Here’s an unusual couple of stories, coincidentally brought to my attention within days of each other but apparently unrelated. The first is that a brewing company in Utah, irritated by Sen. Buttars’ attempts to weaken science education in that state by attacking evolution, has renamed one of its brews “Evolution Amber Ale”:

Wasatch Beers is changing the label on its 2002 Unofficial Amber Ale — a title that once raised a ruckus with Olympic officials — to “Evolution Amber Ale.”

The company says the change is inspired by Utah legislators and the debate here and nationally over whether public school evolution lessons should be balanced with “intelligent design,” or the idea that life is too complex to be explained by Darwin’s theory of evolution alone…

Schirf’s new label features several images of monkeys walking more and more upright behind a man, carrying a six-pack and swigging from a bottle. A stamp mark says “Darwin Approved” and “Created in 27 days, not 7.”

“Really our intention was not to make anyone mad,” Schirf said. “Our intention was to sell some beer with a funny beer label. We don’t have any issue with what people want to believe. We just believe religion should be held in religion classes, and science should be held in public school classes.”

Hear, hear. Sen. Buttars, needless to say, is not amused:

But Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, isn’t laughing.

“I guess some people are going to get a chuckle out of it. I don’t see anything funny about it,” Buttars said. “Anytime someone (tries to) sarcastically exploit issues of morality in those kinds of ways is very unappealing. But it doesn’t bother me, whatever they put on there.”

The second item also relates to beer and evolution. A couple days ago, Rob Pennock sent along this link to a commercial for Guiness that features a fast montage of evolution in reverse, starting with a man drinking a Guiness, then devolving into an ape, and so forth, through the meteor wiping out the dinosaurs back to amphibians crawling back into the ocean and becoming fish, and so forth. Finally at the end it says, “Good things come to those who wait.” I’m not a beer drinker, but I might buy a round of those beers just to support the idea.

Update: the link to the commercial is now working, and thank you to Krauze for pointing the way to the right link.