UK Brewery In Trademark Spat With Gin Distillery Despite Very Different Product Markets
While the number of trademark dispute stories in the alcohol industry has slowed down compared to where it was five years ago, they certainly haven’t gone away entirely. While many past stories were a matter of brewery on brewery trademark violence, owing largely to the creative manner in which craft breweries name and trade dress their products, a more niche category are those that involve a brewery and a distillery for a different kind of alcohol. Sometimes it’s wineries going after beer, because nuance is apparently gone and all alcohol is the same. Or, more directly appropriate for this post, sometimes UKIPO has to reiterate to aggressive trademark holders that beer is not vodka.
I expect that ruling to be cited if a current dispute ever makes it to the UK courts, as a small brewery has found itself being targeted with C&Ds by a gin distillery. Kristian Harris runs The Gentleman Brewing Company with his partner, Amie. They have a variety of beer labels that the brewery has named after character archetypes that they think fit with each beer’s flavor.
[Kristian] said: “I came up with the idea around The Gentleman Brewing Company, and each beer being a character. The idea is that the personality of that character comes across in the beer in some way. We’ve got The Explorer, which is a stout, which is brewed with chocolate malts and cereal. It really gives you those warm, chocolatey, coffee notes that make me think of a beer that I’d like to drink on a cold night.
“We’ve also got The Captain, which is a traditional English IPA. That beer is heavily hopped and has a raised alcohol content, just like they did to preserve beer on voyages to India – that’s where the name India Pale Ale came from.”
You get it. Well, last year the brewery released a new label, “The Botanist FunctionAle.” This beer is of the non-alcoholic variety and is flavored specifically by combining it with a tea base made from berries, flowers, and other plant-derived flavors. Hence, the name. That’s when the trouble started.
In July 2024, Kristian and Amy received a cease and desist letter from the Bruichladdich Distillery Company Limited – makers of The Botanist gin and part of the Remy Cointreau group – in relation to what they perceived to be a trademark infringement.
They were told that Bruichladdich Distillery Company and Remy Cointreau own the trademark for ‘The Botanist’, and that the name of their non-alcoholic beer was infringing upon this trademark. The legal representatives for these companies added that the name of the beer was “identical to our client’s earlier trademark registration” and was being used in relation to similar goods – creating a “likelihood of confusion on the part of the public.”
And that, friends, is quite a fucking claim. The name is most certainly not identical to the distillery’s. Theirs is “The Botanist” while the brewery’s is “The Botanist FunctionAle.” Also, these are not similar goods. One of them is a beer and the other is gin. Just like beer is not vodka, beer is also not gin. And, again, the beer doesn’t even have alcohol in it.
Kristian stressed that he felt it was unrealistic to argue that consumers might become confused between a brand of gin and a non-alcoholic beer, and said: “It’s your classic David vs Goliath story – me and my partner Amie who are trying to launch a business against a billion pound corporation.
“I think that’s ridiculous – consumers have got more knowledge than that. One is 46% alcohol, and ours is non-alcoholic. Theirs comes in a big glass bottle which you can’t drink straight from, ours is in a dark, smaller 500ml bottle.”
It is ridiculous. Plainly so. As are the more recent demands that the distillery has made, as though it were in any position to tell the brewery what its options are. According to the distillery, The Gentleman Brewing Company could either change the name to something like “Botanical,” could completely rebrand the beer to remove any reference to botany, or apparently the distillery was willing to let Kristian whip out his thesaurus.
They said that, even if TGBC wanted to continue to market the beer with reference to botany, they could change the branding to include an alternative title – with phytologist, plantsman, nurseryman, horticulturist and plant scientist among their list of suggestions.
I offer a fourth option: telling the distillery to go outside and play hide-and-go-screw-themselves. Easy for me to say, I know, given that trademark bullying largely works because one large entity has more cash to throw around, or lawyers on staff as a sunk cost, compared with a small brewery. But there are plenty of decisions from UKIPO to cite, not to mention what appears to be quite relevant caselaw from previous cases.
Kristian added that, while researching similar cases, he discovered the example of Tiger Gin vs Heineken. Jeffrey Lawrence attempted to trademark ‘Tiger Gin’ back in 2014, a move that was opposed by Heineken – who produce a lager called Tiger.
The case was heard at the High Court, where Heineken attempted to argue that ‘Tiger Gin’ could create confusion with their own brand, and take unfair advantage of their reputation. The presiding judge, however, dismissed their objections and allowed the trademark to be registered – and one of his conclusions was that there is a “very low degree of similarity” between beer and gin.
Kristian said: “In that case, they presented 19 different pieces of case law to strengthen their argument – that means we now have 20 pieces for our scenario about how gin and beer can’t be compared.
Say it with me folks: gin is not beer. It appears that the brewery is willing to fight this out and I very much hope that it does. Because, in the end, it’s hard to imagine them losing the actual case on the merits.