Utah legislators arrived for the first day of the 2006 legislative session to find empty beer bottles scattered across their desks.

No one had been partying in the chambers, however -- the bottles all bore the label of Wasatch Brewery's Evolution Amber Ale. They were intended as a poke at legislation by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, that would challenge the teaching of evolution in public schools.

The bottles were a gift from radio talk show host Tom Barberi, who is critical of the anti-evolution push.

"The point was to get a laugh," Barberi said Monday afternoon. "It should be something to be laughed at instead of taken seriously."

Buttars's bill is scheduled to be considered by the Senate Education Committee this morning. If it's approved and signed into law later in the session, school science classes could not teach evolution as a fact and students would have to be told that there is little agreement on the origins of life and of human beings.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said he initially thought the bottles had been left behind by someone and almost threw his in the trash.

"Then I saw what it was. I had a laugh," he said. "I thought it was funny."

He said Buttars's legislation is not "draconian," and said that most legislators "felt like it was codifying existing practice."

Most senators put the bottles away, but Senate Democrats left them standing proudly on top of their desks.

"I was just sorry it was empty," quipped Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price.

He said Democrats likely will oppose the legislation.

"We have not taken a position on it, but I think we'd be totally opposed to it," he said.

Evolution Amber Ale is a new name for the beer formerly known as 2002 Unofficial Amber Ale, which was created for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The beer's label parodies the famous drawing showing an ape gradually transforming into an upright human being -- in the brewery's version, the human at the peak of evolution is carrying a six-pack of beer.

A quick trip to the company's Web site indicates the ale is "intelligently designed," but if lawmakers wanted to find out more about the brewers or the product, they'd be out of luck at the state Capitol without special permission. The state's Internet filtering software classified www.wasatchbeers.com as a site about drugs, and blocked access to it.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.