Governator Ale terminated
Governator Ale is gone – and it won’t be back. Oregon’s Portland Brewing Co. has agreed to demands from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lawyers to quit making its Governator Ale.
Portland began brewing the beer in January for the California market.
At the time, CEO Jerome Chicvara said he was surprised that no California brewer thought of the “tribute” to the 38th governor of California, “Terminator” actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Portland sent California 3,200 cases of the beer, labeled as a product of the Pumping Iron Brewing Co.
“We couldn’t figure it out,” Chicvara said. “Maybe they thought the governor wouldn’t like it and they’d be on his bad side, or it was just silly.”
Chicvara said the idea came to him while kidding around with his college-age kids and their friends, who morphed the words “governor” and “terminator” into “governator.” “And I thought that’s good, that could be a beer,” Chicvara said. “Sometimes we get carried away, but we did this for fun.”
The commemorative beer was sold only in California. It was an extra special bitter ale and came in a 22-ounce bottle with a label bearing a muscular figure posing like a body builder. The image was designed to be generic, so no royalties or licensing fees were at issue with Schwarzenegger.
However, in the months since Schwarzenegger took office his lawyers say they have been on alert for unauthorized ads and products. It has taken action against dozens of business ventures that attempted to profit form Schwarzenegger’s image.
