Beer & Christianity Redux

December 14, 2007 By Jay Brooks

This came to me via Rick Sellers at his Pacific Brew News concerning another poll by ChristiaNet concerning Christian’s attitudes towards beer drinking. I meant to write about this earlier, but it got away from me. The story is about a poll ChristiaNet conducted with their readership, which they state involves twelve million monthly page loads, and they further claim to be the “world’s largest Christian portal.” The question they asked was “[i]s it wrong for a Christian to consume beer?” Now why they singled out beer is still a mystery to me. To justify the question, Bill Cooper, the president of ChristiaNet, says “Christ warns of the results of drunkenness.” But, of course, the question wasn’t “is it wrong for a Christian to consume beer to the point of drunkenness” or to be drunk, it was simply whether it was acceptable to consume any amount of beer. That’s a vastly different question and one which does nothing to examine the “results of drunkenness.” They did a similar poll last year, too, which I wrote about on Christmas Eve, but more about that later.

According to their press release, 5,200 completed the online poll and beer drinking got the thumbs up by a very slim margin, about 51%. A little over a third (38%) did, however, respond that they believed that having a beer was “wrong.” Here is some of their rationale.

They felt that one beer almost always leads to more and then can also lead to alcoholism, “I don’t know anyone that only drinks one beer, they usually drink more to get a buzz and that is wrong. Sometimes they even turn into alcoholics.” Others in this group quoted Proverbs 20:1 which states, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Most felt that all alcohol consumption was wrong, “There just isn’t any good reason to drink alcohol, and it is not like it tastes good.”

Wow, I don’t want to hang out with the person who doesn’t know even one person who can stop at a single beer. Being someone who visits the ChristiaNet website, I would think most — or at least some — of his friends were likely Christians like him. And not one of them could resist the temptation to have a second drink of beer? This guy needs to start hanging out with a new crowd. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve enjoyed one beer at a bar or with my dinner without being unable to stop there and even without turning into an alcoholic. I can’t help but picture that process as a bit like the gentlemanly Dr. Jekyll turning into the unsavory Mr. Hyde. Without trying to make light of alcoholism, is that really how it happens? And why on occasion is getting a buzz so wrong? Or is drinking “beer” to get that buzz what’s wrong here? Having the sacred wine makes it acceptable, does it? I guess I just don’t understand how these people think.

Just over ten percent wondered “about whether or not beer, in particular, was wrong” and at least one respondent was confused “because the Bible only talks about drunkenness with wine and strong drink, not about having only one beer.” What I assume many do not realize is that when the Bible was translated into Greek that there was no exact match for the Hebrew word and “wine” was simply substituted as being the closest word available. There are a number of serious scholars who believe that it is possible that it was actually beer (apparently the Greeks at that time had no word for beer) that Jesus turned the water into and that it may even have been beer that was served at the last supper. How different our world might be today if beer had early on achieved the exalted place in religion that wine did, possibly as the result of a mis-translation.

Last year about this same time, ChristiaNet asked this same question but got very different results. Only 339 people filled out the previous survey, of which 192 — or 57% — thought drinking beer was wrong. Armed with those staggeringly small and unscientific statistics, ChristiaNet proceeded to tell the world that Christians think drinking beer is wrong. I wrote about it a few days after their press release in a post I called Beer & Christianity. I thought it was nonsense then, and I’m not convinced it’s any less so this year, despite the fact that 5,200 people took the poll this year. When you look at how random sampling for polling data is usually done, this type of online poll has none of the features that make it a statistically accurate sample of the general population. Instead, as Rick also points out, the people responding are all people who regularly visit ChristiaNet’s website, most likely evangelical Christians — fanatics, possibly. That already greatly skews any data they collect on this or any subject they might ask their visitors’ opinions about. Of course, you may say, isn’t that obvious? Well, maybe it is, but then why bother with a press release unless you’re trying to convince somebody of something as a result of this poll? I scratched my head over this before and I’m afraid it’s still itchy.

Anyway, in his post, Rick called me a fanatic — which is true, of course — with regard to the agenda of neo-prohibitionists though he has tended to feel that “there’s no way we, as Americans, have anything to worry about with our beer related rights. Now, if there are this many ‘Christians’ in our country who think my beer consumption is flat wrong, it would seem appropriate to assume they wouldn’t mind seeing some form of control on my consumption.” I think that’s correct, and I think it’s also why there is a lot that we should be worried about. That’s precisely why I’m fanatical, because I believe apathy and complacency will ultimately spell doom. And while there are millions of self-avowed Christians who think drinking beer is no mortal sin, those that do seem to be more vocal and shrill about imposing that belief on everybody else.

