Beer bottles ‘spiked’ in Canada

Labatt Breweries and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are issuing a consumer advisory over bottles of Stella Artois beer that may have been tampered with.

The agency says it knows of six bottles into which someone added concentrated alcohol. There are some reported cases of people being sickened after drinking the contaminated beer.

The affected bottles are 330 ml Stella Artois beer bottles with best before dates of November and December 2005 and production codes of L32343T and L35243G. These codes have expired and the product should no longer be on the market.

There are no reported incidents involving the beer purchased at beer or liquor stores, and Stella Artois cans and draft are not affected, the agency says.

According to the Toronto Star, Labatt was aware of the first tampering in January 2006, but thought it was a “one-off,” and didn’t react. He said it only recently became evident that the police would have to be called in.