No 'Happy Ending' for Offensive Geisha Girl Beer Bottle in Chicago

A beer-bottle label featuring a geisha girl and a box of tissues, affixed to Happy Ending imperial stout, has made a beer-store manager decidedly unhappy.

“This label is about a female Asian sex worker manually masturbating a man to orgasm and cleaning up the ejaculate with tissues,” said Adam Vavrick, who manages the beer stock for Binny’s Beverage Depot in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. “Why is that appropriate on a beer label?”

He’s decided not to carry the brew, currently among SweetWater Brewing Company’s most popular. Vavrick tweeted his decision on March 23, and so far has received 137 favorites and 49 retweets.

The label describes the brew as “sporting a huge dry hopped stiffy resulting in an explosive finish!”

It’s a beer for the boys, obviously.

“A female employee said she wouldn’t be comfortable recommending that beer to anyone,”Vavrick explained in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, adding that he surveyed store staff on the label’s content. “They all felt the same way — it’s gross and it has no place in here.”

The beer is available in 28 other Chicago-area Binny’s Beverage Depot locations, including stores in Orland Park, Bolingbrook, Naperville, Evergreen Park, Downers Grove, Wheaton and Highland Park.

Until recently, Atlanta-based SweetWater mostly sold Happy Ending in the South. SweetWater founder Freddy Bensch said the Lincoln Park complaint is a first, but he will rethink the bottle’s label.

“We maybe didn’t think this all the way through,” he said.

MORE ON SEXIST BREW

• Time to Grow Up, Breweries [ Time Out Chicago ]

• Why Does Craft Beer Suddenly Seem to Have a Problem With Women? [ Guys Drinking Beer blog ]

• Does Craft Beer Have a Sexism Problem? Binny’s Rejects Happy Ending [ Chicago Tribune ]

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