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The Vermonster label

It’s impossibile, for those accustomed to reading International beer blogs, to have missed the Rock Art Brewery Vs. Hansen’s Beverage affair. A quite weird question indeed. The multinational company have sued the little Vermont brewery for a supposed coincidence of names: a barley wine named The Vermonster, brewed by Rock Art and the Monster energy-drink produced by Hansen’s Beverage, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch.

If you’re wondering how is it possible to confuse a barley wine and an energy drink, with different names and labels, you’re in good company. It takes a lot of bad faith to think otherwise. The fact is that we are facing the umpteenth arrogant act of a multinational company towards craft breweries.

Fortunately all have gone for the best. With the support of many beer geeks the charge has been withdrawn and an outline agreement achieved. In the official document (pdf) the whole issue is cleared, the two companies will continue to market their respective different products, with the same names and the same mode. Much ado about nothing, you might think, but it is a good thing the Hansen’s have noticed they exceeded the limit of reasonableness. Hope this would constitute a precedent.

That’s the Monster packaging: how the h…l could you mistake it with a Vermonster bottle?!

On the brewery website stands out the enthusiastic message of this victory. Despite the absurd demands the risks for Rock Art were real, so this euphoria is understandable. In addition to absurdity, many have pointed out that Anheuser-Busch should have sued other brewery as well, as Terrapin, with their Big Hoppy Monster or Great Lakes brewery with their Lake Eire Monster. Perhaps they’re too big breweries to face with or perhaps this is just a coincidence.

This is not the first judicial proceeding over brews and breweries. The battle for the rights over Budweiser, between Anheuser-Busch (here they go again) and Budvar perhaps the most renowned. We spoke some times ago of Bavaria hoax of Bavarian breweries.

The former Beba Sangre de Toro label

We assisted a similar affair in Italy in 2006. Sangre de Toro is a renowned Spanish red wine. By coincidence, this is also a Beba brewery beer too. The Italian brewery had to change that name in Toro. Way too easy to mistake a Spanish red wine and an amber Italian beer. Don’t you think? Who knows what will be the next arrogant claim of a corporation against a small craft brewery…