BYCU

BYCU

Michigan's microbrewery posterboy is Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Every microbrewery in Michigan wants to become the next Bell's. It makes one of the best wheat beers of all time, Oberon, and many of its other beer names, like Hopslam and Two-Hearted Ale, are everyday terms in Michigan bars.

I seem to have heard here and there that Bell's management team suffers from hubris. I didn't think much of it, until I heard about this shameful episode: Bell's Brewery trademark battle with North Carolina Brewery intensifies:

A legal dispute is brewing between one of West Michigan's most well-known craft breweries and a smaller beer-maker in North Carolina. It centers on a possible trademark issue involving Bell's Brewery of Kalamazoo, and Innovation Brewing of Sylva, North Carolina.

According to Citizen-Times in North Carolina, it began with a slogan that Bell's uses, which reads “Bottling Innovation since 1985.” It is not used on any labeling or beer packaging, but the slogan is used on bumper stickers. . . .

Bell's . . . argues that Innovation Brewing's use of the term could cause confusion among customers.

So Bell's is throwing its weight around.

The good news? People are reacting adversely to their bully tactics: "Customer outrage soon erupted, with over 1,000 comments and counting."

I don't know where it'll end up. In a legal forum I subscribe to, a contributor said the legal issues are still in the air. There is now a boycott of Bell's, which anyone who objects to petty lawyering can join.