I'm happy to defend the use of humour in beer names. I've written about it before. Humour is shaped by our character, psyche and values so that which one person finds funny, another finds offensive.

But even I struggle to understand why the Beachy Head Brewery would name a beer Christmas Jumper.

For those of you who don't know the backstory, Beachy Head cliff in Southern England notorious as a suicide spot as there's a five hundred foot drop to the beach. A chaplaincy team regularly patrol the clifftop, reaching out to those who may seek to take their own life by jumping.

And Beachy Head Brewery have been selling a beer called Christmas Jumper for the last three years.

Head Brewer Roger Green is quoted in The Argus as saying, "This started with a pump clip showing Father Christmas in a big fluffy jumper but when we produced labels that did not reproduce because we have a standard shot on our labels. It was purely a running joke on the famous woolly jumper. (The link to Beachy Head) was unintentional certainly. We know this is a very delicate subject and have the utmost respect for the job the chaplains do."

If the link to Beachy Head was 'unintentional' - by a brewery run by the Davis-Gilbert estate which also runs a pub, accomodation and farming on the Head - then it makes the brewery staggeringly naive.

I think it's the most egregious piece of beer marketing I've seen in years.

The story finds a sharp focus this year in the national press, perhaps because of a high-profile suicide last week. Given that the Davies-Gilbert family make their living out of Beachy Head, they ought to show some respect; at least re-name the beer and make a sizeable donation to the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team.

Humour can be found in the most unlikely of places. I just don't think it can be found in the grief of those who took their own lives on Beachy Head. >