(Cloverdale, CA) – More trademark battles . . . in this middleweight bout, Bear Republic Brewing takes on Central City Brewing over “Red Racer.”

The Boston IP blog posted the details about the Bear Republic lawsuit over the weekend. California-based Bear Republic is suing British Columbia-based Central City over alleged trademark infringement on its “RACER 5 INDIA PALE ALE and BEAR REPUBLIC RICARDO’S RED ROCKET ALE” marks. Bear Republic takes issue with Central City’s Red Racer product line which hit cans and U.S. distribution for the first time last year. The brewery sent a cease and desist in mid-December to which Central City responded in early January, rejecting Bear Republic’s claims.

In the lawsuit, which is available in full here (pdf), Bear Republic says that at this year’s GABF, a representative was approached by two different people asking about its Red Racer beer in cans. Bear Republic also points to an article penned by Massachusetts-based beer columnist, Norman Miller, in which he repeatedly confuses the Red Racer and Red Rocket names. The article, for which Google’s cached result is still available, has since been removed. The lawsuit was filed in late January with a Massachusetts court, a state where Central City and Bear Republic products are both available.

The lawsuit also notes that it was an (unnamed) Ohio brewery owner that phoned Bear Republic, mentioning the similarities between the two breweries’ marks as well as “the similarities of words, fonts and colors” used between them, that first made the brewery aware of Central City Red Racer products.

The suit seeks, among other things, “an award of damages in the amount of Defendant’s profits.” This is where I need a legal team to look at this. Does that mean just the profits from the allegedly infringing products or all of the company’s profits?

Bear Republic has always and will continue to make award-winning beer. What this does though is shine a spotlight on Central City Brewing, a brewery I had admittedly never heard of before this incident. Central City Red Racer IPA has earned awards and critical praise from the beer rating community, and actually has a chance to make it into the top 10 American IPAs on Beer Advocate.

Central City beers are imported through Klassen Wines; they appear to be available in Maine and California (and others?) in addition to Massachusetts according to Beer Advocate’s Beer Spy feature. Infringing items are to be seized if Bear Republic wins the lawsuit so if you want to try these beers, you may want to snatch them up quickly.

[Hat tip to Sycodrummer on BA for bringing this to our attention.]

Bear Republic and Central City Brewing square off over Red Racer

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(Davis, CA) – I don’t cover a lot of mainstream stuff, especially beer and health items. Nevertheless, if you take a gander at Google News today, you will find approximately 100 articles in the last 24 hours referencing a new study published in the current issue of Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. The study says that high silicon content in beer is helpful for bone density and it isn’t the first to do so.

The Telegraph referenced a study from Spanish researchers in August. Jay Brooks has been a strong proponent of these studies, providing a good summary of the Spain study, pointing to one done last year at Tufts, and another one in the February issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

I also found this article from RealBeer printed in 2004 referencing a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

The only thing that bothers me about the new study is that the lead researcher on the project, Charlie Bamforth of UC Davis, has worked in the beer industry for decades and is endowed/funded by Anheuser-Busch. My guess is that a lot of scientific studies carry these sorts of conflicts of interest though and this study seems to validate the many others as mentioned.

Beer helps your bones says study

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Russian River Brewing statement on Pliny the Younger release

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(Copenhagen, DENMARK) – Mikkeller got more label approvals for U.S. distribution recently.

One is Chipotle Porter, an ale brewed with Chipotle chili. 7.7% ABV. These will appear in 750 mL bottles only in Texas (or predominantly in Texas).

The others are versions of Barrel-Aged Black Hole. Mikkeller is aging Black Hole Imperial Stout in the following barrels: Rum, Islay Scotch Whisky, Bourbon and Red Wine. The beer is made using flaked oats, dark Cassonade (Brazilian brown sugar), honey, coffee and vanilla.

Here is an update on soon-to-come Mikkeller brews from last week.

Mikkeller Chipotle Porter, Barrel-Aged Black Holes approved for U.S.

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(St. Paul, MN) – Summit Brewing is set to release its third beer in the Summit Unchained Series. Summit India-style Rye Ale by Brewer, Mike Lundell, uses at least four varieties of rye and features Summit and Citra hops.

Lundell will appear at a number of release parties the first week of March:

March 1: Jersey’s in Inver Grove Heights at 8pm
March 4: Muddy Pig in St. Paul at 6pm
March 5: Tracy’s in Mpls at 7pm
March 11: Shamrock’s in St. Paul at 6pm

According to the official Summit Brewing website, “The [Unchained Series] is an opportunity for our brewers to show off their skills and creativity. Each beer in the series will be presented by an individual brewer-the style is their choice and they are running the show!”

Summit IRA is the latest in a slew of beers with rye as a feature component coming out this year and begs the question, “Why is rye picking up steam?” Watch for an upcoming post on that very topic.

Summit India-style Rye, Unchained #3, arrives in early March

[Disclaimer: Beernews.org is a leader in craft beer news and is the original source of this article. If you would like to check out more, please visit the original site. Thanks!]

This one’s up for over a week and I’m surprised that they haven’t released part 3 yet. You can watch this and part 1 in widescreen on the Stone Skips Across the Pond channel.

Stone Skips Across the Pond: Part II

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Pic courtesy of The Homebrew Chef, Sean Z. Paxton

(San Francisco, CA) – This is absolutely wild. Russian River Pliny the Younger went on tap at 11am PST today and kicked in less than 10 hours! Compare this to last year when the beer went on tap on February 2nd and was “almost gone” on February 10th. For those who are angry about not getting any, I don’t think Vinnie and Co. could have possibly foreseen this happening.

One Beer Advocate drove 7.5 hours and placed an order for the beer just as it ran out. Another was apparently making a cross-country trek from Portsmouth, NH, and had left at 2:30 this morning. Hopefully those who walked away with a few growlers will hook these guys up.

All those one-day spectacular Imperial Stout releases: Three Floyds Dark Lord, Portsmouth Kate the Great, Foothills Sexual Chocolate, The Bruery Black Tuesday . . . you can now add a Double IPA to those because the Pliny the Younger release will never be the same again. Unless Russian River can make more of it, which seems like a difficult proposition given how much time that beer takes to make, setting lower limits on growlers would be a logical move. You can also expect to see a line forming, perhaps even in the wee hours of the morning, next year.

You can catch up with the madness that was through Twitter. Over 200 “Pliny” tweets flowed through Twitter today.

The good news is that Russian River held enough back to send to some SF Beer Week events as well as Southern California, Portland, Seattle, Denver, and Philadelphia. Here’s the discussion on Philly and one that just started on Seattle. One confirmed location is Blue Palms Brewhouse in Hollywood according to Food GPS. For the locals, it will be on tap at Toronado in San Francisco on Tuesday and the Rose and Crown in Palo Alto on Wednesday according to the SF Beer Week schedule. Note that is a very partial list of to-be-tapped locations. So hope is not completely lost.

Pic courtesy of @leifnordberg on Twitter

Russian River Pliny the Younger kaput!

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