Hobart's Duckbill Draft pleases the palate with its "crisp body and light malt sweetness," according to the Casper Rockies Web site.

But Duckbill Draft - bearing the picture of the fun and furry purple platypus mascot - has left a bitter aftertaste with the Natrona County Prevention Coalition, which opposes underage drinking.

"Hobart beer appeals to small children," said coalition Chairwoman Melissa Stahley-Cummings.

Rockies games are community and family-friendly events, and coalition members aren't against serving beer at the games or even promotions like "Thirsty Thursday."

Tying Hobart to beer, though, went over the foul line, she and other coalition members said.

But the team's general manager for marketing wondered why the coalition is venting its outrage a week before opening day, June 19, since the Rockies have been serving Hobart's Duckbill Draft for a year, Matt Warneke said.

"We don't market this to anyone under 21," Warneke said. "It's just adds to the fun, the entertainment."

The Prevention Coalition isn't laughing.

Stahley-Cummings wrote to the Rockies managers, telling them of their plans for a community effort to dump Hobart's Duckbill Draft.

The coalition also made available a form letter for its member agencies to send to the Rockies management, urging the team to follow the national Beer Institute's self-imposed guidelines opposing marketing alcohol to children.

Or else.

"We, (Agency Name), will not support the Casper Rockies until Hobart beer is removed and all marketing use of Hobart for the purpose of selling alcohol is eradicated," the form letter stated.

Late last week, the Natrona County Public Library severed its partnership with the Rockies and will no longer give game tickets to the 3,000 children who participate in the summer reading program, director Bill Nelson said.

The Natrona County School District's Safe Schools director Wayne Beatty compared Hobart's Duckbill Draft to another famous and now discredited mascot.

"Would schools invite Joe Camel to a school assembly? If the answer is 'no,' why then invite Hobart?" Beatty said.

Beatty would urge the school board to ban Hobart from school assemblies, he said.

The Rockies corporate leadership cannot dodge the issue by saying Hobart's brew doesn't influence very young and impressionable children who might think, "'Hobart beer must be as cool as Hobart is,'" Beatty said.

The Duckbill Draft dispute underscores a much larger issue, he said.

"It's just plain sad in a community like Casper that struggles with alcohol on the best of days," Beatty said, citing the apparent alcohol use during the boating accident at Alcova Reservoir that killed a man on Saturday.

The issue arose last year when a member of the Youth Empowerment Council told the coalition about Duckbill Draft, Beatty said. "It was the teenagers who said, 'Man, this can't be right.'"

Coalition members began working on the issue, and last met with Warneke in April, said Stahley-Cummings, who also is the deputy director of Mercer House, which offers programs about underage drinking.

Despite the dispute, the coalition has no plans to end its partnership with the Casper Rockies, in which it pays the team $3,000 a year to have a non-smoking, non-drinking family section at the ballpark, she said.

Stahley-Cummings doesn't fault the Victor, Idaho-based Grand Teton Brewing Co. that makes Duckbill Draft.

The local Rockies management took the Hobart Duckbill Draft idea and logo to the brewer, which agreed to create a special house beer to be served only at Rockies games, Otto said.

"I'm sure there was no intent on their part to entice youth to drink," he said.

Warneke agreed, saying a ban on Hobart's Duckbill Draft won't fix problems with underage drinking.

He's forwarded the Natrona County Prevention Coalition's concerns to the team's ownership group, which will review the issue before flying from Southern California next week for opening day, he said.

Meanwhile, he thinks the coalition has gone overboard about the beer.

"They're taking the mentality like a lynch mob," Warneke said.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at Tom.Morton@casperstartribune.net.