Craft-beer labels are no stranger to controversy. As Will Gordon wrote for Slate on Monday, "A lot of craft-beer marketing is astonishingly sexist." As examples, Gordon notes beers with sexist names (Raging Bitch IPA) and labels (cartoonishly large-breasted women in skimpy outfits).

If he'd waited just a few more days before publishing, however, he could have included an even more egregious example of controversy from right here in St. Louis.

Alpha Brewing Co. on Wednesday revealed via Twitter the image of a new label that manages to attack the entire religion of Islam.

The label in question is for Submission Ale, a smoked brown ale. The graphic on the label shows a drawing of a pig wearing what appears to be a burka. The label copy reads, "Alpha Akbar! This smoked ale will blow your mind. Denounce everything you thought and knew about beer in the name of Alpha. Let your tastebuds explode. Submit to the smokey flavor. Shove this down your throat."

Everything about the label seems calibrated to insult Islam, from the pig in a traditional Muslim garment (Muslims abstain from pork) to the corruption of the phrase "Allahu Akbar" to the Muslim-equals-terrorist stereotype not-so-subtly implied by "Let your tastebuds explode."

Oh, and the literal translation of Islam from Arabic to English is Submission.

Oh, and Alpha announced the label as Muslims are observing Ramadan. (The beer itself will be released in August, after Ramadan has ended.)

The attack on Islam is the label's most serious fault, though I found it more than a little sexist, too. The phrase "Shove this down your throat" — which does appear on other Alpha labels — is at best a juvenile sexual innuendo. In the context of a beer called Submission, paired with a cartoon character identified as a female, it's downright sinister.

I spoke with Alpha owner Derrick Langeneckert about the label, which features a drawing by the brewery's usual artist, Jeffrey Coons. I told him at the outset that I would be writing something critical about it.

Langeneckert said the negative reaction on Twitter to the label surprised him: "The post was pretty innocuous."

He pointed out that Submission is the eighth in a series of beers called Indoctrination. Previous labels have poked fun at Catholicism (Pope Mob-Ale), Mormonism (Elder Joe), Scientology (Xenu XIPA) and atheists (Atheist Ale). The Pope Mob-Ale label features a dinosaur using the popemobile as an ice-cream truck to lure children. Atheist Ale's label shows a suit-and-bowtie-wearing chimpanzee.

"It's humorous," he said. "No one cared when we did a pope beer, a Scientology beer."

What did the mocking of religion have to do with selling or branding his beer?

"It's just an interesting idea we had," Langeneckert said. He countered with the example of Bell's Brewery series of beers named after the planets. What did the planets actually have to do with the beers themselves?

"Everyone thinks, 'My religion's right, and all the other ones are crazy,'" he said.

I told him that I thought Submission showed a greater number of provocative elements than the other Indoctrination-series labels that I'd seen.

Langeneckert allowed that he hadn't considered the Ramadan issue, though he pointed out that Pope Mob-Ale came out a week after Easter.

"In the context, maybe it's a little too insensitive," he said.

Almost incidentally, in light of its aforementioned problems, Alpha's new beer shares its name with a local craft brewery's existing brand: 2nd Shift Brewing's Sub-Mission IPA, brewed in collaboration with Mission Taco Joint.

Alpha has already announced that this issue, at least, will be resolved with a name change.



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