Brewery apologises and CEO resigns after calling non-alcoholic beer ‘gay lemonade’

A brewery in Australia has apologised after enraging Facebook users with a post that mocked non-alcoholic beer as “gay lemonade”.

(Photo: Southern Bay Brewery)

Geelong-based brewery Southern Bay apologised for sharing a meme on Facebook this week that said: “Non-alcoholic beer. You mean gay lemonade?”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the post sparked outrage with users on the social media platform. Southern Bay has since removed the meme from its page.

The brewery responded to the backlash yesterday with another Facebook post, in which the CEO, Nick W, apologised for any offence caused.

The brewery boss said the meme was uploaded “without any thought whatsoever and no offence was intended. I apologise unreservedly.”

Later, the brewery edited its post to add that the CEO would resign with immediate effect.

It added that the brewery would be “more careful selecting our posts in future.”

“We realise this is not good enough and we should not have posted the homophobic beer meme. It will not happen again. It was a gross error and mistake and we would appreciate it if people were kind enough to forgive us.”

While some users were satisfied with the apology, others responded to say Southern Bay’s actions were “not remotely acceptable”, adding that the follow-up was “insincere”.

One commenter said: “I hope you have in mind some further actions to help those you decided to punch down on today and not just the easy lip service of a generic apology as per the above.”

the drinks business has contacted Southern Bay for further comment.