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Lizard found in Red Stripe Beer

A WOMAN WHO decided to consume a bottle of Red Stripe Beer recently got the shock of her life when she found a small lizard in the alcoholic beverage.

According to Yvonne Pennicooke, the beer was bought by her boyfriend three weeks ago. Miss Pennicooke said she did not open the beer immediately but decided to wait. She said three days later she opened the bottle and was consuming the contents when she reportedly felt an object in her mouth.

"At first I thought it was a strand of hair or something so I spat the contents back in the bottle and when I looked inside I saw the lizard," she said.

She said that she was in a state of shock after the incident and sought medical attention to ensure that she was still in good health.

Pennicooke said she went to Red Stripe later that week and left the bottle for testing. She said she received a call the following week from Red Stripe and was told to come to their office.

"They (Red Stripe) asked to test it and when I went there they said that the problem was not from Red Stripe," she said.

Pennicooke told THE WEEKEND STAR that what got her upset was despite the beer company's denial that they were responsible they offered to reimburse her medical expenses.

"If nothing is wrong why did they do that? They must be accepting liability and I just want compensation for what I went through" she said.

But, according to Maxine Whittingham, External Communications Manager at Red Stripe, they were not accepting liability for the contents in the bottle but had refunded Pennicooke's medical expenses as a goodwill gesture on the company's part.

"Our insurers and lawyers advised us that we were not accepting liability by doing that because it is a goodwill gesture," she said.

Whittingham told THE WEEKEND STAR that even in reimbursing consumers the company ensured that the medical receipts were authentic as persons were sometimes deceptive.

In addressing Pennicooke's matter she said that it was difficult for a lizard to have found its way inside its bottles because the plant had a very thorough procedure and many aspects were done through machinery and not manually.

She outlined that bottles were washed in a hot, caustic substance for up to 20 minutes to take away substances from grease to protein.

"If the lizard was in the bottle then it would have dissolved due to the treatment that the bottle undergoes," Whittingham said.

Whittingham explained that a part of the reason the company refused to accept blame for the lizard in the bottle was because after conducting tests on the contents of the bottle, several things were determined.

"The lizard skin was intact and the scale was discernible. There was no marking or point of contact to indicate that the lizard had settled in the bottle. Also, the lizard was dry and floating," she said.

However, that aside she again stated that the company's cleaning process ensured that a lizard could not be in the bottle. Whittingham explained that a linatronic inspector looked at all corners of the bottle for foreign objects after the bottle went through six stages of sterilization. She said the bottles were sealed once it went through the washing process and during the process something such as a lizard would have fallen out.

She said several persons were looking for the opportunity to get money and as such were keen to exploit in anyway they could.