Many neo-prohibitionist groups are religiously based, and often claim that Christian morals are at odds with alcohol, which suggests to me that fundamentalist Christians have more in common with fundamentalist Muslims than either group might be willing to admit. Both seem to argue that their belief leads them to prohibiting alcohol and both likewise believe that whatever their religion teaches should apply to non-believers and believers alike. Muslims have been more successful in building sovereign nations that use religious law as the law of the land, regardless of an individual’s religion, and under such rule religious freedom is not tolerated. But Christian evangelicals want exactly the same thing: to replace our secular nation — founded on the principle of church and state being separate — with a Christian United States, whose laws are all based on their literal interpretation of the Bible. And whether or not beer would be permitted under such an intolerant society would depend largely on whose interpretation holds sway.

So I see these polls as dangerous, because even though they are based on poor science, most people probably won’t examine that too closely and will accept them at face value. That seems to happen a lot with polling data. You see inaccurate statistics quoted over and over again, oftentimes even after they’ve been discredited. For reasons I can’t explain (perhaps because people trust the media or because in school we’re not taught how to think, only what to think) polls tend to be believed more often than not. In my experience, human nature causes people to want to side with the majority or the winner so polls which report that a majority feel one way or another often have the effect of bringing about that result, especially if it’s close. This is why I hate political election polling and exit polls on election day, because I think they have the effect of swaying voter’s opinions to vote for the leader. And therein lies the danger. Tell people that enough other folks just like them think drinking beer is wrong and they’ll start to believe it, too. One thing you can safely say about all religions is that they don’t encourage independent thought: the whole point of faith is to believe without questioning so it seems to me religiously-based agendas are particularly susceptible to manipulation.

Rick is quite right to question that statistic claiming 38% of Christians “feel that drinking beer [is] wrong.” As he correctly concludes, “it is likely only those with strong enough opinions took the survey. But that too scares me, because it isn’t just the church goers in our country who are more than slightly apathetic — its seems to be the American way these days.” But if ChristiaNet and others with a neo-prohibitionist agenda keep sowing these anti-alcohol seeds with their questionable statistics they may win over enough of the “more than slightly apathetic” to make their proclamation a self-fulfilling prophecy. And trying to play my small part in making sure that doesn’t happen, keeping the neo-prohibitionist wolves at the door so to speak, is what makes me a fanatic. Because allowing an extreme minority to dictate morality and tell you and me we can’t enjoy a beer is not the way a free society should operate. Those with the loudest voices are not supposed to be who wins. So in the hopes of keeping that from happening, I’ll keep shouting in the wilderness until they pry the glass of beer from my cold, dead hand. But let’s try not to let it come to that, shall we? Let’s take this threat seriously. I really don’t want the Pyrrhic victory that forces me to say “I told you so.”

Mothers For Social Drinking

December 8, 2007 By Jay Brooks

mfsd
While searching for an image yesterday, I came across this interesting new group organized earlier this year: Mothers For Social Drinking. It was founded in February by Jennifer and Jeremiah McNichols, who created and write a parenting blog that specializes in product testing called Z Recommends. What prompted them to take action was an annoying item on MSNBC entitled Do playdates and happy hour mix?. After introducing three former working mothers who quit to raise their children — as I did — they set the scene of how they now choose to socialize, with “a sandbox, the swing set and a backyard bar.” Then with the sensationalized moral zealotry so prevalent in daytime television, ask the most puerile of questions. “But is that ok? Drinking while you’re watching your kids?” Just asking this questions speaks volumes about the imbalance in our society today. It is to my mind a ridiculous question and I’m at least pleased to know I wasn’t the only one to think so.

The notion that an adult cannot drink alcohol moderately when children are present is such an astonishingly simple-minded position to take that it’s hard to take it seriously. That so many people here seem to be doing so is shocking. Perhaps more surprising is the number of comments this Today Show story has generated on MSNBC: 256 messages by 213 authors on 22 separate web pages. And while some are supportive and reasonable, a far greater number display the mental acuity of the average Jerry Springer Show audience member. It’s shameful how our educational system has failed us if this is somehow representative of how most people think. I could only make it through a few page’s worth because I had to keep stopping to scream at my computer screen. Eventually, I just gave up to maintain my sanity.

