Oge began writing blog post in 2017 after finishing his Secondary Education at Saint Patrick's Secondary School Enugu. He attended Zhejiang University of science and technology at the department of Digital Media Technology also currently schooling at Enugu State University of science and technology (ESUT) In the department of Geology and Minning. Oge Ebube has many works in Music and he is currently writting a short novel 'Je suis Prisoner: I'm a Prisoner'.
Email: ogeebube@validnewstoday.com
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In June of 1991, while a reorganized @{G. Heileman}@ was trying toget back on its financial feet after the exiting of the Alan Bond regime, the breweryannounced the creation of a new malt liquor called @{PowerMaster}@. This new brew would beadded to its collection of other high-octane brews, including its best seller, @{Colt 45}@.PowerMaster would have an alcoholic content of about 5.5 to 6 percent, depending on thelegal restrictions of some western states.
“Upper strength malt liquors, those with a higher alcohol content, aregrowing,” said a brewery spokesman. Some industry observers, however, weren’ttoo sure about bringing one more malt liquor into the beer market, especially with thegrowing wave of neo-prohibitionism and moderation in the consumption of alcoholicbeverages in general.
“It’s a gutsy move on Heileman’s part,”said an industry observer, “but I’m not sure they can pull it off.”
But one could also see Heileman’s logic in introducingyet another malt liquor. The malt liquor market had shown increases of 300,000 barrels ineach of the last two years to 6.1 barrels in 1990. In an otherwise stagnant market and ina rebuilding phase, Heileman was willing to bring on PowerMaster and pit it against theStroh brewery’s @{Schlitz Malt Liquor}@, A-B’s @{King Cobra}@ and Miller’s @{Magnum}@.
About the same time that PowerMaster was making its debut inChicagoland, Reverends George Clements and the bete noire of the Chicago RomanCatholic Archdiocese, Father Michael Pfleger showed up at Heileman’s La Crosse,Wisconsin offices and demanded to speak with the brewery’s president, ThomasRattigan. The priests contended that the new PowerMaster with its high alcohol kick wasbeing targeted at black communities.
When the duo was informed that Rattigan was out-of-town andthat no other member of the brewery’s management team was willing to meet with them,they refused to leave the company offices. Company officials called the police whopromptly arrested the clerics for trespassing.
In the courtroom of La Crosse Municipal Court Judge RobertJoanis, the two were released on $85 signature bonds and admonished by the judge that anyfuture protests could land them in jail. He also ordered that they return to La Crosse onAugust 22 to answer the trespassing charges. In typical defiant fashion, the priests vowedthat they would return to the brewery and continue the fight against the marketing andselling of the new PowerMaster product.
The Fed Stops PowerMaster
Clements and Pfleger, however, were just a small part of anationwide campaign to usurp the placement of PowerMaster in the retail beer market. Various blackleaders, Surgeon General Antonia Novello and representatives of anti-drinking groups hadcaught the attention of Washington, and in doing so, stirred the Bureau of Alcohol Tobaccoand Firearms into action.
In early July, BATF representatives descended on La Crosse andin a two-hour meeting, informed Heileman that they were pulling approval of thePowerMaster label. Citing laws established by the Federal Alcohol Administration Act of1935, the BATF claimed that were invoking a passage in the Act that forbade the labelingor advertising of beer as being “strong, full strength, extra strength or hightest,” all words that could be construed as an indication of alcoholic strength.
After the United States brewing industry lost its eight monthexclusive right to manufacture 3.2 percent beer with the repeal of Prohibition on December5, 1933, many breweries came out with a line of what were commonly referred to as”headache beers,” malted beverages with a high alcohol content. These beers werebrewed in an attempt to blunt a possible loss of market share to distilled spiritsmanufacturers.
After claiming since the nineteenth century that beer was a”drink of moderation,” the move by brewers to manufacture and advertise highalcohol products seemed a bit hypocritical and left the industry in a tenative position. Still gun-shy that the federal governmentcould giveth and taketh away the right to brew beer again, the United States brewingindustry had grudgingly accepted the labeling restrictions.
Following a very wide interpretation of these post-Prohibitionguidelines, the BATF claimed that the word “Power” violated federal law.Heileman was allowed to sell its existing stock of PowerMaster for the next four monthsbut would have to stop any advertising of
