Almost two weeks ago, news first broke of a classic, right-wing huckster grift in progress: The overnight sensation that was Ultra Right Beer. As we derided pitchman Seth Weathers–a man who criticized other men for drinking beer (it “increases estrogen,” Seth says) only weeks before he launched a beer brand in order to take advantage of conservative ire at Bud Light–we observed that it was difficult to tell whether Ultra Right Beer was a genuine product, or a spot-on piece of parody. Or as we put it:
Granted, it’s hard to say with total certainty that Ultra Right Beer isn’t simply a clever bit of precisely on-the-nose satire, because if you saw the commercial below with no other context, surely you’d assume it was a piece of sarcastic comedy from a late night TV talk show. All the elements are there–the blindingly white, Steven Crowder-looking pitchman, the wanton destruction of Bud Light cans purchased moments earlier as a form of political protest, the American jingoism leading directly into a sales pitch. It absolutely feels like a joke, but UltraRightBeer.com and its web store certainly appear to be entirely real. As is the $35 price of buying a single six pack online.
There was no denying it was one of the more obvious grifts we’ve seen, yet another product taking advantage of consumers on the American right wing who are all too happy to proudly hand over their money whenever someone presents them with another thing to buy with Donald Trump’s face on it. Weathers doesn’t even try to hide his charlatanism; this is the same guy who was selling “Let’s Go Brandon” wrapping paper for Christmas. He’s willing to adopt any style of business for a few months in order to bilk gullible Americans out of their money, so why not beer as well? Other than the myriad laws related to alcohol sales and shipping that he doesn’t seem to know anything about, that is.
Still, the obvious question persisted for beer geeks: Who did Weathers convince to actually brew Ultra Right Beer for him? From the start, the product was described as being produced in “northern Illinois,” which led to a scavenger hunt to determine which brewing company would want to work with this brand. That hunt eventually turned up many references to Quad Cities brewery Bent River Brewing, which Ultra Right Beer reportedly was claiming would serve as its brewing partner. The only problem: As soon as Bent River heard about the product’s marketing, they promptly and obviously backed out from producing it. Which begged the question: What brewery would sign onto such a project, knowing that it would no doubt come with at least some form of social media blowback and protest?
Now, we seemingly have an answer from Weathers himself: “Northern Illinois” is out, and Georgia is in. The beer, assuming it ever actually gets made, will be produced at a Lawrenceville, Georgia company called Big Kettle Brewing.
We’re going to have a lot of fun, we’re going to drink a little beer, and we’re going to take back our country pic.twitter.com/ukMwG1WfiX
— SETH WEATHERS (@sethweathers) April 25, 2023
Haven’t heard of Big Kettle Brewing? Don’t worry, neither has anyone else. Perhaps wisely, Weathers chose a company to produce his beer that essentially functions as a freelance contract brewery, without much public face or web presence of its own. Big Kettle Brewing doesn’t even seem to have its own social media pages, though it is apparently the source of a house brand called Ironshield Brewing, which could conceivably see some social media blowback once this news trickles out. Still, given the lack of engagement on Weathers’ posts announcing the brewing partner, one has to wonder whether the interest in Ultra Right Beer has already come and gone anyway. Maybe he should have actually figured out who was going to brew his beer BEFORE trying to sell it for $35 per six-pack?
In the end, that’s perhaps the funniest thing about Ultra Right Beer–the way that almost everything about it has already changed in the less than two weeks since it was first announced. It was bizarrely described as an “airy special golden ale blend” in the previous version of the website, but is now apparently a lager. It was originally promised to ship on “May 11” on a previous version of the website, but that is now a cryptic “30 days after order.” And it was originally supposed to be brewed in Illinois, and that is now Georgia. So much as changed so quickly, are we sure the product is even still beer? Two weeks from now, will it be Ultra Right Kombucha?
And then there’s the thorny legal side of the issue, as many beer writers who know the distribution and licensing issues of the industry far better than me have asserted that Ultra Right Beer would immediately run into numerous, impassable laws concerning sales and shipping of beer across state lines as soon as the company started trying to do so. “Airy golden ale” or lager aside, if you’re talking about selling and shipping alcohol, it’s typically not a business plan one can launch overnight, with no governmental oversight. Let’s just say that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau are not exactly known for being “really cool and chill” about these sorts of things.
It remains to be seen if a single barrel of Ultra Right Beer will every be brewed, much less canned and sold–for $35 after shipping, let me remind you–across state lines. But some small part of us hopes that it actually does happen, because if this beer never gets made, how will we ever know how bad it surely would taste? I think you’ll agree, that’s the kind of thing that would haunt you to never know.