Oso
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"Evil Green Beer"?
Mexican brewery taps name of crime legend
commentsby Chris Hawley - Aug. 26, 2008 12:00 AM
Mexico City Bureau
GUADALAJARA, Mexico - A new beer named after the "patron saint" of drug traffickers is brewing up controversy in Mexico, where the government is
locked in a bloody battle against drug gangs.
Malverde Beer is named after Jesús Malverde, a Robin Hood-style figure who is revered by drug smugglers in the western Mexico state of Sinaloa. It
debuted in April and has been spreading to bars around western Mexico. The brewer plans to sell it in the United States, too.
The beer has appeared as Mexico is reeling from a spike in drug-related murders and the United States prepares to pour about $465 million into Mexican
anti-drug efforts. Civic groups in Sinaloa have criticized the beer, and Wal-Mart of Mexico has refused to stock it.
"When a product exalts something illegal, that's wrong," said Paul Velázquez, president of the Los Mochis Area Business Owners' Association in
northern Sinaloa.
The new brew is part of the so-called narcoculture that continues to fascinate Mexicans despite the violence that has swept over the country in recent
years, Velázquez said.
Songs about drug smugglers, known as narcocorridos, remain a staple of Mexican banda music. Newsstands sell pocket-size comic books starring smugglers
and hit men, and Mexican movies like the upcoming El Cartel revolve around the country's underworld. One of the hot books of the summer is The Queen
of the Pacific and other Narco Women, about Sandra Ávila, who was arrested in October and remains in prison on charges of drug trafficking.
The beer's maker, the small Minerva Brewery in Guadalajara, is donating 1 percent of its profits to a chapel dedicated to Malverde in the city of
Culiacán. The company says the beer is not meant to glamorize the drug trade.
"We're just trying to honor a Mexican legend, that's all," said Jesús Briseño, the brewery's general manager.
Historians are unsure whether Jesús Malverde ever existed. But legend says he was born in the late 1800s and embarked on a life of crime in Sinaloa,
robbing from the rich and giving to the poor during the reign of Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. He was executed by the Sinaloa state governor in
1909, the stories say.
Over the decades, admirers began attributing miracles to him and building shrines in Sinaloa, though the Roman Catholic Church rejects the practice.
Malverde: 'Green evil'
In the 1980s, drug smugglers began praying to the legendary outlaw for protection. The name Malverde translates literally as "green evil," evoking
marijuana.
Drug couriers known as mules sometimes carry pictures of him, and his chapel in Culiacán is full of offerings and letters asking for his help.
Briseño said he got the idea for the beer after visiting Malverde's chapel.
It's not Minerva's first publicity stunt. In 2006, the company made headlines when it produced 24,000 bottles of Duff Beer, named after Homer
Simpson's favorite brew in The Simpsons.
A Mexican businessman had registered the Duff Beer name in Mexico and hired Minerva to make a test batch in an effort to sell the idea to Fox Studios.
Fox said it wasn't interested, killing plans to mass-produce Duff, Briseño said.
For Malverde Beer, the company designed a green label featuring a hops plant, the mustachioed Malverde and the slogan "A hero, a legend, a beer." The
art was meant to look like a superhero comic book, Briseño said.
The beer itself is a malty, European-style pilsner. Some of the barley is imported from Wisconsin, Briseño said.
At 77 pesos ($7.60) for a six-pack, it is about twice as expensive as other Mexican beers. Briseño said the company is marketing it mainly to upscale
bars that specialize in imports.
The Casa Ley supermarket chain, am/pm convenience stores and a pharmacy chain have also started selling the brew, he said. Wal-Mart of Mexico sold
some as part of a Minerva Brewery variety pack during a promotion in June, but the chain has refused to carry the brand by itself because of the name,
Briseño said.
Minerva now sells about 600 cases of the beer a month, up from 400 cases in April. Briseño said the company is registering the brand in the United
States and wants to begin exporting Malverde soon.
At the Red Pub in Guadalajara, manager Alejandro Pérez said his customers were divided over the beer.
"The people who buy it buy it because of the image," Pérez said. "And the people who don't buy it do it for the same reason."
All my childhood I wanted to be older. Now I\'m older and this chitn sucks.
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Udo
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GREAT POST, OSO!
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
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Oso
Ultra Nomad
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Location: on da border
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I picked up a plaster bust of Malverde once in San Luis. Made the mistake of not covering it up coming back across. Automatic secondary... It
should be noted that although his memory is "sacred" to drug smugglers, the legend of the man himself (if he actually existed) does not involve drugs,
just your run-of-the mill armed robbery etc. Of course in the late 1800s, marijuana, opium, even heroin was quite legal in both Mexico and the U.S.
It's the "outlaw" aspect that attracts today's outlaws.
All my childhood I wanted to be older. Now I\'m older and this chitn sucks.
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