--- title: Fourth culturally offensive UK brewery apologises description: 28 hours after writing after writing public correspondence accusing UK brewery Rammy Craft culturally offensive beer label, they apologise. url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/fourth-culturally-offensive-uk-brewery-apologises/ markdown_url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/fourth-culturally-offensive-uk-brewery-apologises.md type: post slug: fourth-culturally-offensive-uk-brewery-apologises author: Karaitiana Taiuru published: 2018-06-16T23:03:33Z modified: 2018-06-16T23:03:33Z language: en-NZ taxonomies: category: - Algorithmic Bias - Māori AI word_count: 620 tokens: 948 --- # Fourth culturally offensive UK brewery apologises 28 hours after writing a public tweet (DM UK media) and a detailed article on my web site accusing UK brewery Rammy Craft of ignoring correspondence regarding culturally offensive beer label, they reply with an explanation and apology. The email reply is copied in full is below. It is frustrating that it took 7 weeks, seeking co operation from an active consultant in the UK craft beer community, a private email, a warning tweet and then a damming public email to get a response. I am happy that there will be one less culturally offensive to Māori UK beer label on the market soon and that awareness is raising. The important lesson for any breweries is that no matter where in the world you are, Māori culturally appropriation is not tolerated and with the accessibility of the Internet and with activsits such as myself, we will seek redress.   ———- Forwarded message ——— From: Andy Morrison <sales@rammycraft.com> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 at 00:15 Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation Flaori Maori To: Karaitiana Taiuru <karaitiana@taiuru.maori.nz> Dear Karaitiana Apologies for the delay in responding to this email, I only became aware of it after your recent tweets and blog post.  I am shocked and saddened to hear that you find our Flaori Maori label design and name culturally offensive. This certainly wasn’t our intention. We have used this design for the last five years and this is the first complaint we have come across. Having read your detailed explanation about the cultural heritage of the imagery used I now see that it is inappropriate.  I only recently took over managing the brewery and this design was already in place. I am therefore unaware as to the origins of the name or where the design came from. I believe it was more a case of naivety from the previous manager who I’m sure was unaware of the cultural significance of the design. You will be pleased to know that I am currently in the process of rebranding the whole brewery with a new name and new names and designs for all our beers. This will include completely dropping the Flaori Maori beer.  As we are a very small brewery we can’t afford the financial repercussions of recalling  all the Flaori Maori that is currently out in circulation or with our distributors. I have ceased brewing it however and have no stocks of it left.  In the meantime I will remove any traces of Flaori Maori on our website or on social media and will advise my customers to do the same. I hope this is an adequate response to your enquiry and would like to apologise again for any offence caused. Kind regards Andy Morrison Head Brewer Ramsbottom Craft Brewery Ltd   My response to the above email. ———- Forwarded message ——— From: Karaitiana Taiuru <karaitiana@taiuru.maori.nz> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 at 11:01 Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation Flaori Maori To: <sales@rammycraft.com> Dear Andy, Thank you for your reply and apologies.  I appreciate your response and proposed actions.  Cultural appropriation has been allowed, if not normalised by society all over the world. In terms of Māori culture, appropriation has certainly been normalised with our national airline carrier the longest most prolific corporation. Only in recent years has society begun to make a stand. I assume this and the fact that you are so far away from New Zealand is the reason this is the first complaint. You are the fourth UK Craft brewer this year that I have contacted and all of the responces are similar.  I hope that better education and publicity will be the best defense in the future to protect everybody. Again, thanks for the reply and proposed actions.  Regards, Karaitiana Taiuru