(San Marcos, CA) – The Lost Abbey has found itself in the news again.
This bird is of a very different feather than the Moylan’s thing though.
About a week ago, I started receiving comments on old blog posts about Lost Abbey Witch’s Wit:
As a pagan, and a woman, I am offended by the label. What’s next, a black being chased by people in white sheets???
The cover art of “Witches Wit” is extremely offensive to women, witches, and anyone who knows history enough to remember the “Women’s Holocaust” of the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe and North America. Hatred and violence toward women is still present today and is perpetuated by the prejudice and lack of sensitivity of this artwork.
I am also appalled and offended by the label of Witch’s Wit. How can the burning of a human being be considered appropriate and appealing to advertise/sell beer? It is slap in the face of many many women through out the world.
The handful of comments I got were nothing compared to the 300 emails received by The Lost Abbey by the Pagan/Wiccan community though. Their campaign finally hit the general public yesterday with a full-length piece in the New York Times.
A woman by the name of Vicki Noble led the charge and her email reached a woman named Cynthia Eller in San Marcos, also home to The Lost Abbey. From the NYT piece:
As it happens, [Ms. Eller’s parents live in San Marcos]. This week, her father, Eldon, visited the brewery and had a taste of the beer — a Belgian-style ale, spiced with grapefruit zest, orange peel and coriander. He enjoyed it very much, his daughter said, and met Vince Marsaglia, one of the co-founders of the brewery.
Soon after her father’s tasting trip, Ms. Eller got an e-mail from Mr. Marsaglia, a reply to one she had sent the brewery. He wrote that he was “totally in favor” of changing the label and that he and his co-workers had been “ignorantly unaware of the mistake” they had made.
Not so fast says The Lost Abbey’s Sage Osterfeld. A decision has not been made final yet and will not be made final until after Halloween. If the brewery doesn’t change the label, it could get interesting to see what the Wiccan group does next. Could we see marching or a demonstration outside the Abbey?
Osterfeld said that they had not received a single complaint about the label before last Friday. I wrote about the beer back when it initially hit shelves in August, 2008. Also of note, it’s a summer release and is now out of stock in most markets.
The label has certainly drawn lots of thoughtful discussion among Pagans. To get the other side’s view, I would encourage you to read this blog post as well as this one which includes correspondence between the brewery and a member of the Pagan community.
Congrats for being on the top emailed section at the NY Times
I think Lost Abbey is missing the point. This isn’t just about Wiccans and witches, it’s a much larger issue. Simply put, women were burnt at the stake for not conforming. That’s what’s truly offensive here. And it’s disappointing that neither Lost Abbey nor Beernews recognize this insensitivity.
I am looking forward to hearing Christine O’Donnell’s position on this issue.
Dear LA,
Don’t change the label. You can’t pander to every minority interest group. Most of the comments on their blog seems to indicate a severe lack of knowledge about the craft beer industry as a whole.
Love the theme of your beer lineup, and love the art work on all them.
—
Joe
Looks like karma is a bitch.
Hi Zac (not the other Zack),
Not sure what you mean by not recognizing this sensitivity. I presented both sides of this story (through the re-posting of comments and links to where people could see lots more on the discussion). I realize that it’s a blog but I generally/usually choose not to interject with my own opinion. Maybe that is what you were hoping for?
Cheers & appreciate the comment,
Adam
Epically stupid. READ THE FREAKING LABEL STORY INSTEAD OF JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE.
Political correctness on stupid steroids.
It’s one of history’s great misconceptions that millions of women were burned at the stake. In reality, the number lies somewhere between 50,000-100,000 over the course of two centuries. You were safer being a practicing pagan in the middle ages than you are living in some inner cities. http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html#Millions
I agree with Patrick. Read the label. What is the matter with people! It’s a label for crying out loud. If you don’t like it don’t drink the beer.
Dumb chicks need to learn their place and keep their mouths shut. And modern day witches are as dumb as Twilight-loving vamp kids.
If you look back on history, everyone has been a slave, persecuted, burned, massacred, or discriminated against. If you don’t like the label, don’t buy the beer. The end.
what iv learned over the past 20 years or so is that you cant quel the “wiccan/pagan” group.
they can and will find some thing to wine about at every turn. every next step is the biggest atrosity in there history.
come on guys…harry potter,charmed, wizards of waverly place, supernatural, angel,buffy. they are tv showns and comics. its time to put the light saber down. move out of your parents basment and get a life.
at most every single one iv met (the number is in the high thousands in the cincinnati area) makes up there faith on the fly. they are all hypocrits
they try to basterdise every faith that is not judao chritian into one lump.
blessed be and walk your own path. do not force others to see through your eyes.
by telling this beer to change there art you have broken every tenament of the faith.
