Brewer Finds Legal Trouble with Federal Agency over Beer Slogan
The immortal bard asked in Romeo and Juliet, "What's in a name?" Well, if you plan to retail alcoholic beverages in the United States, the correct answer is, plenty of legal issues.
Just ask entrepreneur Vaune Dillman, the owner of Mt. Shasta Brewing Co., who has been selling beer for years with a cleverly-worded message on his bottle caps that alludes to the Northern California town where the brewery resides. His bottle caps proudly proclaim: "Try Legal Weed."
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (formerly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) didn't find the message - and its reference to marijuana - so cute. When they reviewed Dillman's latest creation, a classic Bohemian pilsner called Lemurian Lager, they requested sample labels and bottle caps, which Dillman sent, not knowing of the consequences of his innocent slogan.
The Bureau ordered Mt. Shasta to stop selling the offending caps with his beer, claiming that the message "amounted to a drug reference," according to the Associated Press. It claimed that the brewery could be misleading customers expecting to find illegal drugs in the alcoholic beverage.
The Bureau has explicit rules banning references to drugs on alcoholic beverages that it introduced in 1994. Many breweries are noticing that the federal agency is generally becoming more aggressive in pursuing claims made by beer companies, so this latest move is no surprise.
Dillman discounts the notion that he is trying to mislead consumers, or that they would be confused by his wordplay on the name of his town. In fact, as the Associated Press reports, residents of Weed, California have a reputation for exploiting the town's name, even including city officials on town signs.
When tourists leave town, they're met with a sign that reads, "Temporarily Out of Weed"; another town sign proclaims town pride by touting itself as "100 Percent Pure Weed." And these allusions are in a way just responding to the popular appeal of the joke; tourists often pose with the town's high school bus that matter-of-factly declares, "Weed High."
Dillman is appealing the ruling, hoping to keep up the tradition of using the caps, as he's been doing since he opened Mt. Shasta in 2004. His chances of success are not good, but he's stated his case and is awaiting another ruling.
After all, Dillman points out, references to marijuana and all sorts of other questionable allusions are part of American brewing traditions, and not just locally. You've certainly heard that famous Anheuser-Busch slogan: "This Bud's for you."