Russian Bar Fined For Advertising Cannabis Beer

If you’re thinking about getting into the cannabis beer market, we suggest that you don’t plan to sell in Moscow.

Here’s the deal…

The Moscow branch of a European pub chain has been fined after it printed menus which included a “graphic depiction” of cannabis leaves advertising a hemp beer.

But as it turns out, it was the pictures of Appenzeller Bier’s Hanfblute (which translates as hemp flower) that was the problem, not the beer itself.

The Swiss beer, which like New Belgium’s The Hemperor, was brewed using hemp seeds. And although the beer provides a very nice 5.3% ABV alcohol buzz, because it contains no THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis) it won’t get you ‘pot’ high.

But that doesn’t matter in Russia, where even pictures of a plant associated with narcotics is seen as advertising drugs and as a result can be banned.

And as a result the scarily-named  Moscow Prosecutor’s Office has charged the Gambrinus Bar (which also has sites in Madrid and Lisbon) 840,000 rubles (£10,200) for using menus which contain “graphic and textual material contributed…focused on the use of substances banned in the Russian Federation,” according to a statement issued on Monday.

Disagreeing with the decisions of the Perovskiy District Court of Moscow (probably not a great idea) Arkadi Pogosov, the general director of the managing company which owns Gambrinus, appealed to the Moscow Court’s ruling, which not surprisingly, was dismissed.

“We are hostages of the situation. The goods are allowed for sale in Russia, and we must bring to the consumer information on the composition of products sold, Pogosov explained to RBC.

This is not the first time the Swiss brewery has run into International problems with Hanfblute. In 2007 Costa Rica denied its importation because of the beer’s label imaging.

All Image credits: Appenzeller Bier