Brewer’s Malt Liquor Gets Another Name

G. Heileman Brewing Co. is introducing a malt liquor similar in content to the brewer’s high-alcohol PowerMaster, which was rejected by federal regulators last year, a government spokesman said Monday.

The company denied that the product was the same. But a spokesman with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said Heileman’s latest malt liquor, Colt 45 Premium, is the same formula as the brewer’s rejected product.

“Our information is this was the new label for the product PowerMaster. I’m not aware of any changes they made in the product,” bureau spokesman Jack Killorin said.

But Randy Smith, Heileman vice president and general counsel, said Colt 45 Premium is not PowerMaster renamed but a “line extension” of Colt 45 malt liquor.

“It is not Colt PowerMaster. Period,” he said.

Heileman pulled PowerMaster from the market last July after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said its name violated federal rules barring container labels or advertising from promoting a product’s alcoholic strength.

The rejection came as critics rapped Heileman for aiming a high-alcohol malt liquor at minority groups already troubled by alcoholism.

Killorin said the government approved Colt 45 Premium because the new name no longer violated federal rules.