In America, the slogan “the Champagne of Beers” that decorates cans of Miller High Life is rarely taken literally, but European regulators took it at face value last week, seizing and destroying thousands of cans that were deemed counterfeit Champagne and thus “illicit goods.”
Belgian authorities and the French committee for the protection of Champagne ordered that 2,352 cans of the American beer be emptied and crushed, after they were intercepted after they entered the port of Antwerp, in Belgium’s north, to be exported to Germany.
The authorities thoroughly documented the operation for the news media, in what looked like a clear warning to the world not to mess with Europe’s most prestigious sparkling wine brand. Pictures of the carnage showed workers emptying the golden and red cans of what they considered counterfeit Champagne before pressing them against each other.
The destruction, the authorities explained, was a consequence of the European Union’s strict rules regarding the protected designation of origin of several wines or foodstuffs produced, processed and prepared in a specific geographical area using a recognized know-how. Protected products include Kalamata olive oil from Greece, Buffalo mozzarella from the region of Campania, Italy, and paprika from the Murcia region of Spain.
If goods infringe on a protected product in an E.U. member state, those goods are considered counterfeit. Molson Coors, the beverage company that owns the Miller High Life brand, doesn’t export to the European Union and a spokesman said they didn’t know how the beer arrived in Belgium. The person who was to receive the beer in Germany was informed of the plan to destroy the cans and did not contest the decision, the Champagne committee and Belgian customs authorities said in a statement.
Molson Coors said in a statement that it respected local restrictions regarding the word Champagne, “but we remain proud of Miller High Life, its nickname and its Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provenance.”
“We invite our friends in Europe to the U.S. any time to toast the High Life together,” the company wrote.
Kristian Vanderwaeren, an administrator at the Belgian customs service, said that every year the agency performed thousands of checks on protected designations of origin, and that the Champagne committee helped train the customs teams to identify whether products were genuine or counterfeit.
Marie-Anne Humbert Genand, the head of the legal department at the Champagne committee, said that the committee had cases of counterfeit products in Belgium, France and India, and that goods had also been destroyed. In 2016, the Italian news media reported that the country’s financial police had seized thousands of bottles of Prosecco bearing a fake Moët & Chandon Champagne label. The first hint came from a bottle with a label that lacked a manufacturing serial number, the police reported.
This time, it might have been the fact that the name Champagne was featured on cans of beer that came from Milwaukee.
“When a counterfeit is detected, as is the case here, we also agree on the decision to destroy these goods,” Mr. Vanderwaeren said in a statement.
Miller High Life was created in 1903 and soon after began being presented as the Champagne of bottled beer; it was sold in clear bottles with elongated necks and sloped shoulders. The glass was also meant to show the beer’s purity and establish it as a high-end brand, as it was more expensive than many other beers back then, according to the Molson Coors website.
These days, the beer, a drinkable light lager, is considered a “go-to lowbrow beer of choice,” said Zachary Mack, a beer expert and the owner of a beer company.
Matt Simpson, the owner the Beer Sommelier, a consultancy based in Atlanta, said that beers like Miller High Life were “as simple as beer can get.” Although they are not bad beers, he said, they are usually seen as the “opposite of sophisticated.”
The crossed wires over Miller High Life are the latest in a series of spats around protected origins in Europe. Two years ago Prosecco winemakers and local officials in Italy rose up after the European Union agreed to consider an application by Croatia to recognize a method of making a dessert wine called Prosek. Other fights involved whether the term “glen” for whisky produced in Germany could suggest that it was a product of Scotland, whether Gruyère cheese could only come from the region around the Swiss town of Gruyères, and whether Parmesan cheese could be considered a generic name (in the European Union, the answer is no).
Last week, Charles Goemaere, the managing director of the Champagne committee that protects the wine’s producers and its multibillion dollar industry, said that the destruction of the American beers “confirms the importance that the European Union attaches to designations of origin.” It also rewards the Champagne producers’ “determination” to protect their designation, he said.
In America, experts said there was no threat.
“No matter how relatively simple in understanding the typical Miller High Life drinker is academically,” said Mr. Simpson. “I think at the very least they understand the difference between beer and wine.”
