A Texas-based brewery has defended its decision to name one of their craft beers "Bikini Atoll" after it faced criticism from authorities in the Marshall Islands.

Key points: Critics say the product makes fun of a horrific, ongoing situation in the Marshall Islands

Critics say the product makes fun of a horrific, ongoing situation in the Marshall Islands Manhattan Project said the beer's name wasn't intended to trivialise the nuclear testing

Manhattan Project said the beer's name wasn't intended to trivialise the nuclear testing A petition calling to stop the sale of the beers has received more than 3,300 signatures

It is one of several nuclear-themed beers released by brewery Manhattan Project Beer Company, others include "Half-Life", "Plutonium-239" and "Hoppenheimer".

Bikini Atoll was the site of 23 US nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, exposing nearby residents to high levels of radiation, forcing them to relocate and rendering the area uninhabitable.

In a public statement on Wednesday the brewery said it had received "significant harassment and death threats" over the "Bikini Atoll" beer, but that the name would stay.

"Our beer named Bikini Atoll was not created to mock or trivialise the nuclear testing that took place in the Marshall Islands," the statement read.

"Through our brand and naming, we are creating awareness of the wider impacts and implications of the United States' nuclear research programs, and the pivotal moment in world history that is often forgotten."

The Secretary of Health and Human Services of the Marshall Islands, Jack Niedenthal, responded the next day in a statement saying the decision was "unacceptable".

"The bottom line is your product makes fun of a horrific situation in the Marshall Islands — a situation, that I promise you is still ongoing — to make money for your company," Mr Niedenthal wrote.

A Change.org petition calling on US retailer Whole Foods to stop the sale of Manhattan Project beers has received more than 3,300 signatures.

Nuclear test still 'a sore point' for the islanders

Composite "true colour" multispectral satellite image of Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. ( Wikimedia Commons: NASA )

Local journalist and author of two books on the area's nuclear history, Giff Johnson, told Pacific Mornings the legacy of the weapons tests is a very serious issue for Marshall Islanders.

Mr Johnson said the way in which the US Government would compensate the survivors of the weapons tests — including the provision of medical care — also remained unresolved.

According to Timothy Jorgensen, a radiation expert at Georgetown University in Washington DC, while the Government provided medical care after the islanders started developing cancers in the 1960s, the assistance stopped after 1998.

Mr Jorgensen said the Government also established a fund to pay compensation, but it was exhausted in 2009 with tens of millions of dollars' worth of personal injury claims still outstanding.

An underwater nuclear weapons effects test, known as Event Baker, conducted at Bikini Atoll in1946. ( Wikimedia commons: US Army Photographic Signal Corps )

In a statement, the Marshall Islands' National Nuclear Commission said the anger of the Marshallese people was "understandable".

"Bikini is not a beer, a bathing suit, or the home of SpongeBob SquarePants," it read.

"It is the ancestral homelands of the Bikinian people who cannot reside there today because of the lingering radiation from US nuclear weapons tests conducted on the islands during the Cold War."

Mr Johnson added that it was "quite likely that nobody gave it a lot of thought".

"It's a sore point for people here to see people in other places … possibly making light of [the nuclear tests], or just to be cashing in on it."

From 'death from above' to 'we choose to stand for love'

This is far from the first time a beer name has caused controversy.

In 2013, New Zealand brewery Garage Project released Death From Above, a beer described as "[combining] an aggressive American hopping regime with Vietnamese mint, mango, chilli and lime".

New Zealand brewery Garage Project released Death From Above in 2013 but it was re-branded to Demus Favorem Amor in 2018. ( Flickr: The Sampler )

Illustrations on the beer's label depicted helicopters flying over a jungle, reminiscent of the Vietnam war, when American and South Vietnamese forces dropped the incendiary weapon napalm from the air.

In a November 2017 post on the Garage Project website, brewer Pete Gillespie wrote the beer was originally called "Hopocalypse Now", but was too similar to the name of another group of New Zealand brewers, "Four Horsemen of the Hopocalypse".

Mr Gillespie went on to write that the beer would no longer be called Death From Above after it became clear the name had "deeply upset a great many people".

"It was never meant to be taken as an endorsement of military aggression or the use of napalm, or to be a racial slur of any type — quite the opposite," Mr Gillespie wrote.

"For those who I have offended, please accept my genuine apology."

The company released a re-branded version of the beer 10 months later named "Demus Favorem Amor" which means "we choose to stand for love" in Latin.

In the blog post announcing the new beer, Mr Gillespie wrote "brewing and beer should above all be fun, but neither exist in a vacuum separated from our broader community."