(Saint Paul, MN) – Northern Brewer announced this morning that it will change the name of its Three Hearted Ale homebrewing kit to Dead Ringer IPA…
…and a few brief thoughts on the changing view of craft beer.
Last week, it came out that Northern Brewer was ordered to change the name of one of its products due to alleged trademark infringement by Bell’s Brewery. Today, the brewery announced that it had made the change. Here’s the write-up:
April 2011: Same recipe, new name – Dead Ringer is an homage to a benchmark of the American IPA style that’s brewed in Michigan. This kit has been a customer favorite for a decade, but this spring we had to change the name after receiving a letter from a lawyer representing the brewery. While the name may be new to our customers, the recipe is exactly the same and is still the same kit that’s close to your hearts.
I also phoned Bell’s this morning to apologize for what happened last week. I stand by the accuracy of my original report but regretted how I had framed the story after seeing the barrage of comments that it helped spur. Some comments incorrectly relayed facts and showed a lack of basic understanding of trademark disputes. That is not to say that I’m reporting as an expert in trademark law because I’m learning with each story I write as well. To help rectify that, going forward, I will be including a summary of trademark dispute basics every time a situation like this comes up. My hope is that readers skim through it if they are unfamiliar.
Craft beer is growing up very quickly and you’re going to see more coverage on the business side of things in the days and weeks ahead. Over the years, various organizations and media outlets in craft beer, myself included, have painted a very positive picture of craft beer, a culture of collaboration and innovation. While there is a lot of that going on, a more accurate picture would show that most breweries are paying the bills with pales ales and other flagships that they’ve been brewing since they started. Few, if any, write about the competitive landscape between breweries where battles for shelf space and taphandles are fought daily.
At the end of the day, small breweries are both members of the craft beer community and businesses. Each title carries a different value set and sometimes, those clash. Members of the community can only hope that their values are considered when breweries make decisions as businesses. When stories spring up portraying craft breweries as the latter, bear in mind that these breweries have been businesses from day one; that fact just hasn’t made it into the media very often until recently.
As many have said, Monday’s AB/Goose Island announcement is a picture of what’s to come so be prepared.
I’ve been talking about this aspect of “craft” for a while, and asking brewers about it. An increased focus on the business side is inevitable as craft beer grows up from being boutique to being just beer. Consolidations and increased competition will occur. It’s a good thing, in my view. It means the industry is doing well. And there is still a huge amount of camaraderie among brewers.
It’s just a question of how craft beer consumers will deal with the evolving focus of an industry.
While I can say iv’e never bought the kit in question. I can say that I’ve had it from others who have brewed it. and the name change is spot on.while this Kit has been in NB stable for how long now. and they are just now getting around to
this. why now?
I don’t think any one breinwg this kit isn’t buying Bell’s because they are brewing it.
I have brewed all kinds of Bell’s “dead Ringers”
and I still buy a crap load of bell’s
being less than an hour from the place helps.
but the great and powerful one has spoken so
there you go.
CHEERS!
In terms of my homebrewing; I don’t ever want to regularly do clones or kits.
Sure they’re fun to try once or twice to see if you can get CLOSE to someone else’s beer but why would you want to regularly imitate someone else when could instead create the next best Pale Ale that is all your own?
I love Two Hearted, always have, always will and though I’d never buy a kit to try to copy it I can see why others would.
I’ll just keep buying 6-packs / draft pours as Bell’s has that beer perfected and that’s good enough for me.
As a former business owner that suffered from Northern Brewers theft of intellectual property as well, I can’t say I feel sorry for them.
I’ve always found Bell’s to be a little less friendly than the modern craft. And this isn’t the first trademark dispute they’ve gotten into recently over a beer that really won’t affect their bottom line.
Just this year they sent a letter to Downtown Joe’s brewputb ordering a cease and desist of production of their Oberon Pale Ale. Of course DJ’s provided evidence that they’d been producing a beer called Oberon longer than Bell’s has…. Whoops….
Still, turns out they were nice enough to change it, because they didn’t like the Pale Ale anyways and wanted to create a new recipe.
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Quite ironic that Mallett himself took the name from Hemingway…
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