February 10, 2010

Central City Brewing statement on Bear Republic lawsuit

Excerpt from court document comparing logos

(Surrey, BRITISH COLUMBIA) – Central City Brewing Brewmaster, Gary Lohin, chimed in on the Bear Republic lawsuit over at Beer Advocate within the last hour:

“Hi everyone, I’d like to clear up a couple of things from the Central City point of view. My name is Gary Lohin, and I am the Brewmaster at Central City Brewing Co, which is in a community just outside Vancouver, British Columbia. First of all, our logo is not a mish-mash of Racer 5 and Red Rocket. The logo was used with permission from a local elderly painter, who painted this oil painting in the 50’s. That’s why the girl kind of looks like a Vargas/pin-up girl. I don’t believe the painting had a name, but we dubbed it Red Racer after the bike. As for the font, we had it professionally designed by a local graphics artist. Any suggested similarities in the font and colours are purely coincidental. As well as a brewer for 20 years now, I am a huge mountain bike enthusiast. Putting a bike on the label was kind of my homage to the local mountain biking community.

I must say I am disappointed in the actions taken by Bear Republic because I really like to think that all us craft brewers, and the people who drink our beers, are one like- minded people. We all love good beer!. I myself enjoy Bear Republic’s beers, and the most ironic thing is that we were selling their beers in our brewpub store! We never had a problem confusing their label with ours.

I know everything I have said probably means nothing in a court-of- law, but we never even knew who Bear Republic were when we designed our label way back when. We here at CCBC are totally committed to making excellent, distinctive beers, and wanted to send some to the United States. We think our IPA stands up to any IPA brewed anywhere. We wanted you guys down south of the 49th parallel to try some. That still will happen, but possibly under a different name, not logo. We want to spend our money on new tanks, and kegs, and our employees, not give it to lawyers.

I see this as a lose – lose lawsuit , and I certainly wouldn’t like to see a boycott against Bear Republic. It would have been nice to get a phone call though.

Gary Lohin
Brewmaster
Central City Brewing”

Posted by: beersage @ 8:30 pm
Filed under: Beer law, California, International
More on this subject: Bear Republic, Central City Brewing

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Rick Green Says:
February 10th, 2010 at 8:50 pm

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.

uncle JM Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 2:53 am

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.

beersage Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 3:11 am

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!

Rick Green Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 3:31 am

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/.

beersage Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 11:37 am

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?

sammy Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 11:46 am

Central Canada comments in thread here:

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

brandon east Says:
February 11th, 2010 at 4:55 pm

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.

Juliann Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:28 pm

Regardless, It isn’t US V Canada

racheldesiree Says:
February 10th, 2010 at 3:40 am