Note: The Radler Trade Mark issue is one that Australian Brews News has been following since it began. This article first appeared on The Punch on 31 July 2009 when the trademarking issue first raised its head. At the time DB Breweries held trademarks for Saison and Radler in New Zealand. They subsequently surrendered their trade mark for Saison. They persist with their trade mark for Radler. It is posted here to provide some context to this week’s fury at the upholding of DB Breweries’ trade-marking of radler…
There are few times when beer and politics should mix. Barack Obama has recently demonstrated one of the few times when it can work, diffusing a race row with the offer of a peace-making beer at the White House.
Any Federal politician gingerly holding a beer in an RSL or public bar in an unconvincing attempt to come across as a man of the people is an example of when it doesn’t.
Unfortunately, sometimes beer is politics. Two columns ago I recommended Monteith’s Doppelbock Winter Ale as a top beer for a cold winter’s night. In doing so I inadvertently bought into a storm brewing in New Zealand and was subsequently contacted by the wonderfully named Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA), a New Zealand-based beer advocacy group. In a case reminiscent of the US-based shoemaker trying to stop Australians calling their woolly boots ‘ugg boots’, SOBA is calling for a boycott of all of Monteith’s products because its parent company, DB Breweries, has trademarked the name Radler.
The name Radler has really only entered the lexicon of most Australian beer drinkers in the last few years, popularised by Lion Nathan’s Barefoot Radler (note: Lion Nathan has since been forced to change the name of Barefoot Radler to Bare Cove Radler in an unrelated trade makr case relating to the use of the word Barefoot). While not exactly a household name, it is a beer style in the same way pilsener, stout or brown ale are. But because many beer styles remain largely unknown to lager loving antipodeans, the registration seems to have slipped under the radar in the shaky isles. That is until the tiny Green Man brewery in Dunedin brewed one and was immediately hit with notices it was infringing DB Breweries’ trademark.
So what is a radler? As Monteith’s website goes to great length to promote, they neither invented the name nor the style. Radler is the German word for ‘cyclist’, and in its original form the radler is basically a shandy – a lager mixed with lemonade. It is a functional beer designed to be a low-alcohol refreshment for weekend bike riders around Munich. As a regular beer mixed with equal parts lemonade, the authentic radler is a mid-strength drink of around 2.5% abv. Given that it was served as a radlermass (cyclist’s litre) it was the perfect strength for a Bavarian beer lover wanting to successfully negotiate their way home upright after an afternoon’s ride around an alpine meadow. From a marketing perspective ‘radler’ is also a far better term to use to market to an Australian – or a Kiwi – than “shandy”, which would guarantee no one under the age of 70 would buy it.
Ironically, the beer Green Man is no longer allowed to call a radler was true to style, made by mixing the brewery’s own lager and organic lemonade. On the other hand, the Monteith’s equivalent is a regular heavy beer with a hint of lemon and lime. According to the brewery’s website it is “brewed to full strength at 5% alcohol by volume”, lightly hopped “to ensure the bitterness does not dominate the flavour” with “residual sweetness to complement the added lemon juice”. So while a true radler is designed to be both low-alcohol and refreshing for the responsible bike rider, Monteith’s trademarked version sounds pretty much like the sort of thing Nicola Roxon is trying to stamp out with an alcopops tax: full-strength, sweet, fruity and very unbeery.
While some have suggested the situation is tantamount to a New Zealand winemaker selling chardonnay and trademarking the style name, given the liberties Monteith’s have taken with the style I suggest it is actually more akin to a winemaker producing a wine cooler and trademarking the name “Champagne”.
DB Breweries, which is owned by Asia Pacific Breweries Limited, in turn part-owned by Heineken, has also trademarked another beer style, saison – French for season – and unsuccessfully attempted to trademark the style names ‘bock’ and ‘summer ale’.
This leads to the ridiculous situation whereby Belgian brewers such as the world famous Saison Dupont, who have been brewing the style since 1844, cannot export their beer to New Zealand under their traditional names.
Through a spokesperson DB Breweries says that they “trademarked ‘Radler’ as a reflection of the significant investment it had made and the brand recognition we had achieved from 2001 until 2003. This investment continues. The trade-marking of brands is standard business practice worldwide.” (note: you can read the full exchange with DB Breweries’ spokesperson at the end of this article.)
No one could get upset if they trademarked ‘Monteith’s Radler’, which is the brand that they have invested in but radler itself is a style that belongs to brewers and beer lovers everywhere, even in New Zealand. The brewery seems that they have relied on a general ignorance of beer to slip this one through.
