Boston Globe - An entertaining debate is raging right now over at BeerAdvocate.com over the labels that Clown Shoes puts on its beer bottles. A forum message -- posted by one of the people who runs the Cambridge-based Beer Advocate -- argues that the labels used by North Shore brewer Clown Shoes are alternately sexist, racist, and overly risque. "I have been trying to hold my breath about Clownshoes [sic] for a while, but I think today I can officially say that I am done with these beers," the post begins. It goes on to describe the label as "tacky," "borderline sexist or racist," and "classless." In lieu of posting a response on BeerAdvocate.com, Clown Shoes issued a tongue-in-cheek statement this evening that read, in part:We are sorry for forcing everyone to have to endure the huge amounts of physical and psychological trauma we have caused by putting pictures of robots and cartoon women on our beer labels. God forbid you manage to actually open the bottle after seeing the horribly offensive labels because, as we all know, beers with an average rating of B+ are not even that good and shouldn't be drank by anyone...
As a result of this PR fiasco, we have fired every person on our design team, without severance, and submitted their names to a FBI watch list for people who have terrible senses of humor. We will be replacing them with unemployed accountants, all of whom we have screened to ensure that they have no sense of humor whatsoever and will not go "outside the box" when designing new packaging. We are also making some changes to our existing line-up of beers:
* Brown Angel will now be called "Colorless Angel"
* Eagle Claw Fist will be renamed "Non-Descriptive Bird Appendage Fist" to avoid any further offense to eagles or claws
* HoppyFeet will be changed to "Opaque IPA"
* Tramp Stamp will be renamed "Lower Back Tattoo" to avoid any conflicts with the NAWWRGTS (National Association of Women Who Regret Getting Tramp Stamps)
* Lubrication will be renamed "Slippery Petroleum Byproduct"...
Question, does Clown Shoes Beer want to advertise here on The Alt-Tab? That's gotta be what they're going for with this response, right? They had to know I'd see this and want to contact them immediately to line up sponsorship and promotional events? Because that is without a doubt the best response I've ever seen out of a company in regards to critics questioning a companies political correctness. Bravo gentelman, bravo.
After reading this I may have to revise my old "People I Hate: Beer Snobs" blog to include differing levels of beer snobs, including assholes who refuse to drink a beer based on the PC'ness of the label. What a bunch of assbags those guys are.