The Today piece goes on ask more annoyingly truculent questions and then cowardly refuses to give any answers — or even their opinion — saying they should be left to “other moms” and “the experts.” One example of these is “[w]ho would drive to the hospital if a child were hurt?” Pul-leeze. Even assuming for a nanosecond that one or two glasses of wine would render anyone incapable of driving or that the sight of your child injured wouldn’t snap you immediately into soberness, has MSNBC never heard of calling 9-1-1 for an ambulance? Or do they believe a glass of wine would render the average mom too incompetent to even dial a phone?

The New York Times also did a piece on this subject, albeit somewhat more reasonably, entitled Cosmopolitan Moms and takes the tone that although some may disagree there is nothing wrong with a few drinks during a playdate. They even highlight Christie Mellor’s parenting book, The Three-Martini Playdate, which has been on my Amazon wish-list ever since I first read a review of it a couple of years ago.

3mpd
The Three-Martini Playdate

I love the idea of parents banding together to fight this nonsense. Neo-prohibitionists should not be dictating to the rest of us how to live our lives or raise our children. But if they’re the only ones speaking then their voice will be the only one heard. Let’s make our view part of the pubic discourse, too.

Here is Mothers For Social Drinking’s “Statement of Belief:”

We, the undersigned, take exception to the claim that social drinking in the presence of our children is a sign of irresponsible or bad parenting. Further, we contend that it is moderation that makes responsible drinkers, and that moderation and good sense are the responsibility of all citizens; that healthy attitudes towards the consumption of alcohol are learned in the home; that successful parenting does not require us to sacrifice the exercise of our own maturity in order to protect our children’s innocence; and that our society has more to fear from the poor judgment and intemperance of institutions which prey on parental insecurities than with the hospitality we share with other mothers in our parenting journey.

What a beautifully written and well-stated sentiment. Change mothers to “mother and fathers” or “parents” and it’s nearly perfect. I realize using mothers is a nod and an alternative to that other notoriously mad anti-alcohol organization, so I think we can let that slide.

Mothers For Social Drinking have three different badges you can use to show your support if you run a blog or website. I would propose that if you’re a parent who enjoys drinking — mother or father — that you put up one of these on it, with a link to the statement of belief. I”ve also asked the folks at Z Recommends to make a badge with a glass of beer or send me their original graphic so I can create a companion badge for beer lovers.

mfsd-1 mfsd-2 mfsd-3

Z Recommends also has an interesting excerpt from an interview by Prof. David J. Hanson, Ph.D. (who hosts the wonderful website Alcohol: Problems & Solutions) with Dwight B. Heath, an anthropology professor at Brown University, who has studied the uses of alcohol across cultures for most of his career.

Dr. Heath: We have to be very careful in the messages that we send. It isn’t helpful to stigmatize a product that, when used in moderation, is associated with better health and greater longevity than is either abstaining or drinking heavily. This is especially the case when to do so tends to increase those problems that do exist.
Dr. Hanson: But isn’t it necessary to warn young people about the dangers of abusing alcohol?
Dr. Heath: Yes. It’s essential that we teach everyone the dangers of abusing alcohol, but in doing so we must be careful to distinguish between drinking in moderation and drinking abusively. Societies that have few alcohol problems tend to view drinking in moderation as entirely acceptable behavior, while they view abusive drinking as totally unacceptable behavior for anyone under any circumstances at any time.
Dr. Hanson: What else can we learn from other societies?
Dr. Heath: In societies that successfully control alcohol abuse, young people usually learn how to drink at home from their parents. In learning how to drink, they are also learning how not to drink. This helps promote moderation and reduces abuse. Importantly, this learning occurs in a caring, safe, supportive environment – not in a raucous fraternity house or military barrack. Again, perhaps ironically, groups that promote abstinence as the only option tend to experience more problems among those who do drink.

Happy Repeal Day

December 5, 2007 By Jay Brooks

Today is the 74th anniversary of the repeal of national Prohibition in the United States. Bob Skilnik has, naturally, the most complete account at his Beer In Food blog. His piece is called “National Prohibition; Its REAL Anniversary” and goes into great detail about the history swirling about at that time. It’s definitely worth a read.

