A visit from the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission this week prompted Sycamore Brewing to temporarily pull their Christmas Cookie Winter Ale cans from the taproom shelves. The brewery says an anonymous complaint was made about the ale’s provocative holiday beer label.

For Sycamore, their provocative holiday beer label redesign was produced in good fun. But this past Thursday morning, the Grinch stole their Christmas cheer.

In the past, Sycamore had produced their seasonal brew with a wintry forest theme accented with red type. Typical holiday fare. And then someone suggested a Kama Sutra-inspired redesign.

The holiday design, depicting red and white cartoon reindeer in various compromising sexual positions, was reportedly never intended for the grocery store shelves or wide distribution. Sycamore Brewing believed because of that, they had the freedom to be a little more risqué with the holiday design.

The label design is supposed to resemble an ugly Christmas sweater pattern. “Then on a second look, you get a smile on your face and laugh a little bit,” Sycamore co-owner Justin Brigham said.

An Anonymous Tipster Was Not Amused

However, not everyone in Charlotte — known as the city of churches — thought it was so funny. According to a post on Sycamore’s Facebook page, an anonymous tip was sent to the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission.

The state’s Alcohol Law Enforcement sent an agent to Sycamore to address the humping reindeer.

“Christmas Cookie (after receiving an anonymous complaint) has requested that no more cans be sold with the reindeer label,” the brewery explained to a patron via Facebook Friday. “There is a little bit left, and we’ll be bringing all remaining cans back to our facility and re-labeling them with last year’s G-Rated Christmas Cookie can art 🙌 and it will only available in our taproom!”

There were two issues with the offending labels, according to ALE Special Agent in Charge Omar Qureshi. The first is that Sycamore didn’t get approval for its label design. And the second is that regulators likely would have found it to be obscene anyway.

“Something’s telling me the ABC Commission probably would err on the side of caution and not approve that label,” Qureshi said.

Brigham apologized to the agent. The whole meeting was cordial and pretty matter-of-fact, Brigham says. They discussed the design and after a brief moment of silence they broke out in laughter.

For not obtaining the necessary approval for its labels Sycamore will be issued a notice of violation and they’ll likely face a fine. Qureshi estimated that it would be around $500 to $1,000.

And now the brewery is moving forward with removing the holiday reindeer labels but some patrons are not happy that the new holiday beer label is being pulled.

“What a sad world we live in if someone was offended by the can. I love it,” Mike Folk said.

“They had to relabel it 😭” Mike Millard wrote.

“Risqué can you’ve got there 😂” Sarah Radil added.

Patrons can try the Christmas Cookie for themselves but Sycamore Brewing pointed out that the beer “will only be available in our taproom after the beer is re-labeled with last year’s G-Rated Christmas Cookie can art.”