Local Group Protests Beer Labels, Names

In this photo from Buzz archives
people wait in line for KBS, NOT to protest.

By Joseph P. Sprinklehead, roving Buzz reporter and resident satirist. In other words, the dude who makes stuff up.

Grand Rapids, Michigan - A spokesperson for The Association Dedicated to the Eradication of Naughty Words from Craft Beer Labels (ADENWCBL) has announced that members of the national organization will be holding a demonstration this Saturday outside a popular Grand Rapids brewery.

Maurice Potter, head of the West Michigan chapter of the ADENWCBL, said yesterday that members from chapters from all across the country will be gathering outside Founders Brewing's Grandville Avenue location to protest the brewery’s use of “highly objectionable words” on one of its bestselling beer labels.

“There’s absolutely no reason why they have to use dirty words to market their product,” Potter said in a phone interview, noting that companies such as Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors have enjoyed great success with their portfolios of inoffensively named brands. “Look at Bud, Miller, Coors, Keystone and Natural Light. Those are all clean, wholesome names. I could go on and on.”

Potter said he understands why a brewery would want to use a unique name to draw attention to a product but believes there are plenty of non-offensive words in the English language with which to do this. “I get the whole marketing thing,” he said. “In fact I took a couple of courses at an online university.” He suggested that Founders could change Dirty Bastard to “Grubby Person Born of Unmarried Parents” and Raging Bitch, a beer produced by Maryland’s Flying Dog Brewery, could be changed to “Seething Female Canine” with no adverse effects.

New Nano Brewery to Feature the Bizarre & Unusual

This week's contribution from Joseph P. Sprinklehead, roving Buzz reporter, comes with a complimentary grain of salt. Just an FYI.

File photo. Not for use in beer.

Grand Rapids, MI – A new brew pub slated to open this fall in the small West Michigan town of Lager (population 68) will serve beers made with adjuncts that can best be described as “bizarre” and “unusual.” This according to co-owner and head brewer Eugene Gunnison.

“Our beer certainly won’t fall within the standards of the Reinheitsgebot,” Gunnison said last week in the brewery’s downtown riverfront location. “We want to be a part of the craft beer craze that is erupting in West Michigan but we also want to do things that other local breweries aren’t doing.”

Gunnison said the nano brewery that he will operate with his wife Elaine will offer four standards and will feature two other beers that will rotate on a seasonal basis. The standard offerings will include Possum Pale, Raccoon Red Rye, BS River IPA and Pigs Feet Porter.

“We’re going to source as many of the adjuncts as we can locally,” Gunnison said. “There’s certainly no shortage of possums and raccoons in this area and we’re in the process of finalizing a deal with a slaughterhouse in Grand Rapids for the pigs feet.” Gunnison also said that he has received permission from state and local authorities to use water from the Baron-Shaw river for his IPA. “It’s got the perfect chemistry for a crisp, highly hopped ale,” he said.

Gunnison said that one of the brewery’s first seasonals will be an imperial stout that is currently aging on wood that he salvaged from local, one-hundred-year-old barns, explaining that the wood has just the right amount of dried bat guano to impart a subtle richness and distinct acidity to the beer. He also plans to brew a wormy mushroom infused Octoberfest in the fall.

Westside Man Uncovers Cache of Retro Beer

By Joseph P. Sprinklehead, Roving Buzz Reporter

Grand Rapids, MI - A man searching for lost treasures with a metal detector has found eleven full cans of Stroh’s beer buried in the exposed mud of the receding John Ball Park pond. Chuck Postohovitch, an eighty-five-year old retired mechanic who lives two blocks away from the park, said he found the still recognizable cans with his Minelab X-TERRA 305 mine detector last Saturday morning.

“This is a great find,” Postohovitch said. “I’ve been metal detecting for years, in fact ever since I retired. I’ve found my share of old coins, diamond rings, things like that but this is just unbelievable. I can’t believe my luck.”

According to another treasure hunter who was helping scrub mud and goose feces off the cans, Postohovitch’s good fortune was anything but luck. “Chuck’s the best metaldetectorist I know,” said the young man who declined to give his name. “He’s out constantly, in every kind of weather. The mud in that pond is just covered with goose shit but he went out there anyway. He’s just incredible.”

Postohovitch said he is going to drink one of the beers and put the rest for sale on Ebay. “I’m thinking I can get a hundred bucks a can, maybe more,” he said. “I’ve seen what they’re getting for those Founders beers and they’re not even old.”

Postohovitch thinks the cans, which he estimates to be at least forty years old, were probably put in the pond to be kept cool but for some reason were forgotten. “I don’t know why someone would just leave them there,” he said. “Stroh’s was a good beer. Still is. It’s a real mystery.”