Girlie Beer Labels

All the hullabaloo at Beervana over the label for Upright's bottles of Four Play reminded me of a beer label I spotted a few months ago at Belmont Station, this "Before-After Triple Bock", which turns out to be from a Lithuanian brewery called Rinkuškiai. It didn't cost much, and I didn't have much hope for an allegedly 12% ABV Baltic bock that I'd never heard of, but it I figured the somewhat humorous nature of the label made it worth a couple bucks.

See how pretty the girl is after you drink this beer?  You should have seen her beforehand (see the side-by-side picture at the bottom of this post).  Talk about beer goggles.  The beer was pretty bad, by the way:  syrupy and one-dimensional.  Dave described it as: "Like syrup from canned fruit cocktail with fluorescent cherries".  It gets a generous "C" on Beer Advocate.

Back to Ezra's label for this year's Four Play.  Commenters at Beervana and the New School have complained that the painting of a partially undressed woman on a couch objectifies women.  Good lord.  It's a stylized piece of art, and while I think the artist has portrayed an attractive, fit young woman, it's not necessarily a seductive pose.  She might be waking up with a hangover, for all the picture conveys. To the complaint that the label panders to "stereotypical hyper-masculine, heterosexual males", Ezra replies that there is no indication of masculinity or heterosexuality in the picture at all: "the lack of presence of a male could mean the opposite".

To my mind, the Before-After label is more offensive than the Four Play label.  It's a clever drawing, and good for a titter or two, but it sends an even bleaker message about women than Ezra's pin-up art.  First, it says that a woman is only interesting if she has a particular kind of youthful beauty.  A second implication is that if you can just get drunk enough, you'll be ready to hook up with any woman.  But look, even though I said the label was more offensive than Four Play's, it's not worth throwing a snit about either one.  Lighten up, people.  Next you'll be complaining about the St. Pauli Girl (this year's is a trained architect and kick-boxer who speaks five languages and is developing her own make-up line!).

Judging from the website, Rinkuškiai markets a much more staid image in Lithuania.  But trolling the internet I found a couple more labels where they strive for prurience in strange and ineffective ways: Lobster Lovers Lager and Werewolf Dark Ale.

One more thing.  Why is it that, in a town full of beer lovers, any little glitch is greeted with a chorus of "Boycott!"?