In addition, Eugene, Oregon bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler has been leading an effort to make December 5 a holiday and he’s also set up a Repeal Day website. And Dewar’s is also running a Repeal Day promotion to celebrate the day (and sell some whisky, of course). Seems like a good idea to me, we can never have too many holidays to remind us what a bad idea Prohibition was, especially with the neo-prohibitionists of today trying so hard to bring about another one.

Revelers enjoying the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

How To Win Friends and Influence People

December 2, 2007 By Jay Brooks

I got a comment the other day to one of my old posts about Rolling Rock when the brouhaha was going down in Latrobe, Pennsylvania earlier this year. E-Rokk, the person who posted the comment, apparently had a run-in with an Anheuser-Busch distributor’s rep. He also has a blog with four friends called Hey Stupid, which according to their byline “is a collection of writers that are pissed off at society, culture, the world and most importantly…you.” E-Rokk is a former Pennsylvania resident who moved to the Rapid City, South Dakota area and took with him a fondness for Rolling Rock beer. He claims to be a beer connoisseur, but his list of favorite beers is not exactly bursting with esoterica. In fact, more than half of his list includes generic industrial light lagers, most of whom are made by the big three but marketed under their original regional brand names. His favorite three are Yuengling, Iron City Light and Rolling Rock, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

Anyway, he tried the new A-B-made version of his beloved Rolling Rock and found that it no longer tasted the way he remembered it, and so he wrote a rant on his blog that spared no one’s feelings and told A-B in no uncertain terms to go fornicate without a companion, though, of course, not in those words. A little while later, he received a response from his local A-B distributor, Eagle Sales of the Black Hills, Inc. The letter was apparently written by the distributor’s “Contemporary Marketing Coordinator,” Cassie Kimball. I can only imagine what that job description entails. Anyway, to satisfy myself that her response was legitimate, I checked out the distributor’s website and sure enough she is the last person listed at the bottom of the web page “Our People.” He reprinted her response in it’s entirety and it’s a terrific example of how not to interact with your customers, especially when E-Rokk still listed several beers as his favorites that Eagle Sales distributes.

Because technically her letter is copywrited material, I won’t publish it here, but please go read it at E-Rokk’s Hey Stupid blog, you won’t be disappointed. She basically swears back at him and further tells him his band will never receive any promotional support from A-B (which is odd since I didn’t even know he was in a band). It’s riddled with typos and grammatical nonsense, which is pretty scary especially since I would think communication skills would be fairly important for someone in marketing. I know people can make mistakes — hell, I make them all the time — but her letter seems to show only a rudimentary familiarity with the English language and how to communicate coherently. But perhaps I’m being too hard on her.

My favorite thing she says, though, is about her beer knowledge. She claims that mainstream beers are called “American premiums” — I just love this aside — “as real beer connoisseurs like to say.” That has me doubling over. American premium is essentially a made-up term used as a category by Nieslen, IRI and other businesses when discussing a particular group of goods, to distinguish them from sub-premium and other categories. It has no meaning in the real world but only as business jargon. And I don’t know many beer connoisseurs, real or otherwise, who refer to this type of beer as American Premium, not with a straight face anyway. It is a subcategory at GABF under category 26, American-Style Lager, but that’s more to allow the big companies a place to enter their products. Likewise, it’s a subcategory under BJCP guidelines for category 1, Light Lager. But you won’t find it coming up in any serious discussion of beer styles. But then again, maybe I’m not as “with it” as she is. After all, she’s the “contemporary” marketing coordinator, whereas I’m just an old curmudgeon.

I also love her revisionist history when she claims A-B bought the Rolling Rock brand “to help it stay alive.” Their own flagship brands’ sales woes had nothing to do with wanting to pick up another brand for their distributors. That’s hilarious. I feel kinda sorry for her, in a way. She just keeps putting her foot in her mouth. At least she does it with confidence, I guess. She really seems to believe what she’s saying and yet appears to have no idea about what’s really going on in the industry she’s a part of. Ah, to be young and ignorant.

The way she just attacked and swore back at her critic has to have come up in PR 101 as how not to communicate with a customer, no matter what they’ve said. It’s frankly pretty astonishing. E-Rokk responded by writing back to her, to what end I can’t fathom. It was just as bad as his original rant but it will be interesting to see if his baiting works and she writes back again to escalate things even farther.

Ennui? Oui!

