Lost Abbey/Pizza Port vs. Moylans

[Sledutah]

Can we just go ahead and award Brendan Moylan "Douche of the Year"?

You must have meant Tomme Arthur. Who orders a beer by pointing at a tap handle and saying "I want that one" and not knowing what beer there going to drink. This is a ridiculous lawsuit. Suing another brewer over a tap handle, wtf!

[calpete]

I don't know. I take Arthur's argument at face value, and find it very easy to believe that the look of the tap handle is of big importance to his brand. Haven't we all had the experience of visiting a new city, walking into the local beer bar, and being bewildered by the many small regional breweries that don't distribute nationally. Do you really ask the bartender to describe what's on every tap? Or do you point to the two or three that just happened to catch your eye? And if you've happened to enjoy a Lost Abbey beer in bottle in the past, and you recognize their particular version of a Celtic Cross, then you just might be likely to quickly spot it in a long line-up and give a draft version of their beer a try.

What I find douche-y about Moylan's response is his apparent sense of entitlement to being free to use ANY sort of Celtic or Cross design, even if he's switching to a new design that happens to look very similar to the design already used and trademarked by another brewer. I don't believe Arthur chose to sue and much as he was forced to do so by Moylan's arrogance--an arrogance that comes across loud and clear in the newspaper quote. Brewers code, for me, would have involved Moylan hearing out Arthur's concerns and then coming up with a design that was satisfactory to both.

[mediumsk]

it's just beer....



I enjoy Lost abbey beers much more than Moylans, that's about how much judgment I put into this, I am neither professional brewer nor business man so I have no reason to judge either as far as how they act concerning such a business dispute.
I feel that this spat of Beer world drama is a getting a bit tired. A more important question is what you would do in a situation like this?
There are a ton of people on this board who want to open a brewery someday, I have no doubt that most eventually will, that said I feel most of us ( myself included ) have our heads firmly planted in the "beer conception and marketing part", when in reality that's just a small bit of the equation. Mid size breweries don't have money for lawsuits, so what do you do when you can't resolve a serious issue with out one? How about when your marketing steps on the toe's of another brewery in town? Or what if another local brewery opened up a tasting room right next to your brewery with out talking to you about it first?

All of these situations have come up in my local beer scene in the last few months and they make me glad that I'm not a professional brewer or brewery owner.

If I were to have one opinion it would be that Moylans and Lost Abbey should have at least agreed to not speak to the media.