A video has emerged showing the owners of Coopers Brewery didn’t expect the backlash against its partnership with the Bible Society. An interview with the Bible Society’s CEO Greg Clarke and Coopers managing director Tim Cooper posted by religious news outlet Eternity News on March 9 shows a journalist asking Cooper if he expects any negative response to the partnership, and he says no.

“I think people know that we support a number of different causes, and they might be surprised to know that we’re happy to support the Bible Society,” Cooper said.

“All of us face choices in life and at some point in time we need to make a very important choice as to whether we believe in Jesus Christ and we have to make a decision on whether we are going to follow his ways or not. The opportunity that this provides — for maybe just a handful of people — is always a meaningful thing in terms of support not only for the Bible Society, but in terms of getting the message out there.”

Later in the video, Clarke was asked if it was a “risky” partnership — a suggestion that he played down.

The statement by Cooper toes a different line to the first statement released by the company after the controversial “Keeping It Light” video, which said the company wasn’t trying to change people’s views with the partnership: “Coopers isn’t trying to push religious messages or change your beliefs by celebrating 200 years of charitable work undertaken by the Bible Society,” the statement read. The new video doesn’t mention the Keeping It Light video, which featured MPs Tim Wilson and Andrew Hastie debating marriage equality.

The video also reveals Coopers has donated to the Bible Society through the Coopers Foundation over the years, and the funds were used to distribute Bibles to the Defence Force. In the Eternity News video, Cooper also references the Methodist faith of the founder of the company as the reason the company’s philanthropy efforts are focused on Christian organisations. Cooper said that 10,000 cartons of the Bible Society beer had been produced, and he joked that they could become a collector’s item. Now that Coopers has cancelled the distribution of the cans, that statement has become quite prophetic.