Saturday 10 September 2011

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Yet Another Supportive Email

It seems our appearance in the Guardian's Word Of Mouth  is still being discovered.

Here's another supportive email.

The sender wishes to remain anonymous.


I actually work for a pump clip manufacturer, and I personally am a real ale drinker and member of CAMRA. 
I always try to taste any new customer's beers, and also do a little promotion of their ales on the Facebook and Twitter pages. BUT I won't, for personal choice, taste any that have seen fit to try to sell their beers with sexist images. 
We have had to tell one brewery that the image they wanted on their clips was homophobic, and that they were leaving themselves open to prosecution. They changed the images/names of the beer, but I still knew how they felt so I didn't try their beers when they came to my local. 
It's a shame that they feel sex/smutty humour sells, when in fact a simple piece of artwork on a pump clip, when well done sells a lot better. These breweries should try their designs first before spending their hard cash, they would sell more beer. I would definitely try them.

Monday 5 September 2011

Another Supportive Email

We've had an email from Poppy in London:

Hello, 
Fantastic blog, well overdue. I have to say my objections are slightly different to yours though. I don't really mind the poor artwork clips, and I actually quite like the goblin/dragon ones, but what has always bothered me is the constant tits and arse. As a ladyperson sometimes you're not exactly made to feel entirely welcome in certain pubs, and when you've managed to get through the looks and leers and mutterings to be confronted with some of these clips, it just sort of feels like its coming at you from all sides.
If you're shoulder to shoulder at the bar with men old enough to be you grandfather who already feel its ok to be attempting to stare through your jumper at your boobs then you look down at the tap and theres some witty 'old man has penis - young girl has breasts' - type clip, its like its saying their behaviour is acceptable and just jolly good fun.
I'd probably just be accused of being a femizazi or any number of other very creative names, but if ale makers are trying to draw in new customers, having pumps with casual sexism/racism smeared all over them when their prospective new customer may already be feeling slightly uneasy (being the only woman/chinese person/whatever in the place) it seems ridiculous to compound it with these unnecessarily demeaning clips.
Either they don't know what it is to be made to feel like a piece of meat or they simply don't care.
Sorry for the boring and poorly written essay but its something that has always grated. Thanks for the site!

Poppy


Poppy has included a couple of problematic images.

Before anyone feels the need to point it out, we are aware that Brewster's Brewing Company is female-run.



Blue Ball Brewery – "Spank"




Blue Ball Brewery – "Spank".


Thanks to @beerofthetrip for the submission.