by Eugene Correia

Toronto: Owned by an Indo-Canadian family, Minhas Creek Brewery, has been slapped with a notice for an advertisement showing a female boxer for its Boxer Beer.
The Alcohol & Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) said that the company, which belongs to a sister-and-brother team, Manjit and Ravinder Minhas, violates a regulation that disallows ads that associate “consumption of liquor with … any other activity that requires care and skill or has elements of danger.” This warning reportedly followed a complaint lodged with the AGCO over the ad, although it hasn’t been disclosed who made the complaint.
The ad on the brewery website suggests that “you require alcohol to obtain or enhance athletic prowess. It is part of the lifestyle aspect,” Lisa Murray, a spokesperson for the AGCO.
In a press release regarding the warning, Minhas Creek states that the AGCO also raised an objection to the name of the beer, since “Ontario’s regulations prohibit selling or advertising a beer in association with a sport.” The release also notes that Boxer has been available in Western Canada since 2007 with no issue, and states that there appears to be a double standard at play, since “almost every beer brand in Canada …  is associated with all types of sports – from hockey to football to Olympics to Ultimate Fighting.”
The press release makes numerous references to the AGCO’s “objection” to the name and advertising, but there’s no direct indication that Minhas Creek have been ordered to change the name of the beer or remove it from the Ontario market.
“Go to any of our major competition’s websites, and you will see ‘Molson Canadian Hockey, Heineken, and soccer, Budweiser is synonymous with football.’ And now we have an issue with Boxer and beer?”, Ravinder Minhas told the media.
The Alberta-based company launched the Boxer brand in Ontario in November.  “Boxer Lager with 5% alc./vol. is available in all 440 “The Beer Stores” throughout Ontario. Our strategy is different from other “value” brand brewers in Ontario in that we sell our beer at the “Lowest Legal Price” and only in cans. Boxer Lager is priced at $15.80 for 12 pack of 355 mL cans, including all taxes and refundable deposits,” the company says on its website.
The company was stated in 1999. The siblings started an aggressive TV and print ad campaigns and will follow up with radio ads.
The website says, “Our marketing campaign is designed to sway Ontario’s beer drinkers to reinvent the Ontario beer industry by becoming more can-centric - thus spurring a major shift from the bottle driven sales volume preferred by the major brewers. The same strategy succeeded in causing many beer drinkers to switch from bottles to cans in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.”