Head brewer Jaega Wise calls on CAMRA to ban sexist beer branding

November 29, 2017 8:49 AM

But it just was one of three ideas to combat sexism in the beer industry. Jaega Wise is the head brewer at Wild Card Brewery based in London; she was speaking at the first Brewers Congress on Monday, November 27th.

To no surprise, her speech sparked a backlash. UK beer writer/columnist Melissa Cole penned a passionate and thoughtful response on her Facebook feed to those were angry, offended, and dismissive.

CAMRA's official response.

previously and previouslier

posted by Kitteh (26 comments total)

Good on CAMRA for their response. It's a refreshing change from industry-affiliated organizations that double-down on the old-boy status quo.
posted by ardgedee at 9:01 AM on November 29, 2017 [6 favorites]

Wild Card Brewery is ace, both their beer and as a place to drink. Really glad to see they're decent people too.
posted by Dysk at 9:04 AM on November 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

The reactionary responses to these calls for greater sensitivity are so tired and predictable. If your idea of "freedom" is the freedom to subject your bartender and fellow patrons to gross labels, you can go fuck yourself.

Happy to see the response from CAMRA. The Brewers Association (as mentioned) put guidelines into place recently about sexist labels, but I was disappointed that my largest local brewery (a BA member) just released a beer called "Nauti Girl" with a sexy mermaid on the label. It's reasonably tame compared to some of the worst, but still completely unnecessary.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:16 AM on November 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

Note: CAMRA's official response links to their Twitter account, not a particular tweet. I can't visit Twitter at the moment, but perhaps for posterity, there's a particular tweet to link here?
posted by filthy light thief at 9:16 AM on November 29, 2017

Here's a link to the image containing the response. The long and short is that they're working on a policy that they hope to roll out in the new year.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:20 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I mean, "Don't buy it then" really is the right response, but there's no reason to limit it to consumers. Producing gross sexist beer shouldn't be illegal, but people should be making it clear to establishments that if they have no interest in patronizing places that sell this kind of crap. Other breweries should be ostracizing the sexist breweries. And organizations like SIBA and CAMRA should be excluding them from excluding them from membership.

In short, everyone should collectively not buy their shit until they get the message. And maybe that's starting to happen.
posted by 256 at 9:23 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Another user commented: “Just don’t buy it if it offends your sensibilities.”

Waaaaaaaaaay ahead of you. I don't buy it, and will continue not to buy *anything* from your label while you keep doing this sexist shit.

Crowded marketplace, easy decision to spend my money elsewhere.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:29 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Same here. All too often I'll see an interesting looking rural dry cider or something and it's got a buxom farm wench on the label it's just an instant non buy.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 9:31 AM on November 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

I tried to find this statement on the CAMRA website but alas, I could only find it on their Twitter feed. Soz!
posted by Kitteh at 9:39 AM on November 29, 2017

It should be acknowledged though that a lot of the "don't buy it then" responses seem to be actually saying "don't buy it and don't you dare talk about why you're not buying it."

Haha no.
posted by 256 at 9:45 AM on November 29, 2017 [30 favorites]

It was too thin to warrant an FPP on its own, but here is a great blog entry about the direct action Nova Scotia brewers are taking in Canada posted back in September.
posted by Kitteh at 9:55 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

It should be acknowledged though that a lot of the "don't buy it then" responses seem to be actually saying "don't buy it and don't you dare talk about why you're not buying it."

Yeah, the "just don't buy the sexist beer" crowd is a kindred spirit to the counter-response to HBO's planned confederate hagiography series (effectively: "don't watch it, and also shut up about it").
posted by tocts at 10:04 AM on November 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

Glad to see this. We could also do with less mansplaining by servers in restaurants when women order beers that are even a little out of the ordinary. "Are you want that? Because as you might not know ...." Stuff they wouldn't dare say to a guy with a beard.
posted by exogenous at 10:22 AM on November 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ugh, I hate that. It also happens a lot at beer festivals. I'm like, "Hey, I do this for a living, so knock it off."
posted by Kitteh at 10:23 AM on November 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

My wife would run into that attitude all the time when she got an IPA. I'd see it when I was sitting right next to her. And then she'd school whoever it was on beer because she almost always knew much more than they did. (Past tense because she's been diagnosed with Celiac disease and given up most beers.)
posted by maurice at 10:46 AM on November 29, 2017

I shaved once and had a new bartender try to explain Saison to me before the other bartender (a friend) flagged him down and stopped him. That was fun for it's uniqueness. If it was my everyday experience I'd be beyond annoyed.

Reading the CAMRA response: https://twitter.com/CAMRA_Official/status/935905041097150464

It's a good start - look's like they're following the Brewers Association model of first steps and they're being reasonably direct.

