Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress, has stopped production of Bïeryoncé beer with a cease-and-desist letter. A cease and desist letter requires to stop purportedly illegal activity ("cease") and to not restart later ("desist"). Otherwise the party may be sued.
Lineup Brewing, a Brooklyn based craft brewer, launched the beer last month as a tribute to the winner of 22 Grammy Awards, who has sold an estimated 100 million records as a solo artist.
“As a Hispanic, female run business, I am very inspired by her so I thought I’d pay homage,” said LineupBrewing’s owner Katarina Martinez. “We’re disappointed she didn’t take it as a compliment,” she told music publication Pitchfork. “We tried to make it a parody more than anything else, and we weren’t too worried because ‘Bieryonce’ isn’t actually her name. It isn’t even actually a word,” Martinez said.
The beer, a German pilsner, comes in a silver can with a black label and pink writing, which resembles the cover of Beyoncé’s eponymous album from 2013.
Since only about 150 cases of the beer were produced Martinez agreed to stop production but will sell the remaining stock of the original product. On Monday, Lineup announced on Instagram that they’ve renamed the product Kätariná after the brewery’s owner.
“It’s still my beer and the actual recipe is proprietary and belongs to me. It doesn’t have to be named that and it won’t, moving forward, because [Beyonce] freaked out,” Martinez said. But she also noted that she is still Beyoncé fan.
