Bad-taste beer nixed by LCBO
A Barrie brewery is crying censorship after the LCBO rejected one of its beers because of the name and label, but the retailer says it simply wasn't in good taste.
Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery got word recently that its Smashbomb Atomic IPA had been rejected by the provincially run liquor monopoly. The label has a cartoon depiction of an explosion.
Brewery president Peter Chiodo said the rejection could cost Flying Monkeys between $100,000 and $200,000 in sales, and said the LCBO shouldn't be in the business of deciding what's in good taste or not.
“Censorship is really what it is at the end of the day,” said Chiodo, who was informed that the LCBO's social responsibility division had nixed the beer.
Smashbomb had been on sale for more than a year, both at the brewery and on draft at several bars around the province, but Chiodo had been hoping to sell it in six packs at the LCBO, which controls roughly 20 per cent of the beer market in Ontario. In January, he submitted the beer — and its label — to the LCBO for approval. He was turned down in late March.
The LCBO defended its decision, saying it uses the social responsibility guidelines provided by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. The AGCO guidelines prohibit alcoholic beverage marketers from suggesting that their drinks promote athletic or sexual prowess, promoting violence, or from appealing to children.
In this case, the name and label were just too violent, said LCBO spokesperson Chris Layton.
“Weapons are really a no-go area. Especially at a time when there are real bombs going off in Libya and Afghanistan, this wasn't appropriate,” said Layton.
The alternatives aren't particularly appealing for Chiodo: Having customers trek up to Barrie isn't an option for most people, and selling it at The Beer Store is an expensive option for a small craft brewery. (TBS charges a per store listing fee of $250, which is capped at roughly $50,000). The Beer Store is also owned by Molson Coors, Labatt and Sleeman.
“I don't want to give that kind of money to my competitors,” Chiodo said.
The Beer Store could list it for sale, no matter what it's called, since it doesn't have a social responsibility division. But even then, Smashbomb could be yanked from sale if someone complained to the AGCO.
In the U.S., the Flying Dog Brewery has sued the Michigan Liquor Commission over a ban on its Raging Bitch brand, but Chido said he's not planning to go down the legal route just yet.
“We'd like to see if they'll meet us halfway. We'll go back to the drawing board. I just want to be able to sell my beer,” said Chiodo, adding that in subsequent meetings with the LCBO, he's proposed altering the label. “There's no way the name's going to change.”
Thornhill MPP Peter Shurman, the Progressive Conservative economic development critic, said the LCBO's social responsibility mandate should begin and end with not encouraging overconsumption of alcohol.
“If someone made a 10 per cent alcohol cooler and named it ‘Drink More and Get Drunk,' I can understand not selling it, but this is just a cartoon,” said Shurman, who called the LCBO's decision “ridiculous.”
A spokesperson for provincial finance minister Dwight Duncan, whose ministry the LCBO reports to, referred all questions to the LCBO.