A brewery that came under-fire for its 'sexist' branding has ditched pin-up girls from its bottles.
Station 1-1-9 received backlash for its 1940s style artwork labels from Norfolk brewery, Duration Brewing, claiming the Eye brewery was using sexist images to sell its American hopped beers late last year.
They defended the designs at the time saying it 'embraced the vibe that can be found within hot-rod, tattoo and pin-up culture today'.
Now the brand has moved on and has not been using the pin-up art since Spring.
With its new branding it hopes to move forward with new label designs focusing more on names of planes than the pin-ups featured on them.
The brewery took its name and branding from the Second World War base of the 95th Bomb Group that was host to American airman and planes stationed in Suffolk where the brewery is now based.
A spokesman said: 'Our labels were a nod to the pin-up art that adorned those planes. Pin-up art was a morale booster, a mascot, something to remind the airmen that were risking their lives they had something worth fighting for.
'It's such a shame that our pin-up art was stigmatised. It was attacked, it was defended. It was met with anger, it was met with adoration. It was met with indifference.'
The artwork divided opinion on social media with people being both in support of the images and those who opposed it. But some of the support worried the brewery.
'Some of the defence of our brand was sexist - that made us uncomfortable,' the spokesman added.
'It made us think. If we're going to move forward in the beer industry we are going to have to change our branding.
'Our company is a 50/50 gender split. We have daughters who we have brought up to be strong women, some of them work in the brewery. We are very much for equality, regardless of gender.
'So sadly, in the spring we said goodbye to our beautiful art.'
The brewery is hoping to release the newly labelled bottles soon and has described the new designs as 'luxurious'.
What are your opinions of the new designs? Do you think there was a problem with the old art work or do you think the designs were tasteful?
Email your thoughts to EDPLetters@archant.co.uk.
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