Olympic brew-haha over plygamy comes to head
05 Nov 2001
Olympic brew-haha over polygamy comes to head
By Nancy Lofholm, Denver Post Western Slope Bureau
Friday, November 02, 2001 - Beer has been a troublesome enough issue for
Olympic organizers in Salt Lake City. But now along comes Polygamy Porter.
The beer, being brewed by the Wasatch Brewery in Salt Lake City, is
making waves in the state's image-conscious Mormon hierarchy with the slogan
"Why Have Just One!" And a new billboard with six-packs of Polygamy Porter
alongside the message "Take One Home For the Wives" recently proved to be a
bit too much.
The billboard was nixed after the Utah Department of Alcohol Beverage
Control, a group of five Mormon commissioners, ruled that liquor can't be
advertised with religious themes in a state that is 70 percent Mormon.
The commission reversed itself several weeks later in response to
complaints that the ban was agreed upon over the phone, violating Utah's
open-meetings law. But the owner of the billboard company still refused to
allow the ad.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the
Mormon Church, condemns polygamy and excommunicates those practicing it. It
is staying mum about Polygamy Porter.
"We're asked a lot about ads and books and things about the church and
we always have no comment," said church spokeswoman Kim Farah.
The brouhaha has only helped to make Polygamy Porter and its
accompanying logo T-shirts popular all over the world.
Since The Economist magazine took note of Polygamy Porter last week
and the British Broadcasting Co. put a picture of it on its website, Wasatch
has been swamped with mail orders. Requests have been coming in from pubs in
other states that would like to put Polygamy on tap.
"It's our hottest seller right now," said Wasatch Brewery owner Greg
Schirf. "Because of the wonderful help from the state of Utah, it's a very
big seller."
Utah's reaction to the beer surely helped. But an Aspen man is
slapping himself on the back over the big sales.
Art Burrows, owner of Ajax Design & Communications in Aspen, is the
mastermind behind Polygamy Porter's advertising campaign. He penned the
neoclassical-style drawing that graces Polygamy Porter's labels - a young
man with one wife swooning into his neck and a gaggle of other women and
children in the background. He also came up with the billboard message that
some Utah legislators and church officials found so offensive. And he
designed the Wasatch website, which shows a muscled man with several
skimpily clad babes hanging off his biceps, under the "Why Have Just One!"
slogan.
"A lot of influential folks in Utah would just as soon sweep this
under the carpet," said Burrows, who admitted that it's nice to sit in
Colorado and design an ad campaign guaranteed to draw attention and fire in
neighboring Utah, where there are still an estimated 30,000 to 50,000
practicing polygamists, according to a recent Salt Lake City Tribune
investigative series. "Here we can laugh about it. In Utah, not everybody
can laugh."
Polygamy Porter has made the news at a time when questions are arising
about whether a dearth of alcohol will dampen spirits at the Winter
Olympics.
Olympic organizers say booze will be available at the Games. The Utah
Alcohol Commission continues to tinker with exactly what kind of libations
will be allowed.
This week, the commission approved permits for hot-buttered rum at the
Olympic park, but nixed Irish coffee and hot chocolate with schnapps.
Polygamy Porter will probably not be found in Olympic venues. But
Schirf said it will be sold in many locations outside the boundaries of the
official Olympic sites, alongside his brewery's 2002 Unofficial Amber Ale,
which is being brewed especially for the Games.
For now, non-Utahans can find Polygamy Porter beer and gear on the
Internet at
http://www.utahbrewers.com
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Denver Post, November 2, 2001
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