Half Acre Brewery has announced that it is changing the name of its beloved Heyoka India Pale Ale to Senita India Pale Ale. The change comes after members of the Lakota Native American community reached out to express their disappointment in the brewery's usage of the word "Heyoka," a Lakota term.
"Heyoka is a Lakota Native American word," the brewery's founder Gabriel Magliaro wrote in a post on the company's blog on Monday. "We didn’t and aren’t going to spend any time defending or explaining our use of the word. We're simply making the right choice and respecting their wishes."
Heyoka IPA was first released in 2013, and won the brewery its first ever medal at the Great American Beer Festival last October.
Half Acre will be releasing new cans, cartons and tap handles for the beer this week, all with an altered design.