This Week in Barrel Scraping: Finally, a Beer With No Added Woke

Conservatives are over the moon now that they finally have a beer which shares their irrational hatred of the trans community.

by Alyssa Steinsiek

Seth Weathers, I recognize game, my guy, and you have got it. Now, I don’t know about the man’s sincerely held political beliefs—I can’t know what heady testimony lies buried in Seth Weathers’ soul, in his heart of hearts—but I do know this: he’s making a ton of money capitalizing on conservatives’ stupidest, most base instinct.

The same instinct that leads to a pair of brand new Nikes sneakers, never worn, right off the Foot Locker shelf, soaked in gasoline and burning in a fire pit. The same instinct that led people to… eat Gillette razors? I don’t know what they did to boycott the razors, but I do remember it happened because Gillette suggested men could potentially be more than sleazy jerks, which I guess was… wrong of them?

That’s right: Reactionary dipshits are jerking themselves off over their favorite ideologue’s latest obsession.

screenshot from Fox Business

ULTRA RIGHT BEER! A cool and refreshing can of poison for the bigot with a refined taste for… wait, hold on… why the hell does Fox Business have a beer category? And why is almost every single entry in Fox Business’s beer category about some trans TikTok gal?

Oh, shit, right. Okay, hold on, let me catch you up.

screenshot from NowThis video

So, Dylan Mulvaney is a TikTok lady (and actor, and comedian) who first gained traction on the internet by publicly documenting her transition in pseudo-vlog format. Mulvaney’s first serious backlash from conservative media came from her presence in a NowThis forum with President Joe Biden in October of 2022, where Mulvaney asked President Biden whether or not he believed that states should have the right to place restrictions and prohibitions on gender-affirming care for trans people. In a followup question, she pointed out how society has begun to use the transgender community as a scapegoat for anything and everything, and asked President Biden how Democratic leaders could be more effective advocates for transgender Americans.

President Biden’s response acknowledged that transgender people of color account for the vast majority of violence against transgender Americans, and expressed clearly and concisely that no state entity should have the right, morally or legally, to deny transgender people their healthcare or a safe place in society.

Thus began the ongoing witch hunt against Mulvaney, for daring to ask the president questions pertaining to her and her community’s rights and safety, and for daring to be affirmed and respected by him.

But the greatest backlash against Dylan Mulvaney was still on the horizon.

In April, Mulvaney uploaded a sponsored video for Anheuser-Busch’s “Easy Carry Contest.” In response, Anheuser-Busch sent her a unique Bud Light can with her face on it, reading, “Cheers to 365 Days of Being a Woman.”

Isn’t that sweet?

Oh, no, sorry, I meant to say that it’s the last nail in the coffin that represents the decay and rampant degeneracy of America. Obviously. Of course.

People lost their damn minds. Anheuser-Busch lost a lot of money, put out a coward's statement, and may have fired some marketing execs over the debacle.

There’s a lot more to the ‘trans girl drinks beer’ saga, but the through line here, more than anything else, is that your average conservative is a very emotional, fragile creature who can be tricked into supporting just about any stupid consumerist move as long as you attach a queer person existing normally to your call to action.

Enter Seth Weathers and Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer.

100% American, 100% woke-free canned beer, praise the Lard. Weathers reports state-wide distribution in Georgia and Arkansas, and “quite a few other states.” Mysterious. He also claims Ultra Right Beer will be a “forever brand” that “supports the values of our drinkers.

It’s unclear to me how bread water (what is beer?) can be woke, or support conservative values, or… I don’t know, do anything besides travel from can to gut. But that won’t stop simple-minded folks from being moved to purchase, apparently, since Weathers reports over 20,000 six packs sold and over $1 million in sales.

Mind you, it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses for ol’ Seth Weathers and his annoying beer.

Since announcing his spite brew in late April, Conservative Dad released a transphobic Smokey and the Bandit parody ad, was immediately dropped by Rock Island, Illinois, brewing company Bent River Brewing, and struggled for months to find anybody willing to produce their competitive swill. Calder McHugh and Derek Robertson of Politico recently tried Ultra Right Beer and described its vintage as akin to “a non-alcoholic IPA,” which is a decidedly less than stellar review.

Truthfully, I’m not thrilled at the idea of Seth Weathers seeing a single ounce of financial success in this dumb, calculated bid for conservative consumers’ attention. But I’m not particularly disheartened by it, either. These knee jerk response fads come and go; nobody’s burning Nikes anymore, dads everywhere probably started buying Gillette again once they forgot how woke they are, and I haven’t seen a thick-necked middle aged man smash a Keurig to pieces in years.

Reactionaries get mad, buy or destroy things pointlessly, then lose interest and move on to the next stupid thing the conservative media cycle tells them they need to be furious about. This is just the natural order of things, and one good sales week won’t change that, or guarantee Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer any kind of legacy.

Wine coolers are way better anyway, you know. And they usually have a higher ABV!