DailyDirt: Making Spirits Bright

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There was a time when making your own alcohol wasn't a completely legit thing to do. Sure, now anyone can just go down to a corner store almost any time and pick up a chilled alcoholic beverage, but if you're a real do-it-yourself-er, you won't want to drink just anything that comes in a pretty bottle. Here are a few projects you might want to check out someday when you're not feeling like guzzling something made by Anheuser-Busch-Inbev-SABmiller.

• Folks can brew beer from a lot of unusual stuff, so why not use day-old bread to prevent some food waste? Toast Ale uses surplus bakery bread to make its beer, and it plans to open source its recipe so that more people can find a productive use for baked goods that might otherwise just go in the trash. If you're not a beer drinker, there's also vodka made from potato peels. [url]
• PicoBrew is a way to brew your own beer at home with the convenience of a Keurig coffee maker. So yah, you can make custom craft beer at home, and you just need to buy these fairly sizable packages of pre-measured hops and grains -- then voila, you'll have fresh beer in about a week. [url]
• If you'd like to try to make your own moonshine, but you don't really want to go out into the woods and find a source of running water -- just get a tabletop still for your kitchen. It doesn't even require running water, and it'll make about a half gallon of booze on demand (if you're patient). And maybe make sure to discard the first few drops to make sure you're not drinking too much methanol. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: alcohol, beer, beverages, booze, bread, distillation, drinks, food, food waste, moonshine, picobrew, vodka
Companies: anheuser-busch, kickstarter, sabmiller

Anheuser-Busch Drops Trademark Opposition Against Natty Greene Brewing Co.

from the yay dept

Anheuser-Busch is no stranger when it comes to silly little intellectual property conflicts. Sometimes the perp, sometimes the victim, the insanely large beer-maker often finds itself deviating from the business of making beer and instead landing in the courtroom. The company's latest foray centered around a perceived large threat from a tiny little brewery called Natty Greene Brewing.

Last summer, Anheuser-Busch filed opposition to Natty Greene’s application to trademark “Natty Greene.” The company said it has been using the “Natty” name in connection with its line of beers since at least 1998 and that it has trademarks for “Natty Light” and “Fatty Natty” — also known as Natural Light beer — as well as its Natty Daddy brand. The company felt that the Natty Greene’s trademark would cause confusion among consumers.

Natty Greene is a small micro-brewery with a couple of locations out of North Carolina and they make craft beer. Anheuser-Busch is a macro-brewery if ever there was one and Natural Light is what college kids drink because it costs roughly the same as a thimble of sand in the Arabian Desert. The chance of someone attending a tasting at a Natty Greene location and somehow thinking the whole thing was coordinated by the same people who make Budweiser, Beck's and Natural Light is effectively null.

And, in a rare sign that sense still exists in this crazy, crazy world, apparently the folks over at A-B agree.

Anheuser-Busch late last week agreed to drop its opposition to the trademark application Natty Greene’s Pub and Brewing Co. is pursuing. David Sar, an attorney with the Greensboro law firm of Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard who handled the matter for Natty Greene’s, said Anheuser-Busch filed its withdrawal on Friday. Sar said it was withdrawn with “prejudice,” meaning it can’t be refiled. He added that the two sides reached a confidential resolution. The trademark office will now most likely grant Natty Greene’s its trademark, he said.

It's a nice end to the story, I suppose, but the resolution leaves me questioning why any of this had to happen in the first place? With just a small application of the common-sense-juice to A-B's lawyers' brain-thoughts, a whole lot of time and money could have been avoided, considering we ended up in the same place as though no opposition had been filed anyway.

Filed Under: beer, trademark
Companies: anheuser-busch, natty greene

Budweiser Asks Paramount To Remove Their Beer From The Movie Flight

from the maybe-their-lawyers-were-drunk? dept

As product placement in television and film becomes more prevalent, it was only a matter of time before intellectual property silliness had to follow. For example, we've seen such wonderful cases of egocentrism as a copyright claim over a painting shown in a movie. Couple that with product placement examples that are awkward for all involved and you've got a recipe for litigious fun not seen since a murder trial involving a former Buffalo Bills running back.

Reader Chris writes in about a story that appears to be a nice crossroads of these two aspects of product placement, in which several alcohol companies are apparently upset that their products are being shown in the movie Flight doing what those products do: get people drunk.

Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington's character drinking the beer while behind the wheel.

Budweiser is hardly the only alcoholic beverage shown in "Flight," which earned $25 million in its debut weekend and is likely to remain popular with audiences. Washington's character frequently drinks vodka throughout the film, with several different brands represented. William Grant & Sons, which distributes Stolichnaya in the United States, also said it didn't license its brand for inclusion in the film and wouldn't have given permission if asked.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why didn't the film get permission to use the products in their film?" The answer is about as complicated as a straight line; they don't have to. Studios are not required to ask for permission to include every little brand in their movies -- even if some companies now think that's the case. True, Denzel Washington's character in the film is a drunk and Budweiser may not be pleased to be associated with that aspect of the story, but the law isn't concerned about Budweiser's pleasure. Trademark law isn't about making sure you're always happy about how your product is displayed.

