Comments on: Central City Brewing statement on Bear Republic lawsuit

By: Central City Brewing, Bear Republic settle over Red Racer dispute | Beernews.org

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:21:02 +0000

[...] began in January of 2010. The Boston IP blog reported that Bear Republic had filed a lawsuit for alleged trademark infringement of its two brands, Racer 5 IPA and Red Rocket Ale. Central City started marketing “Red [...]

By: Juliann

Juliann — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:28:04 +0000

Regardless, It isn’t US V Canada

By: brandon east

brandon east — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:55:06 +0000

The first thing I thought when seeing ‘Red Racer’, was that it was a beer that was a blend of Racer 5 and Red Rocket.

By: sammy

sammy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:46:01 +0000

Central Canada comments in thread here:

http://www.bartowel.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=5308&highlight=

By: beersage

beersage — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:37:32 +0000

Rick, I should’ve directed my comment to uncle JM specifically as I was responding to his comment.

Regardless, I agree w/ you that it’s not US vs. Canada.

Excellent link to TrueCask. Neglected to mention the Speed Racer-Racer 5 connection in my piece. Looking like a pot kettle black situation here, eh?

By: Rick Green

Rick Green — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:31:07 +0000

Beersage, this is not a Canada-US issue and we’re not talking about companies in general. Tree Brewing did a similar thing to Green Flash and received a lot of flack for it from craft beer consumers in BC.

The main battle line in the Beer Wars is between macro and craft. For craft to push back the tide of macro lager, we have to band together and engage in co-opetition. Craft brewers should not be threatening to sue each other, unless forced into a last resort position after engaging in direct dialogue, i.e not through lawyers. Bear Republic was not even close to that.

Truecask.com also pointed out, what I consider to be, more serious issues with Bear Republic’s branding: http://truecask.com/2010/02/central-city-bear-republic/.

By: beersage

beersage — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:11:32 +0000

Heh, let’s not make this a U.S. vs. Canada issue. Though if you want to be competitive in the spirit of the upcoming Winter Olympics, that’s another story. By the way, U.S. companies send cease and desist letters to each other all the time!

By: uncle JM

uncle JM — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:53:20 +0000

It’s sad that an US brewery going after Central Brew.Bear Replublic is brewing excellent beers but with a lawsuit, they won’t get my money no more. They must be jealous of one of the best IPA(Red Racer) in Canada.

By: Rick Green

Rick Green — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:50:42 +0000

Given that our craft brewers here in BC are facing more of an uphill struggle against the conglomerates than in the US, I’m very disappointed that Bear Republic has chosen to take the course of action that they have. One would have thought they would be supportive of a small craft brewer.

There have been a number of these types of legal wrangles involving BC craft brewers over the past three years. As Gary says, it’s a lose-lose situation that only benefits lawyers. A good example of the way to handle this is what Avery and Russian River did — collaborate not litigate.

For Bear Republic to continue on this course of action will probably not matter much to them in the big picture. But those who buy their products in British Columbia may be weary enough with this that they will cease purchasing them. This will be unfortunate because they do brew excellent beer. We can certainly use more craft beer here to present more options to the swill that represents the majority of sales in our liquor stores and pubs.