The packaging team at Over-the-Rhine's Rhinegeist Brewery has been known to occasionally hide secret messages on the bottom of their beer cans, offering lighthearted nuggets of humor and joy to lucky customers who find them.
A recent public post went viral on Facebook showing a Cheetah lager can with "Free Joe Exotic" printed on the bottom, in reference to cult Netflix docuseries Tiger King, which was released this earlier spring.
The series follows mulleted and larger-than-life Oklahoma big cat zookeeper Joe Exotic down a trail of "murder, mayhem and madness," until Exotic — aka Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage — winds up in federal prison on 17 counts of animal abuse and two counts of murder for hire. So it makes sense that the Rhinegeist team tagged the Cheetah cans with the cheeky saying instead of, say, the Bubbles rosé ale.
"Our packaging team has loads of personality and they definitely have fun with the messaging on the bottom of our cans," said director of marketing Tracey Ireland in an email when asked about this fun tradition.
"The team is aware of our brand standards and makes sure to keep everything in line but, yes, for the most part they get to play! The only rule we have is that they don’t say anything that our moms wouldn’t want to see. We love their creativity and would encourage folks to check out the bottom of the cans!"
According to Ireland, the message is most likely not on all six-packs. "They usually rotate a few messages based on batches," she said.
Make sure to take a look at your next Rhinegeist can to see if it has any special messages for all you cool cats and kittens.
