More than a year after Wisconsin’s Lake Louie Brewing was accused of sexism over a racy beer label and a promotional event held at a strip club, the owner announced its new brew: “The Pant Antler.”
“I thought I’d objectify the male genitalia in the interest of being an equal-opportunity misogynist,” brewery owner Tom Porter told the LaCrosse Tribune, using the wrong vocabulary to describe how this time, he’s poking fun at men.
In 2015, Lake Louie Brewing sparked local outrage with its Mailbock, “The Twins,” with a label depicting two buxom sisters. It was marketed under the logos “Grab Hold of a Pair” and “Shared Goodness.”
Exacerbating the controversy, the owner held its 2015 Madison Craft Beer Week events at the Silk Exotic strip club, saying it was “a classy joint” with “no tomfoolery or nefarious things going on.”
So vociferous was the social media backlash that the organizers of the Madison Craft Beer Week responded, saying, “It’s not our policy to censor venues or breweries” participating in the festivities.
Porter has yet to respond to Heat Street’s media inquiries. But then and now, he has welcomed the controversy surrounding his beer branding, telling local media, “If we take this all too seriously we’ll be in trouble.”
Across the world, a growing number of craft breweries are dealing with similar controversies surrounding their labels and beer names.
Earlier this month, Amsterdam’s Oedipus Brewing announced it would change the label of its Mata Hari beer, which featured a cartoon of a nude woman, after an employee claimed it was sexist.
Last year, the crowd-sourced Milwaukee brewery MobCraft found itself facing nationwide criticism after an online troll proposed a “Date Grape” beer. In Anchorage, Alaska, a Fulbright scholar accused a female brewer of promoting “rape culture” with her “Panty Peeler” beer. And Flying Dog brewery spent nearly six years in court fighting against the Michigan Liquor Control Commission over its “Raging Bitch” IPA.
But defying political correctness can also be a successful marketing strategy, it seems. According to the Isthmus, the much-denounced “The Twins” beer yielded the highest number of pre-orders in Lake Louie Brewing’s history.