The label does not fit the style.
Scream Sensitivity when people actually in modern times publicly burn people at the stake and nobody cares.
Just because it is a business and you have some leverage to do something because you don’t agree doesn’t mean it is right. Do you go after the private artists and collectors??? Probably not. Beer or not, ideals or not… we are over 500yrs from this point in “history” …. quit reliving the past as it were the present!
Points all taken. Except for “manlyman’s” – that one was comply dismissed as having no point other than the fact that he is obviously a masochist. Sounds more like little man syndrome to me. Certainly NOT “manlyman”!
The point made by Vicki Noble is the point: If this were a black women, for example, steps to immediately remove the beer from circulation would have been taken already. Everyone is in an uproar because a wiccan initiated this. More power to HER. The Lost Abbey company was completely out of line in what they came up with to try to sell their seasonal beer. Then again, perhaps they already knew that – they did say that they would meet AFTER Halloween to discuss a label change. By that time, they will have taken their seasonal beer off the shelves. To them, it’s just business, money, and now the publicity. Bottom line is that they are WRONG. I do NOT want to see these graphics on their bottle again next October!
Oh this argument truly pains me seeing as how I am a feminist, an avid art lover, and a craft beer evangelist. I am extremely torn.
As a native East Coaster who was rather preoccupied with the Salem Witch Trials (and Joan of Arc etc…), this topic hits a bit close to home. In fact, the main monologue I used for auditions since high school was a scene from George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan” right before she gets burned at the stake. Whereas I do understand the criticism against it, the art lover in me cannot help but think that this label is absolutely stunning. A great piece that exudes strong emotion.
And then there is the beer. I do detest when people lash out against the craft beer industry.
Not sure where I stand on this argument. I agree that the label has nothing to do with the style or the title of the beer. But then, the artist was commissioned to do the piece and I would really like to hear why he took this direction, it might help us better understand the label.
I also completely agree with the wiccan argument that if this label involved any other race or religion, it would never have been approved. I do recognize wiccan as a legitimate religion/belief system/ organization etc… and think that they should be treated with equal rights as the rest.
Ugh. What a hard place to be. I look forward to seeing what happens…
Where were all you fema-nazi’s when Flying Dog released “Raging Bitch” Belgian IPA. I bet you were all too busy downloading Gloria Steinem speeches to your IPod. Lighten up a little! Nobody wants to burn witches anymore, unless you start doing spells on children again like the Salem Witch trials. Happy Halloween!
@Dee… Masochist??? Are you serious? Do you mean “misogynist” perhaps? What a voice for the feminist movement you are. This proves my point perfectly that any idiot can plead a case and find something to complain about even though they aren’t truly informed.
@ Spare Me
Flying Dog doesn’t use depictions of women in thier “bitch” marketing..they use depictions of dogs so your Flying Dog comparison doesn’t compare with this.
I like craft beers and even sometimes will buy one because of a clever label. I can guarantee you seeing a beer bottle label with a woman on it being burnt at the stake makes me think one thing, “ugh, this is clearly being made by misogynistic douches with the sensitivity of a rock.”
As far as their back label backstories, that’s just stupid marketing. The pubic has no attention span. Primary identifying labeling should grab a customer and convey a concept to them instantly. Preferably a concept about the product. What the hell does a burning woman say to me about their beer? If a potential customer doesn’t get your intent instantly then thats a reflection on your crappy attempt at marketing, not the customer. Whoever is in charge of the marketing at Lost Abbey doesn’t even know the basics of how to run successful marketing that’s pretty obvious. Out of curiosity I went to their website and saw the posting by Tomme. His posting only reconfirmed the impression I got from seeing this label on one of their beers, “idiotic douchebags with no ability to see the larger implications of things”. Seeing how they are handling this situation was even more of a turn off to me and pretty much ensures that I’ll never buy one of their products should I even encounter one. I’m not a pagan. Just a regular gal who doesn’t like assholes. What does putting a burning woman on a stake say to the general public about the beer and the company?
And Spare Me, there are still plenty of examples of violence against women in this day and age. Stoning for example is still practiced in some countries. Your attitude illustrates exactly why this kind of imagery on a beer bottle is inappropriate. The trivialization of atrocities committed against women is clearly still strong even in our western culture. Yes I realize that men were burned at the stake for being “witches” too but this label chose to depict a women being burnt alive. Even the argument that it’s historical is weak, why not depict then Jews being gassed, that’s historical, or Christians being rent by lions in an arena?
