Belgium destroys shipment of Miller High Life, takes issue with ‘Champagne of Beer’ slogan

Belgium has destroyed a shipment of Miller High Life beer after taking issue with its slogan — “The Champagne of Beers.”

The shipment contained 2,352 cans of the American beer, and was targeted because it was improperly labeled as Champagne, reports CNN.

The move came after The Comité Champagne, a joint trade association for the Champagne industry, requested for the beers to be destroyed.

The association complained that the term should only be used to refer to sparkling wine that’s made using the traditional method in Champagne, France, adding that the misnomer infringed on the protected designation of “Champagne.”

Miller High Life — a Milwaukee-based beer company launched in 1903 — began referring to itself as “The Champagne of Bottle Beer” three years after its founding, and changed it to simply “The Champagne of Beers” in 1969.

Their cans were intercepted en route to Germany, and were crushed on April 17, “with the greatest respect for environmental concerns by ensuring that the entire batch, content and container [was] recycled in an eco-responsible way,” according to the Comité Champagne.

“Each year we carry out thousands of checks on designations of controlled origin,” said Kristian Vanderwaeren, a general administrator at the Belgian General Administration for Customs and Excise.

“If a counterfeit is proven, as is the case here, we also consult each other on the decision to destroy these goods and on the way in which we have them destroyed,” she added.