Brewery Dumps Marketing Plans for PowerMaster
G. Heileman Brewing Co. announced late Wednesday that it will not market its controversial, high-powered malt liquor PowerMaster after the government stripped the brewer of its labeling rights for the product.
The company, however, was granted four months to sell off its existing stocks of the brew. The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms decided Wednesday that Heileman must stop using the PowerMaster label. Shortly afterward, the Wisconsin brewer announced in a prepared statement that it would discontinue the product entirely, because of the “economic burden” of a legal challenge.
Heileman executives were unavailable for comment late Wednesday.
Industry sources contend that Heileman was counting on the new, high-alcohol malt liquor to improve its financial position. In January, the firm filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Although Wednesday’s decision by the federal agency pertained only to the PowerMaster brand, the controversy has raised concerns about the high alcohol content in malt liquors and their advertising targeted toward blacks. There was some indication that the bureau might go after other brands for their marketing techniques.
“The agency has really had its eyes opened in this area,” said Jack Killorin chief of public affairs at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. “It has led us to look at a lot of point-of-sale advertising, and some of it is getting pretty close to the edge.”
PowerMaster has a 5.9% alcohol content compared to 5.5% in most malt liquors and about 3.5% for many regular beers.
But it wasn’t the actual alcohol content of PowerMaster--rather the allusion to it in its name--that raised eyebrows at the bureau. A 55-year-old law prohibits brewers from marketing their beer on the basis of its alcohol content.
It is not known how much PowerMaster is already in the distribution pipeline, but none was reported available in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday. Fearing consumer resentment, owners of some local stores said they would not carry the brew.
“The little guy has won again,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger pastor at the St. Sabina Church in Chicago. Pfleger met with Heileman officials Wednesday and warned them that if the high-alcohol brew was marketed under any name, his group was prepared to boycott its best-selling Colt 45 Malt Liquor brand in at least 10 major cities. “I told them if they renamed it ‘Gentle Lamb,’ we’d still boycott it,” Pfleger said.
In Los Angeles, Wings of Hope, an anti-drug division of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said its scrutiny is ongoing. “We will continue to monitor campaigns of alcohol targeted towards the African American community,” said the Rev. Edward H. Grice III, director of Wings of Hope.
* A BREW-HAHA’S CONCLUSION: Texas will again allow the sale of Dixie Blackened Voodoo Lager. D2
