156: One of the Challenges Little Breweries Face
Matt Nadeau is the owner of Rock Art a small brewery in Vermont. One of the beers that Rock Art makes is a barley wine named Vermonster. At 10% abv it is one Monster of a beer. So Vermonster is fitting.
Monster Energy Drink Company is a one billion a year corporation. They sell energy drinks. Not beer. The packaging for Monster Energy Drink looks nothing like the packaging for Rock Art's Vermonster. Yet Monster Energy Drink sent a cease and desist order to Rock Art telling them that because of a likelihood of consumer confusion, Rock Art needed to stop using the name Vermonster.
It's ridiculous on its face. But the rub is that if you don't have the cash on hand to fight the mega-corporation it doesn't matter how ridiculous the claim is. The big company will win and you'll have to bow down to the, But, Matt Nadeau says it better himself:
Monster Energy Drink Company is a one billion a year corporation. They sell energy drinks. Not beer. The packaging for Monster Energy Drink looks nothing like the packaging for Rock Art's Vermonster. Yet Monster Energy Drink sent a cease and desist order to Rock Art telling them that because of a likelihood of consumer confusion, Rock Art needed to stop using the name Vermonster.
It's ridiculous on its face. But the rub is that if you don't have the cash on hand to fight the mega-corporation it doesn't matter how ridiculous the claim is. The big company will win and you'll have to bow down to the, But, Matt Nadeau says it better himself:
well Brooklyn Brewery has Monster barley wine, it's been around for years.
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When are you guys going to get that oatmeal raisin cookie brown ale on?
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Monster Energy is now on my sh*tlist. They can rot in hell.
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The history of people fighting over the "Monster" name started with the Monster Cable company. AFAIK they did not go after Monster energy drinks but they did sue Disney for Monsters inc, Discovery Channel for Monster Garage, Monster. com, and a multitude of smaller companies.
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This actually kind of makes sense to me now, since i see that anheuser busch owns monster energy drinks.
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It is sad...this is a thinly veiled attempt by In-Bev AB to squash smaller, superior competition.
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What a shame. It's sad that a little brewery is getting hammered by the "big" guys. And wtf about the wine!? Consumers won't confuse that?! I'm not sure why or how this whole ordeal came up, but it is definitely a sad situation.
-Sylvia
Cigars
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I like this blog very much! I am also a beer lover and can relate to the posts here.thanks for sharing
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