Wisconsin brewery under fire after “Date Grape” beer recipe included in online contest

A microbrewery in Milwaukee has been hit with intense criticism after an online beer recipe submission featured on its website had a title making light of sexual assault.

MobCraft Beer, which has been featured on the hit TV program “Shark Tank,” allows fans to submit potential beer recipes in a monthly contest. After an online vote, the brewery actually makes the most popular submission. Past winners include “Hop Cobbler,” “Laughing Clown,” “No Stout About It” and “Wheat Men Can’t Jump.”

But December’s contest got off to a poor start when Jeremy Bergener of of Westminster, Colorado, submitted a recipe called “Date Grape” that called for wine grape juice and dates to be added to beer, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The submission was included among the eight candidates in December’s poll, and a wave of backlash quickly followed.

“Shook my head like here we go again,” Maryann Clesceri, the head of sexual assault support center, told FOX 6. “Again, [victims] are feeling ... minimized and what happened to them isn't important."

At first, the recipe’s name was changed to “Dates and Grapes,” according to the Journal-Sentinel, but it was eventually removed Tuesday and the company issued a formal apology.

“I am sincerely sorry that this incident occurred and by no means is it a reflection of the views of MobCraft Beer and its employees,” founder and CEO Henry Schwartz said. “I feel horrible that this oversight happened. We would never promote rape culture as it is a very serious issue, never to be joked about.”

Schwartz said the recipe made it onto the company’s website because submissions were automatically generated without any vetting. He said there is now a process in place to check names before they are included and announced that a portion of the brewery’s sales on Saturday would go to a rape crisis center.

The recipe’s creator, Bergener, also named the beer and defended it as a joke in a Facebook post that has since been deleted, according to the Journal-Sentinel.

“Date rape isn't funny, but date grape … ” he wrote.

But after the initial controversy and apology, which seemed to placate most online commenters, the company is facing additional scrutiny over several of its beer labels that feature racial caricatures, according to OnMilwaukee.

“Sippin' On G&J” features a hop flower “man” with braids leaning against a convertible under graffiti typeface. “Señor Bob” shows a sombrero-wearing Mexican drinking beer. “Arabian Date Night” shows a date fruit wearing a turban. All of those labels are still on the company’s website, but Schwartz told OnMilwaukee that they, “have been changed online, and any future production runs of the beers will have different labels.”

“I appreciate when MobCraft read our concerns about Date Grape, they listened,” one of the company’s first critics, Susie Seidelman, told OnMilwaukee. “They didn't try to say 'hey, lighten up,' or 'we didn't mean for this to be offensive.' They listened, apologized and removed the beer from the running.

“That is exactly the model they should follow with the concerns people have brought forward about racist beer labels they've produced.”

This story was originally published December 8, 2016 at 2:07 PM with the headline "Wisconsin brewery under fire after “Date Grape” beer recipe included in online contest."