November 30, 2007 By Jay Brooks

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything new and a few people have written me to see what is the matter. It’s nice to know that I’m missed so I thought I’d update everyone. I’m just tired and took a little unscheduled time off to spend with the family and, hopefully, recharge my batteries. I traveled a bit in October and November and the last three Novembers I was working feverishly on novels as I participated in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where you challenge yourself to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days (and which I managed to be successful at each of the three years). I wasn’t able to do NaNoWriMo this year because I was in Germany for two weeks the first half of the month and I think I missed out on all the energy that enterprise produces. It’s hard to explain, and a bit counter-intuitive, but writing that constantly (at least 1,700 words per day) doesn’t really make me tired, but instead is more exhilarating because I’m creating something out of nothing. I guess that’s why I chose to be a writer, because even though it can be hard mental work it’s also very satisfying. It feels more like something I have to do rather than just something I can do. It’s been that way since I made up stories as a kid, when I wrote for the school newspaper and when I plotted out the endless books I never wrote. So that’s probably part of it.

The other part is I’m feeling more than a little ennui, which is common for me at this time of year. The holidays have been difficult for me for some time now. Most of my family — mother, father, grandparents, etc. — are all gone and have been for a lot of years. What family I have left is in Pennsylvania. My wife and her family are all out here and they’re great plus I now have the added joy of seeing the holidays through my kids’ eyes. I wouldn’t trade my life now for anything. But for some reason I always feel a touch of sadness at this time of year. Some years it’s better than others, but for this year it’s been tough. Also, over the last few months I’ve gotten a number of very unpleasant comments and e-mails from strangers (and organizations) who just don’t agree with my unfettered opinions. That’s to be expected, to be sure, but it is wearing me down. Many folks on the internet often don’t seem to realize that there’s another person involved and without the social cues of face-to-face communication seem to feel no compunction about treating their fellow human beings with appalling cruelty. It’s often so bad that even the most loathsome among us would never dream of treating even a stranger in a similar fashion if they were right in front of them. There’s a term for it, too: deindividuation, which essentially means “if we reduce our sense of our own identity we are less likely to stick to social norms.” That’s from an illuminating article in New Scientist and there’s some more good info in a Guardian opinion piece. There’s also another nice article at Salon by Gary Kamiya on manners online (for more about this, see Netiquette and RFC 1855). Of course, I’m often pretty obnoxious myself so perhaps I have it coming, who knows? Anyway, It’s gotten a little hard to take lately. I don’t mind disagreements — in fact I relish a good debate — but being called names and worse may not break my bones but it sure can drag down a mood and chill my enthusiasm for my fellow man.

Writing is, of course, a solitary endeavor so I find myself alone a lot of the time. I work from home, of course, so apart from my kids and the odd neighbor, I don’t really see, talk or interact with adult people all day long. My friends are all pretty spread out and rarely does anyone just stop by for the hell of it. Do that long enough and one does tend to go a little stir crazy. To everyone who wrote to inquire about my well-being, thanks, I appreciate it. It really helped to get me off the couch. So enough of my pathetic ramblings, tomorrow a new month begins and I’ll try my damndest to get back to pissing people off as best I can. Happy holidays.

neville
N is for Neville who died of ennui.
From Edward Gorey’s wonderful Gashlycrumb Tinies.

Busch Model Train Accesories

November 18, 2007 By Jay Brooks

After the official part of my recent German beer trip ended, I had a few days to myself before heading back across the pond. So one day, Peter Reid (who publishes Modern Brewery Age) and I took a Deutsche Bahn train to nearby Salzburg, Austria to visit the original Trumer Brauerei (more about that trip soon). On the train, I was idly paging through the train’s on-board magazine Mobil (sort of like an in-flight magazine) when I came across a multi-page ad for a toy store chain, Idee+Spiel. Based on the number of pages and locations listed, I imagine it’s something like the Toys R Us of Germany. On the page with toy trains, there were pictured accessories by a German company called, with no irony, Busch (or more properly Busch Gmbh and Co.). Two of the products shown were a Beer Garden and a Hopyard. I imagine neither of these HO-scale train accessories will ever see the light of day here in neo-prohibitionist America, but I love the idea that these scenes are so common that nobody in civilized Europe has a problem with them.

The Busch model HO-Biergarten.

The Busch model HO-Hopfen.

Visiting their website, I also discovered that Busch has a few more beer-related accessories for train layouts, and the hop field is featured on the cover of their catalog.

Busch’s 2007 catalog.

The other accessories included this barley field.

