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Quebec brewery Le Corsaire slammed for sexist beer names, unlikely sales will suffer

Part of the beer label for Le Corsaire's beer La Perruche (The Parrot)

The folks at Le Corsaire, a Lévis, Que., micro-brewery may be contrite on the surface but I bet they're high-fiving each other behind closed doors after being accused of sexism in the labelling of some of their beers.

There is, as P.T. Barnum is reputed to have said, no such thing as bad publicity.

I'd be surprised if sales of Le Corsaire's seasonal brews, with names such as The Hooker and La Tite Pute (the little slut) don't take off after a CBC News story on the outrage the names have sparked among women's groups.

"The name La Tite Pute disgusts me," Julie Miville-Dechêne, head of Quebec's Council on the Status of Women, told CBC News.

“[Prostitution] exploits women. There isn’t a lot of choice involved, there is a lot of exploitation, a lot of violence. It’s not something we should be laughing about."

She's also probably not crazy about The Parrot, one of Le Corsaire's other offerings, which features a label with a naked woman in a bird cage.

[ Related: Quebec brewery's offensive beer names spark 'disgust' ]

The flap of course sparked spirited debate on Twitter about the trend to provocatively named brews.

Barry is right. Le Corsaire is merely following the recent trend by booze-makers to give their products provocative names to get attention in a crowded marketplace.

[ Related: 12 Liquor Ads that Should Have Been Banned ]

"It's difficult to stand out from the pack on a shelf or behind a refrigerator's frosted glass in a store," Time Magazine's business and money section observed last year.

"So manufacturers are employing dark, politically incorrect, potentially offensive humor in order to catch the eye of drinkers – who may just so happen to have attitudes and sensibilities to match. Anyone who's offended probably wasn't gong to buy the product anyway, the thinking goes."

Time noted that Utah-based Ogden's Own Distillery saw its Five Wives vodka banned in Idaho for a time out of concern it might offend women and Mormons. The move made national headlines and garnered free publicity for the product. Ditto for Raging Bitch, a beer banned for a while in Michigan.

[ Related: Rum named after porn star back on Manitoba liquor store shelves ]

In Canada, some people at Ontario's Liquor Control Board got in a tizzy over Smashbomb Atomic IPA, produced by Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery of Barrie, Ont. Apparently they worried it made light of severe inebriation while at the same time creating negative associations with Canada's role in the Afghan and Libyan military missions, the Globe and Mail reported in 2011.

And we can't forget the rise that a rum named Ron de Jeremy got out of Manitoba liquor officials, who pulled it off the shelves in government liquor stores this year because the label depicted the face of the hirsute porn legend.

Marketing in the 21st century seems to be all about pushing boundaries of taste and political correctness. People are free to voice their opposition but unless the name promotes violence, say, or racism, probably the official meddlers should stay out of it.

As for Le Corsaire, co-owner Julie Gagnon told CBC News she didn't expect their attempt at humour to set off such a backlash. The names were never meant to demean women or promote violence, she said.

Of course the weren't. They were meant to sell beer.