Using any historical imagery depicting violence is a poor choice to use in a marketing campaign to sell beer, period. It only illustrates the lack of any concept of sensitivity or the ability to identify with others not of your ilk. The art argument is weak as well, at the end of the day its a marketing tool used to sell beer. What tools you use to do that does say something about you.
TxGal: Spare me your sanctimonious blather. Do you honestly think the brewers are sitting around like some woman-hating cabal, uncontrollably laughing as the bottles are filled, satisfied knowing that their anti-women agenda has finally come to fruition?
Art IS art.
They decided to release it. You don’t have to buy it.
I’m not from San Marcos, although I like it there very much. And while wiccans and pagans might be a “minority interest group,” women are 51% of the human race.
Of course Lost Abbey can keep their label! No one is questioning that. It’s just a question of whether that one particular act of self expression is really worth so much when set in the balance against the people who are upset by this. There are lots of ways to make a funny, tongue-in-cheek, anti-RC image to go with Witches Wit. Be creative! And remember, there’s no shame in deciding to make a relatively minor change so as not to offend other people. Some of us just call that being nice. Save the sticking-to-your-guns attitude for the things that really matter.
Until I read the label text, I was in support of Lost Abbey’s existing artwork. Burning a person at the stake is a gruesome act and it’s curious that an artist would cast it in such a romanticized light. We must concede that various acts of violent persecution have been the subject of artwork throughout the centuries, often with the intent to reflect on the martyrdom of the victims.
If it were truly Lost Abbey’s intent to “honor that woman”, as they told Fox News, their label text would not be so cruelly pointed and sardonic. “Say hello to the Prince of Darkness for us”. The label text smirks at the misfortune that “such is the life of a witch.” It doesn’t appear to treat the subject with much compassion, rather inferring that burning at the stake is a punishment worthy of the crimes, justifying the townspeople’s collective condemnation.
So, strangely, I think the pagans have a point. I don’t know that it’s really as misogynistic as it’s being made out to be, though. The label text makes no mention of the pagan’s gender, and the label art itself merely reflects that the historical (mis)conception of a witch is female.
I look at it in this light: if the beer were called “Heretic’s Wit” instead and featured a male being burned at the stake, with the same sarcastic messaging, “oh, it sucks that your blood will boil because you chose not to conform”… I think it would be offensive, too. I’m more than willing to concede, though, that I’m a bit uninformed when it comes to how much of the history of witch-burning was nothing more than misogyny masquerading as an egregiously unenlightened form of religion.
Personally, it’s not the *image* I have a problem with, but rather the messaging. The image itself is haunting and thought-provoking and I think those are OK attributes for marketing a well-crafted beverage with a very long history.
Where can I buy some? That’s a great bit of marketing!!
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I’ve tried Witch’s Wit. I thought it sucked.
As a Pagan, I’m not thrilled with the imagery. I bought it because it was a craft beer and I tend to like craft beers. Not this one though. The title is fine to me, but not the image. An image of a witch telling a joke or practicing their craft (tending herbs- say hops- as an example) would suit the name and may cause less negative feedback for them. And I would buy it again, despite not having liked the brew the first time. There will always be a segment of a population that will find something to complain about.
And as for Twilight, it sucks too. I’ll never fathom how that became popular.
I have to partially agree with Val. This beer was a huge disappointment. First of all, who in their right minds filters a witbier? The Citrus overtones were completely nonexistent, and the Clove & coriander muskiness was off the chart.
As to the label controversy, I feel the image is taken out of context. It they read the back label before taking to the picket lines, they would see that there is far more meat there than the P.C / Wiccan community would like to project. The legend on the back label denotes a certain label of sympathy and recognition that this was an obscenity likely committed in ignorance.
And yes, Val… as a part-time fanboy and full time lush, I have to agree with you, Twilight sucks.
Those who say “don’t buy the beer” are missing the point. People who find this label offensive will most likely not buy the beer. Do the brewers have a right to sell it? Absolutely. But, to tell people to shut up about the label is just as unrealistic and short sighted as it is for the brewers to not expect people to raise hell about the beer label. The truth is that the scene represents a horrible atrocity in history. People (mostly women) who were burned at the stake did not die a quick death. They died a death that is so horrible and agonizing, words cannot describe it. You only need look at the footage of people jumping from the World Trade Towers on 9/11 to realize this. So, to use that image as a means of making money is far beyond insensitive. It’s morally bankrupt. You are free to use whatever artwork you want on a product. But with that freedom comes the responsibility of accepting the consequences. Well, here are the consequences: People are so offended and upset by such a crass use of something that should be solemn that they are willing to blog against it, post against it, and boycott the product. If you can’t accept that, then you are not a proponent of freedom. You are a proponent of freedom only when it is on your own terms.