Notice the hops in the field across the road? If you look back the hopyard picture, you can now see the barley field there, too.

I love way the person on the bench is sitting. The catalog refers to him as a “happy ‘carouser.'”

The Beer Label Dog

November 17, 2007 By Jay Brooks

This is pretty cool. I stumbled upon this doing some random searching. You’ve probably seen those mosaic photo posters where tiny photos are used to create another photo along the lines of pointillist painting. The one below is an example from a software website for Mazaika, a program that facilitates making mosaic photographs. This photo of a dog is made using nothing but beer labels. Clicking on the thumbnail below will allow you to see a much larger version of the photos where you can better see the individual beer labels.

Sam Adams: Patriot, Brewer, Bully

October 25, 2007 By Jay Brooks

I want to be clear from the start. There are people who have been bashing the Boston Beer Co. for a long time for a variety of reasons. I’m not one of those people. I like Jim Koch and think he’s done more good than harm to promote better beer to an ever-widening audience of consumers. I think Samuel Adams Boston Lager is a fine-tasting, if somewhat unremarkable, beer. When choices are thin, I’ll happily drink one, which is something I won’t do with several other high-profile popular beer brands. And the specialty beers Jim has made include some really terrific beers that have truly stretched the imagination and the very definition of what beer is.

That being said, I think Jim Koch is getting some awfully bad advice. First there was the ill-conceived radio talk show stunt that Boston Beer was involved with which challenged a couple to have sex in a church. Many were not amused — though personally I could have cared less — and there was some public relations fallout from the incident. Now there’s a new flap that’s not doing Jim Koch any favors and I think the blame rests squarely with his advisors and their poor handling of it.

The story concerns Portland, Oregon’s new candidate for mayor: Sam Adams. No, not the long-dead patriot and signer of the Declaration of Independence. And not the historical brewer personage that the Boston Beer Co. appropriated for their own use in 1984. No, this Sam Adams has been around since 1963, or at least 21 years before the beer brand was trademarked. This Sam Adams is running for the mayor of beertown, Portland, Oregon. When current mayor, Tom Potter, who’s led the Oregon Brewers Festival Parade two years in a row, announced he would not be running again, popular City Commissioner Adams stepped up and announced his candidacy to be the city’s next mayor.

Two DJs from KEX News Radio 1190 in Portland, Dave Anderson and Mark Mason, registered the domain names www.samadamsformayor.com and www.mayorsamadams.com on behalf of the candidate and promised to give them to Adams provided he went on their show to discuss politics, which he subsequently did.

In the meantime, Boston Beer’s Intellectual Property Manager, Helen Bornemann, got wind of the web addresses and fired off a boilerplate cease and desist letter without, apparently, doing any research whatsoever or even picking up a phone to ask anyone about the domain names. I’m no lawyer, though I did work in a law office for eight years and I’m also married to one, but that strikes me as a pretty sloppy way to react. I know IP is something companies take very seriously and often vigorously protect, but a little fact-checking might have gone a long way toward keeping them from placing their foot so deeply in their mouth. The letter is up on the radio station’s website for all the world to see.

In the letter, she announced that they’ve been using the trademarks since 1984, to which the bemused mayoral candidate quipped. “I’ve been using it since 1963.” But Sam Adams the candidate is also concerned and his staff is talking with attorneys, too. Adams is already using the campaign slogan “Sam Adams for Portland Mayor” on his own website and it will likely appear on signs and bumper stickers. too.

According to an AP story, “Boston Beer’s Helen Bornemann said she didn’t know there was a real Sam Adams running for mayor when she sent the letter.” But she sent it anyway without bothering to find out. To me that’s a bully’s arrogance. It’s saying I must be right and you have to prove me wrong … or else. She further tries to excuse her behavior by claiming that “she feared someone was copying the advertisements” that Boston Beer Co. ran years ago, a marketing campaign called “Sam Adams for President.” Feared, but again didn’t try to find out any facts to support those fears.

So okay, she made a mistake. I could almost excuse her behavior up to this point as being over zealous in trying to protect her client’s or her company’s interests (it’s not clear if she’s a lawyer but if not she’s clearly consulted with one and cites specific law in her letter to the radio DJs). But then she pours gasoline on the fire with this statement, again from the AP story. “Bornemann said she’s willing to discuss Adams’ use of his name on his Web sites ‘probably for the length of the time the election is being held.'”

