So here's another case that has the #craftbeer community's panties in a bunch. "Big Bad Bell's" is picking on it's embryonic little brother! A brief Googling of the interwebs will reveal much info but some of it can be found here in the Detroit Free Press and here at this ABC affiliate site.
Basically, people are up in arms because a larger entity is picking on a newer one and it seems ridiculous that an established brewery like Bell's would even feel the slightest tickling of a threat from such a small (and new) brewery. Let Chip and Nicole live their dream! How dare you flex your legal muscle! Thems just little baby brewers!
But do you guys know how the rich stay rich? They penny pinch more than the average Joe and guard their wealth. Well, successful craft breweries aren't going to stay successful if they don't bother to protect their own assets either.
If Bell's, or Lagunitas or anyone feels like someone else is taking liberties with something they feel is their own intellectual property, they have every right to protect it. That being said, most of the time, it's ridiculous and most of the time it's a knee-jerk reaction to thinking you're being taken.
Take the Lagunitas vs. Sierra Nevada beef.
(Brewbound.com)(Rockonbeer.com)
Lagunitas claimed that Sierra Nevada's label design for Hop Hunter IPA was too similar to that of their own IPA and that folks may confuse the two. Granted, to a novice beer drinker, there might be some confusion. But to someone familiar with craft beer, such a error is unlikely. Personally, I find this silly. The labels are, to me, different enough. Green background vs. pale, the recognizable "Sierra Nevada banner" vs. "Lagunitas" in big red letters and the cartoon dog. And though I think Lagunitas maybe over-reacted with this, I can totally get why they got defensive.
The Bell's vs. Innovation is even more ridiculous because Bell's seems to be protecting it's slogan: "Bottling innovation since 1985". Did you even know they had a slogan? Of course, for craft beer geeks, we know of a few off the top of our heads. Stone's "You're Not Worthy" and Dogfish Head's "Off-Centered Ales for Off-Centered People" come to mind readily. Did you know Bell's had one? But now that you know they do and you know what it is, would you ever confuse the two? Would you see someone drinking Innovation Ale and say, "Hey! Are you contract brewing with Bell's? Don't they bottle you?" Probably not. But... Bell's has the right to defend itself.
Both of these cases are great examples of spurious litigation (or potential litigation since Bell's states that no lawsuit was ever filed). There are many other examples as well and it always leaves a particularly nasty taste in the mouths of beer geeks everywhere whenever in-fighting pops up.
Everyone like to talk about the fraternity of craft brewing and how much we love each other and how, unlike other industries, the resources are shared and recipes are open code (NorthernBrewer.com sells pretty kick-ass clone recipes provided by the breweries themselves!)
For example: Here, on Long Island, Barrier Brewing Company got positively ass-reamed by Hurricane Sandy. Eight local craft breweries got together and made a collaborative brew to help raise funds to get Barrier back on its feet. In another field, co-competitors would have joined hands and danced on it's watery grave. On the Left Coast, Firestone Walker helped to keep bottles of Pliny The Elder rolling while upgrades were made to Russian River's operations. Unheard of fellowship! But make no mistake, craft beer is still a business.
Sure, they'll help each other out and will speak fondly of each other's beers and share tent space at beer fests and loan each other equipment and ingredients but if it came down to you closing or them closing, you can bet your last hop addition that they would rather have you go. Yeah, it sounds mean but, if you stayed open and they closed, would you take care of their families' needs?
What I'm trying to say is, get over it.
Fraternity is great, but, in reality, they're still just businesses. It's not a big deal if a company wants to fire a shot across another company's bow. It does get uncool if an established brewery is trying to stop a new one from even getting it's feet under them.
Now, you might say that this is exactly what Bell's is doing to Innovation. But, per Bell's twitter statement, they offered to pay for legal fees, they did not request a name change nor did they request Innovation to cease brewing. What they did request was that Innovation not trademark "innovation" which, to me seems reasonable. After all, could not Innovation then go after Bell's and demand that they change their slogan? How would the interwebs feel about David suing Goliath? Would that make it OK?
Truthfully, the only thing more ridiculous than this whole issue is the fact that it bother people at all.
The whole thing is giving me a headache and the only thing that takes care of that for me is a #craftbeer. (Hmm... I think I'll have a Bell's Expedition.)
No comments:
Post a Comment