I've said it loudly many times on my podcast - be kind and don't be an idiot that pushes away half your potential market for puerile jokes that were the height of fashion when you were in middle school.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:51 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm a beer lover but I'm not a beer geek - I pay no attention to the 'scene' or the minutiae of brewing. For all I care they can pull the hops out of the garbage if it makes beer that tastes good. But over a decade of drinking very few beers twice I will say that I've found that well brewed beers (or more accurately - beers that I like) are tastefully labelled. Beers that I don't enjoy seem to mostly have labels that resemble grateful dead concert posters or playboy cartoons.
posted by srboisvert at 11:29 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, all the "don't buy it" crap is really reaching to make it seem like consumers control what products are being sold. This is straight up bullshit. It makes it seem like products just kind of magically appear on the market at random like a natural force that we have to resist by boarding our windows or whatever. Products being sold are made by specific individual humans who had to think about them before creating them. GO AFTER THOSE GUYS, THEY ARE THE ENEMY.
posted by capricorn at 11:50 AM on November 29, 2017 [5 favorites]

Somewhat related with similar shitty problems but likely foreign to many here is ecig/vape marketing and branding. Which, like craft beer, suffers from the oversaturation of way too many bros being shitty bros.

I've seen some truly horrible names for ecig liquid like "Morning Wood" and "Bad Teacher" and worse. The "vape bro" lifestyle mags and advertising is some of the most sexist and objectifying on the planet outside of, say, aftermarket sports car parts.

Thankfully there's been a lot of push back from people across the industry, reminding people that the whole point of ecigs was to quit smoking tobacco and getting away from that kind of marketing and bullshit. There's still a problem with it, but over the last few years I've seen a lot of brands with previously icky names or branding change to tamer, less offensive branding.

Part of this is likely due to the FDA and FTC crackdown and new regs. It's a lot more expensive to introduce a new product now, so people are probably less likely to play loose and fast with the branding, but there was self regulation and pushback happening before that.

There's a certain brick and mortar vape store in Seattle on Capitol Hill that was one of the first in the area and I knew I was in the right place when I watched the owner do things like throw shitty sexist vape bro culture mags directly in the trash, or refuse to carry anything with sexist branding or naming. This was further confirmed by their actions and how they treated customers - and especially how well they treated women.

And it's not like it was particularly difficult to do. All they had to do was make it a safe, comfortable, inclusive space that was focused on harm reduction for all smokers and refuse to put anything on the shelves that used sexist marketing or branding.

Cannabis culture also suffers from similar problems with sexism and excessive male-centric sexuality in branding. I remember the first time I went to Hempfest and being really grossed out by some of the stores and companies in the giant sprawling flea market.

Thankfully it seems like very little of this kind of branding has made it into the legal commercial market and branding, and I'm guessing it's because the branding/marketing rules are very strict in WA state. Even the most colorful legal recreational packaging has little more than a name, perhaps a brand/producer logo and then the testing/tracking information.
posted by loquacious at 12:24 PM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Brewer's Association has already moved to do the same, in response Flying Dog withdrew their membership.

"We don't need government regulation, the industry can regulate itself"
*Industry try to self-regulate and clean up frat boy image*
"Censorship! Freedom!"

This knob actually used the word 'tyranny' in his statement, because there is the possibility they might adopt standards that would prevent him from putting boobies on his beer label. Christ, what an asshole.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:07 PM on November 29, 2017 [8 favorites]

Well in fairness, Caruso's always been more than a bit of a free speech trumps everything asshole - e.g. Raging Bitch - a tasty beer that I won't order because seriously.

As a note, Jaega's proposal starts with the BA's proposal and takes it a bit further to not letting the beers into the competition at all. The thing Caruso's getting his shorts twisted over is just not letting their name be said at the competition or using the BA's IP to promote their win. Really mild stuff, but at least it sends a message.
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:22 PM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Captain Genius at Flying Dog is saying that the trade association should focus on "the fight for market share with wine and spirits, the challenges coming from big brewers, softening of craft beer sales and winning new consumers," and doesn't see how making your product not blatantly offensive to 50% of humanity might be part of that master plan. I wouldn't stake great odds on him being a thought leader here.
posted by Shepherd at 1:22 PM on November 29, 2017 [12 favorites]

I took it upon myself to drop Flying Dog a message via their contact form saying how much I appreciate their clear stance so that I can avoid spending any money on their brews over the holiday season and onward.
posted by RolandOfEld at 3:57 PM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

It should be acknowledged though that a lot of the "don't buy it then" responses seem to be actually saying "don't buy it and don't you dare talk about why you're not buying it."

This is a good point. I will have to add telling brewers (on twitter or instagram) why I'm not buying their beer to my already robust "not buying their beer" algorithm.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:29 PM on November 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

Bizarrely enough (to me anyway) I was at a much-touted local butcher store this last summer for the first time and was disturbed by the hot sauce names and labels they carried. I wonder if it's a combination of "macho image" with many small producers, all of whom want a catchy, cutsy sometimes sexist label, it made me not want to go back in there. Way to make a first impression.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 4:59 PM on November 29, 2017

Related: NZ's Garage Project Brewery discontinues a beer with a name and label that recalls Apocalypse Now's Ride of the Valkyries scene after receiving a letter from a woman who explained how upsetting the imagery was.

"It really was just a pop culture reference. But I reflected deeply on it and the last thing I want to do is upset people. Brewing is meant to be fun, but we don't do it in a vacuum. We exist as a business in a broader community."

A mature response from a brewer! It must be Christmas.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:44 AM on November 30, 2017 [5 favorites]