Image from hellsbasement.com

By Chris Brown

What's in a name?

Hell’s Basement apologizes for beer named ‘pubic hair’ in Maori

Aug 10, 2020 | 12:23 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A Medicine Hat brewery got some unwanted international attention over the weekend for the name of one of its beers.

Last week a Maori man, Te Hamua Nikora, posted on social media that Huruhuru, which the local brewery thought meant feather, actually means pubic hair in te reo, the language spoken by the Maori.

Hell’s Basement Brewery founder and general manager Mike Patriquin said they are not doing interviews about the name but provided CHAT News with a statement.

“At Hell’s Basement Brewery we support all forms of culture, including beer culture. It was not our intent to offend anyone. Words often have multiple meanings and context matters. In this context, the interpretation was intended as “feather” – meaning the beer itself is light as a feather and this is also stated in the name. The full name of the beer is “Huruhuru (the Feather) New Zealand Hopped Pale Ale”. That said, we acknowledge that we did not consider the common place use of the term huruhuru as reference to pubic hair, and that consultation with a Maori representative would have been a better reference than online dictionaries. We also do not think pubic hair is shameful, though we admit it may not go well with beer. We are all human after all! We also believe that language and art are forms of communication and can provide others with inspiration. We did not intend to offend through our artistic interpretation. We are learning and we will do better in the future. We wish to make especially clear that we are deeply sorry for having infringed upon, appropriated, and offended the Maori culture or people in any way; to those we disrespected, we apologize. We thank those that sought to inform us and create a dialogue in a respectful way. Crude and redundant social media posts were deleted. We are proud of the product itself and we are currently in the process of re-branding this product. We will consider all positive and helpful suggestions. We hope you are all able to safely enjoy your beverage of choice.

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Huruhuru (the feather) is brewed with the New Zealand hop varietals Motueka and Rakau which give it a refreshing and unique flavour profile. In choosing the name, we at Hell’s Basement Brewery were inspired to acknowledge the unique New Zealand flavour addition to a wonderful thirst-quenching Albertan craft beer.”

Patriquin adds Hell’s Basement has no plans to remove the existing product from shelves during the re-branding.

The story was picked up by CNN and BBC, as well as other media outlets.