Even going beyond trademark law, it's not like they were "misrepresenting" anything. I, for one, can assure you that the depiction of beer being able to get a person hammered is spot on accurate, and if you won't take my word for it, I'll give you the phone numbers of some of my neighbors who can relate their experiences living near me on NFL Sundays. The point is that there's a reason these companies didn't give their permission: nobody asked them for it.

Trademark laws "don't exist to give companies the right to control and censor movies and TV shows that might happen to include real-world items," said Daniel Nazer, a resident fellow at Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project. "It is the case that often filmmakers get paid by companies to include their products. I think that's sort of led to a culture where they expect they'll have control. That's not a right the trademark law gives them."

Jay Dougherty, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the use of brands in films has generally been protected by the courts, even when the companies aren't pleased with the portrayals. "It wouldn't have been as effective a film if they used a bunch of non-generic brands," said Dougherty, who is also the director of the school's Entertainment & Media Law Institute. "In a normal situation, if the alcohol were just there as a smaller part of the movie, they might have created an artificial brand for it."

Unfortunately, with the wonderful garden of permission culture that IP laws have fertilized so well for us, companies think they can control...and control...and control. But just because sometimes filmmakers seek out product placement, that doesn't mean that all brand appearances need to first receive approval. Thankfully, thus far, the courts have recognized that they cannot keep their products out of film this way. Now let's all go have a non-generic beer.

Filed Under: budweiser, flight, movies, product placement, trademark
Companies: anheuser-busch, paramount

Beverage Company Sues Anheuser-Busch Over Totally Different Looking Can Design

from the that's-infringing?!? dept

Scott alerts us to the bizarre lawsuit filed by United Brands, makers of the "Dragon Joose" malt beverage, filed against Anheuser-Busch for its Tilt malt beverage, arguing that the new design of Tilt's cans represents trademark infringement, copyright infringement and unfair competition among other things. The company put out this statement:

"While we are flattered that Anheuser-Busch recognizes the considerable value of the Joose brand, it is disappointing that they have resorted to stealing our design," says Michael Michail, CEO and president of United Brands. "Their new Tilt product design intentionally infringes on our Dragon Joose Marks and is thereby benefiting from the brand equity of United Brands and its products."

Based on that, you'd have to think the two cans look pretty damn similar, right? Well, take a look: I have to admit, that I'm at a loss. Okay, there's a (very different) dragon on each can, but the designs are totally different from one another. What, exactly, does United Brands think infringes on their copyright on the original design? I can't see anything that's copied. Same with the trademark. I can't see any likelihood of confusion here. I've seen some pretty bizarre trademark and copyright lawsuits, but I'm at a total loss as to what was infringed on here.

Filed Under: copyright, dragon joose, lawsuits, malt beverages, tilt, trademark
Companies: anheuser-busch, united brands

Beer, Blogs And Bias

from the i'll-drink-to-that dept

The Wall Street Journal has an article focusing on a blog set up by Miller Brewing Company called Brew Blog. There are a few different, interesting points worth discussing here. First, the blog isn't used as a blog about what's going on at Miller Brewing. Instead, Miller hired an experienced reporter, and told him to just cover the beer industry as if he were a beat reporter. In other words, it's reporting news -- and even breaking stories on the competition. In fact, it revealed that main rival Anheuser-Busch was planning a new beer before A-B was able to make the announcement itself. This is certainly a recognition of how content is advertising. The blog clearly isn't "advertorial." It's full-on reporting about the industry, in a way that's interesting and relevant to those in the industry.

What may be even more interesting, though, is what the article says about journalism. In an age in which journalists are whining that their jobs are disappearing, here's yet another example of where suddenly there are new types of jobs for journalists appearing every day. But, even more interesting, is a quote at the end of the article highlighted by David Card. It's from Harry Schuhmacher, the editor and publisher of a fee-based trade publication on the beer industry:

"I tell Miller you're subsidizing a free publication, and it hurts the trade press," he says. "But they don't care."...Mr. Schuhmacher adds that he writes fewer positive pieces about Miller than he once did because he knows Brew Blog will always publish the same stories.

Think about this for a bit. People complain that when you have a company-sponsored publication it will inevitably be biased -- but the sponsorship of that site is totally open and in the clear. The site's content stands for itself. Yet, at the same time, a supposedly "objective" traditional journalist is admitting that he writes fewer stories about Miller because he's upset that it's competing with his own publication. From that, it would certainly seem like the Brew Blog is a lot more credible (it's biases are out in the open), while this fee-based trade pub admits that story choices are sometimes based on personal vendettas.

Filed Under: beer, bias, blogs
Companies: anheuser-busch, miller brewing