Here’s one that will stick out on the bottle shop shelf: East 9th Brewing’s ‘The People Vs.’ series of Fog City Cloudy Cider, that comes adorned with one of six bold political statements.
Fancy a bottle of ‘I’d Swap Pauline For A Refugee’? Or would you prefer an ‘I Still Hate Tony Abbott’? In their own words, East 9th Brewing have aimed to create “a brew to keep left-wing Aussies frothing”.
“Affectionately known as ‘activist cider’, Fog City positively protests against the injustices of Australia’s bigoted politicians, laws and prejudices,” and is “Australia’s only cider with a political conscience,” reads a statement from the company.
Adding to their ‘activist’ credentials, East 9th Brewing have also announced that they will donate a percentage of the proceeds from Fog City Activist Cider each month to “charities and organisations who help Australians and people trying to come to Australia.”
The cider itself is described as a medium-dry cider and is made with homegrown Australian apples and pears.
The East 9th team is made up of Josh Lefers, Stephen Wools and Benjamin Cairns, and this isn’t their first foray into unique packaging; the company is also responsible for Doss Blockos, a beer that comes in a six-pack with each bottle individually wrapped in a stubbie-sized brown paper bag.
According to Lefers, the activist cider has been released to “keep the bastards honest”.
“We are a national company, who wanted to talk about the damning issues that are affecting Australians, and people trying to come to Australia. These labels reflect our opinions and beliefs and we’d like to think that it’s also a reflection of many other people’s too.”
East 9th explain how the idea and execution of the activist cider came about: “We were hanging out telling stories to each other about the activists from San Fran in the 70’s, activists who inspired us by challenging the powers-that-be through positive protest and through living alternative lifestyles.
“Some of our crew suggested we should jot down our own activist slogans that reflected beliefs we were passionate about. So we did, and we threw them into a hat, and what we pulled out became the bones of The People Vs. series.”
Fog City activist cider can be purchased nationally from independent retailers for $6.99 per 500ml bottle.