The EU approves "Fucking Hell" Beer

If you are offended by foreign words and names that resemble curse words, please skip this post.

Now don't get all worked up. There is a town in Austria called Fucking. It's name is derived from a sixth century noble called Lord Focko, with 'ing' being old German for 'family of'. It's signs are pretty popular, and the city has had to bolt them to things and sink them in concrete so English speaking tourist don't steal them. Helles, or Hell, is a light colored beer. So "Fucking Hell" is just a light colored lager beer from Fucking.

Well, maybe not.

According to Mayor Franz Meindl, there is no brewery in Fucking. The brand's creators, Stefan Fellenberg and Florian Krause accused the EU patent office of having a dirty mind when it initially had rejected the brand for profanity. But when they provided The Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office of the European Union with their linguistic explanation, the Office okayed the trademark and said, "The word combination claimed contains no semantic indication that could refer to a certain person or group of persons. Nor does it incite a particular act. It cannot even be understood as an instruction that the reader should go to hell. Nor can it be considered as reprehensible to use existing place names in a targeted manner (as a reference to the place), merely because this may have an ambiguous meaning in other languages."

To quote Der Speigle: "The Bavarian towns of Kissing and Petting have the same problem [as Fucking does with its signs], as does the eastern German town of Pissen. But so far, there are no plans to name a beer after them."

The "Fucking Hell" beer will likely debut in August or September, but it is unknown if it will actually be brewed in Fucking.