The problem can be reproduced with the attached Maven project, containing two Arquillian tests. Both tests shrinkwrap a very simple war file, that just contains one bean class that has the @Alternative annotation, and a beans.xml that activates the class as an alternative bean. One of the test creates and deploys the war file on its own, the other puts it inside an ear and deploys the ear file. Tests can be executed as follows: export JAVA_HOME=<path to your Java 1.6 JDK home> export JBOSS_HOME=<path to your JBoss AS 6.0 M4 server> mvn test I attached the log file of the server, that shows the correct deployment of the war file and the error that occurs when the ear is getting processed.