, if it’s so porous that an LSD label would go through? By contrast, this one looks to be the version that did go through, and I really don’t think it’s so bad, or such a gross imposition on free speech. This seems like a good balance; the approved version certainly gets the point across, in a slightly more subtle way.

Even the brewer seems to acknowledge the above name might go too far, saying “With the name, I think we were pushing the envelope, too. Unfortunately, the envelope broke.”

Joe Sixpack this week has a good and thorough look at the many beer labels that talk about and tip a hat to their colleague, marijuana. The numbers and audacity are surely growing, as the old and antiquated laws fall by the wayside a bit. I like the quaint and funny reference to coats of arms:

With this month’s ballyhooed legalization of marijuana in Colorado, some beer makers are adding playful drug references to their brand names and labels, and regulators can do little to censor them. Label oversight, a quirky if contentious area of federal alcohol law, has confounded breweries for years with often capricious standards that bear little on consumer protection. Federal law, for example, oddly prohibits the use of coats of arms or wording that promises ‘pre-war strength,’ whatever that means.

Mr. Russell (aka Joe) also helped educate me that a safety meeting is not necessarily boring and dire:

Yes, there are limits. Dark Horse Brewing, in Michigan, lost its bid for Smells Like Weed IPA, though its hops, in fact, smell like pot. The name was later changed to Smells Like A Safety Meeting IPA. (A ‘safety meeting’ is slang for taking a break on the job to light up a doober.) But expect to see fewer of those objections as...