It’s obviously much harder to pull such a swifty in Australia. Here the Registrar of Trade Marks considers whether a trade mark has any descriptive or generic meaning that may make it unsuitable for registration. The Australian registrar is either a knowledgeable beer connoisseur or simply did his homework because Lion’s Nathan’s attempts to even register the more appropriate ‘Barefoot Radler’ brand name here was declined because ‘radler’ was considered a descriptive word by IP Australia.
Why does this matter to the Australian beer drinker? Just balancing the ledger really. Monteith’s Doppelbock Winter Ale is still a top beer. But while companies such as DB Breweries are entitled to protect their intellectual property, trying to use trademark laws to corner the market for an internationally recognised beer style that they neither invented nor named is using the trademark laws as a sword against small breweries and not a shield to protect its own legitimate business interests. At a time when beer drinkers are learning that there is much more to beer than just lager this is a hugely retrograde step and it can only hurt the continued growth of beer education and appreciation if brewers can’t call a beer by the name of style they have brewed.
Monteith’s is too good a brewery to resort to that for a small corporate advantage.
Best start a campaign against Anchor too then. They have been doing the trademark thing a lot longer.
I am personally opposed to any brewery owning a trademark over a beer style, but there are huge differences in the two cases. Monteith’s imported and bastardised a style that they had no historical link to and then trademarked it preventing other brewers producing ‘true’ Radlers from calling them that; Anchor trademarked a style it had pretty much kept alive. While there is a fundamental principle that is the same, there is a vast difference in the two cases.
I have to disagree with you on that. I think they are pretty much identical. They have both trademarked the name of a beer style. Seems to me this is just selecting who to pick on as it suits. We like Anchor and see them as craft so we don’t pick them out but other guys we like to see as the man picking on the little guy. If you don’t like Montieth or their parent then just say so. If you want to pick on them for the trademark issue in another country then you have to admit Anchor is just as much an offender.
The only thing identical is they trademarked a style, beyond that there is a difference of several magnitudes of cynicism. Anchor trademarked a style that they had a long association with and are regarded as having kept alive. Monteith’s trademarked a style that they had no prior association with. They did so very soon after introducing a bastardised version to New Zealand such that versions made in the traditional way cannot use the style name.
So far “selecting who to pick on as it suits”, I don’t think any beer style should be trademarked but the only similarity between the two cases is the fundamental principle. I’m a beer lover not a fundamentalist. There is little point in doing anything but tut-tutting Anchor’s move as Anchor is an old argument that has no real relevance here and we have no ability to change the decision. Brews News is of relevance in Australia and New Zealand and pressure can be brought to bear on Monteith’s about their decision. Their abandonment of the Saison trademark shows that a consumer backlash can influence their decision.
As for not liking Monteith’s or their parent, read the original article. It came about after writing a mainstream article praising their beer. I don’t think you can suggest there was prejudice, although I have lost respect for the brewery as a result…I think that’s pretty clear in the articles.
Is your point that it is ok to trademark a beer style, or that there is no point trying to do anything about Monteiths because nothing can be done about Anchor?
My point is that it is incredibly inconsistent to ignore one and pick on the other. I personally think trademarking the name of a beer style is ridiculous. The arguments being made as to why Anchor is not as bad as Montieth are straw men. I never said what Montieth do is right or good. I just asked the author if they thought we should boycott Anchor.
Raising the issue about Monteiths and not Anchor is a decision based on realism. Anchor is a case that has been long decided on very different facts and has no relevance in Australia and New Zealand. The beer barely registers on the local scene and to include that in the current debate just blurs the current issue. The Monteith’s trade mark is directly relevant to Australia and New Zealand beer drinkers and is thus something that is relevant to our readers. That is why I didn’t refer to the Anchor case.
I think you are focussing on pointing out the theoretical inconsistency regardless of the reality of what can be achieved. Nothing can be done about Anchor’s trade mark and calling for a boycott in Australia and New Zealand of a beer that appears on one bottleshop shelf in a thousand here is nothing but pointless symbolism. Trade marking a beer style is wrong but campaigning to boycott Anchor in Australia would be like fighting for your symbolic right to have babies.
http://youtu.be/sFBOQzSk14c
For some reason I can’t reply to the last post so had to add this out of line. I asked if the author though we should boycott Anchor too. I did not say we should boycott Anchor. I pointed out that I didn’t think it was a different argument. I accept the point that there is little we can do about Anchor. I don’t believe there is much that can be done about Montieth outside a court in NZ either.
Monteith’s have already abandoned their trade mark for Saison following the pressure that was placed on them in 2009. If there is consumer backlash about this they will abandon Radler too. It is just business to them – if there is a greater business case to abandon the trade mark than to keep it – and a boycott would provide that – I suspect they will do so.