‘Disrespectful, hurtful’: Activists demand recall of foreign beer with image of Hindu goddess on label

The product is available for sale on the Bien Manger website and is an India Pale Ale, a bitter variety of craft beer.

Updated: January 13, 2023 01:00 PM IST

3 min read

A gourmet food website has been criticised for carrying a brand of organic beer named 'Mandala' with the image of an Indian goddess on the label. (Representational image via Unsplash)

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A gourmet food website has been criticised for carrying a brand of organic beer named ‘Mandala’ with the image of an Indian goddess on the label. The product is available for sale on the Bien Manger website and is an India Pale Ale, a bitter variety of craft beer.

A UK-based advocacy campaign group took to Twitter on January 11 to demand the recall of the product. “Bien Manger uses sacred image of Hindu Goddess on their beer bottle. @BienManger it’s highly insensitive, disrespectful & hurtful to #Hindus. The Goddess Hindus worship is being used on your beer bottles. We demand you recall all such products & stop further manufacturing of it,” said Insight UK, which described itself as “a social movement of the British Hindu and British Indian (BHI) communities.”

The beer, produced by France-based Brasserie d’Olt, is also available on other websites selling alcoholic products and is priced at 3.65 euros (around Rs 321) for 330 ml.

“The Indians Pale Ales are brewed with high hops and a high alcohol content allowing a very good conservation over time. These beers stem from a tradition that dates back to the 18th century and were originally intended for the British colonial troops based in India. The beers had a high bitterness and alcohol content to withstand transport by boat. The recipe remains, but the storage conditions have changed. Mandala beer is brewed in a British style with Pale Ale malt, four hops, an American yeast strain and water from the boraldes of Aubrac. This beer has been brewed by infusion and hot and cold hopping,” read the product description on the website.

The original tweet garnered attention online, with Twitter users tagging the Ministry of External Affairs, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the replies, and demanding action against the producers.

“Highly condemnable and should be removed. Not sure what’s the motive behind such sacrilege,” wrote one user, while another called for a boycott of the brand.

Neither Bien Manger nor Brasserie d’Olt has issued a response in this regard.

Earlier in 2013, The Indian Express had reported that an Australian brewery had come under fire for using pictures of Hindu deities Ganesh and Lakshmi on the label of its alcoholic ginger beer bottles. The New South Wales-based Brookvale Union Brewery was asked to withdraw the label and apologise for the offense caused. The brewery said that the label was meant to represent the “flair, feel and colours of the Asian continent,” which is a primary source of ginger, and promised to review the design options following the backlash.

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