Oh, really. She’s “willing,” is she, to talk about whether Sam Adams should be allowed to use his own freaking name in his own campaign website as he runs for mayor of a prominent American city? How magnanimous. How insulting. Oh, and after the election she may not allow him to be able to continue using his own name? This is an excellent example of how to get yourself some very negative PR. I don’t think it’s even about a strict interpretation of law, it comes down to how the public — your potential customers — view your actions. And the city of Portland is not amused.

If you didn’t know, the state of Oregon has already had a somewhat tenuous relationship with the Boston Beer Co., ever since they had another contract brand that they marketed under the name Oregon Beer Co. in the mid-1990s To be fair, I really liked the Blackberry Porter they made, but Oregonians were not particularly thrilled with having their own beer prestige co-opted by a beer that — and somebody correct me if I’m not remembering this correctly — wasn’t even brewed in Oregon. Boston Beer had, of course, a legal right to use the name but it struck many people at the time as somewhat dishonest.

There’s already a backlash and calls to boycott Samuel Adams beer over this latest gaffe. In addition to the AP story that’s been picked up all over the place, such as in the Washington Post, there’s also been local coverage in the Oregonian and Willamette Week. Naturally, it’s Portland bloggers who are setting the tone and calling for boycotts, such as Rusty’s Blog, who’s following it day by day. Today, for example, his post is called Sam Adams Post, Day 3. Others include Beervana, Blue Oregon, The Champagne of Blogs, Jack Bog’s Blog, Metroblogging Portland, Witigonen and the ZehnKatzen Times. But my favorite take on all this is from Isaac Laquedem’s blog, who advances the novel theory that Boston Beer Co. may be in violation of local election laws (as set forth in ORS 260.695). The way the election laws are written it’s possible to interpret them so that if they continue to sell the Samuel Adams brand people could confuse the bottles as a political endorsement for the candidate. Hilarious.

I think when all the dust settles, this will be remembered and perhaps even taught in business schools as a stellar example of how and why not to react to a potential IP threat in a kneejerk fashion. Yes, Bornemann will cling to the excuse that she was just doing her job and perhaps she even has a leg to stand on, legal-wise (though I sort of doubt it), but had she exercised even a modicum of common sense and tried to learn something about the true nature of what she perceived as a threat to her company’s trademark, she could have avoided creating a PR nightmare that will doubtless continue to haunt her company for years to come, especially in Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. How much ill will has been created and how much business will Boston Beer ultimately lose over that simple failure to investigate and the bullying tactics of their IP Manager? Obviously, that’s hard to say, but I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes come performance review time.

UPDATE: Yesterday the Wall Street Journal Law Blog dubbed this issue the Trademark Dispute Of the Day: Sam Adams v. Sam Adams. Apparently they’ve received a call from a spokeswoman for Boston Beer claiming “they never had an issue with the mayoral candidate using his name but they do have an issue with the radio station using Sam Adams for its own business purposes.” Hmm. That’s new. Sounds like revisionist backpedaling to me. Let’s not forget that Boston Beer’s IP Manager, Helen “Bornemann said she’s willing to discuss Adams’ use of his name on his Web sites ‘probably for the length of the time the election is being held.'” That certainly goes beyond the scope of merely having an “issue with the radio station using Sam Adams for its own business purposes.” And while we’re at it, what exactly would be the “business purposes” that Boston Beer is so worried about? Given that the word “mayor” is in both domain names and there really is a person named “Sam Adams” who’s running for and quite possibly will be elected mayor (and I’ve got to believe all this publicity will give Adams a big assist in getting votes) it’s hard for me to understand their concerns. Wouldn’t a reasonable person conclude that the first domain name would be used by the mayoral candidate and the second by mayor Adams (assuming he’s elected) and not for any nefarious “business purposes.”

Soviet Anti-Alcohol Posters

October 23, 2007 By Jay Brooks

I happened upon this cool bit of history while searching for some images the other day. It’s the Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters, a collection of old Soviet propaganda posters on the evils of drinking. There are more then thirty of them here, with translations. What struck me most in looking through them is that they’re really not all that different from the propaganda used by neo-prohibitionists working today in the United States. It’s the same sort of sensationalist nonsense with little basis in facts. But it’s somewhat comforting to know that propaganda is propaganda, no matter where it came from, and they are sort of fun to see. Enjoy.

Translation: “Rich inner substance.”

Translation: “Profiteer is a worst enemy.”

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