My fellow Americans

Budweiser is piss and uses bully tactics to run the little breweries out of business.

Phil

Bud is piss maybe, but that is just an opinion. And even if it is piss it's 5.4%ABV piss. As to your other claim: can you cite any examples? I've never heard of AB ever doing anything WalMart-y to the competition. The sell cheap and advertise a LOT, but that's just business. How have they stong-armed or bullied any micros out of business?

Tom

Is this a bait for you know who?

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There's Budejovický Budvar. AB sued Budvar for using 'their' name, despite the fact that Budvar had been using it long before AB was around.

AB sued Pete's Wicked Ale for copyright infringement when they introduced Spuds MacKenzie. PWA apparently had a pit bull on it's six pack holder and AB took them to court over it. This is despite the fact that PWA had a pit on its six packs years before Spuds was 'born.'

There was a brewery (I can't remember its name) that came out with Billy Budd Ale (after the Herman Melville character). AB, once again, sued for copyright infringement, saying that people would confuse the two names. BIlly Budd Ale disappeared.

AB sued A&B Distributors (a beer distributor) to change its name because it was too much like AB. THis lawsuit happened after AB terminated its business relationship with A&B (which distributed Budweiser for 35 years). A&B Distributos ending up leaving the beer business.

And then there's AB's tactics of 'convincing' distributors to carry only their own beer. But that's a story for another day....

Phil

I can't think who you know who is at the moment, but no.

Phil

Mister2u wrote in news:a522d86c-c383-4caa-b9a9- snipped-for-privacy@k37g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

PPpppphhhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!! Go SPAM(tm) somewhere else.

If the Belgians want AB, they can have it. I'm sick of their crap beer. It pains my German heritage to see what AB has done to Bier. Es ist nicht so gut. Ich will nicht trinken.

snipped-for-privacy@my.sig (TARogue) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@gore.tarogue.net:

It must be nice to live with your head in the sand. Take a look at what they did to Redhook. They are the Microsoft of the beer world. It is about time they have done to them what they have done to so many other breweries.

Baseball: based on the English games of rounders and cricket, and references to "baseball" in British literature before American independence.

Apple pie: recipes for apple pie exist in British literature since at least the time of Chaucer, and the Dutch have published recipes going back to at least the 17th century.

A-B: started by German immigrants, using brewing processes and styles they'd learned in the home country, whose flagship product is named after a famous Czech brewing town.

So, yes, Anheuser-Busch is as much an American "original" as baseball and apple pie. That is to say, not at all.

The American spirit of claiming American origin to stuff invented elsewhere? Yeah, they represent that.

You need to sound less like a press release.

Were you concerned about the foreign invasion of Modelo when A-B bought up half the Mexican brewer? Were you concerned about the foreign invasion when A-B bought up more than a quarter of Chinese brewer Tsingato?

Oh, yes, it's ok when Americans do it, but it's not ok when Americans have it done to them. Again, you're right: A-B is very much representative of the American spirit.

No.

I am. I couldn't care less who owns A-B. Nor do I find international commerce a grave threat to the country, whether beer or most anything else.

You can have mine. Can't stand the stuff.

-Steve

No, Phil, they hadn't.

Budejovický Budvar, founded 1895.

Anheuser-Busch, founded 1852 and incorporated 1875. They first brewed a beer called "Budweiser" in 1876. An entirely different brewery sold a beer called Budweiser Bürgerbraü in the States a few years before A-B's Budweiser. But that brewery had no connection to Budvar, and it was already becoming a generic name much like Pilsner.

Nor did A-B sue Budvar. They companies reached an agreement in 1911 establishing territories for use of the name.

There have been trademark defense lawsuits in various markets since then, initiated by *both* breweries.

If Pete's never bothered to trademark their logo, the rules of trademark law are such that A-B would be in the right to pursue defense of their mark. A later competitor is not responsible for a predecessor's failure to register their mark, and failure to either file a mark or defend it can cause courts to determine that the claim to the mark had expired for the original company.

Entirely reasonable conclusion, and nearly an open-and-shut case in trademark law. Had someone come up with Billy Budd Drain Cleaner and A-B sued, they'd have lost and had no grounds. But having a phonetically similar name selling the same product is going to result in losing a trademark case nearly every time.

I'm not by any means asserting A-B are all sweetness and light. But if you're going to present a company as evil, it'd be good to have accurate facts, as well as understand how trademarks actually work.

-Steve

Pete's did trademark the logo. Apparently Budweiser's lawyers never bothered to look into that. They figured they would just drive the little guy bankrupt with legal fees.

The capper to this story, however, is after the court sided with Pete's, Budweiser sent them a letter givibng them permission to use the logo.

Does this mean that Budweiser has the rights to the character?

No one would confuse the two beers....except maybe those who believe Budweiser's advertising; they have no taste.

My argument was off the top of my head. I wasn't going to research this.

Phil

Do tell. What *did* they do to Redhook?

They've created a near-monopoly on beer? They own some crazy 80% share of the market? They have crazy-high profit margins? Really?

What have they done to other breweries that should be done to them?

So? Does it somehow cause you grief and pain if *other* people drink A-B's stuff?

Which "German heritage" is this? What has A-B "done to Bier?"

It is not so good? Well, at least it's not bad, then. You don't want to drink? Yeah, fine. So what?

Nope. But they do have a right (and, in the way trademark law works, obligation) to defend their mark against anything that's similar.

You'd be surprised at how many would confuse it. I see it in consumer research all the time.

The other thing with trademark law is, a failure not to defend your mark can cause you to end up losing it. Let's say A-B didn't defend their mark against Billy Budd. Sometime in the future, a court could decide that another similarly named beer was legit because A-B didn't care enough to defend their mark in a similar situation. It would hardly be unprecedented in the history of trademark law.

-Steve

They gave wider distribution to an already-mediocre beer? Wow. Pure evil.

-Steve

A&B distributed Budweiser for 35 years before Budweiser pulled the carpet out from underneath them.

It's not necessarily a case of just going to court anymore. The big guy has the resources to run the little guy bankrupt through bullshit legal procedings. Right or wrong has nothing to do with it.

Phil

AB has bought out smaller breweries, only to shut them down. While I don't see this happening, it would be poetic justice.

Phil

Would it cause you grief if AB switched hands?

Budweiser has become dilluted over the years. They add rice to eliminate cost....not something that you would see a true German brewery do.

Phil

Rice is typically more expensive than barley or corn. (Rice is going for $20/bushel, v. $7.42/bushel for corn. (CBOT doesn't trade barley apparently, so I'm not finding the cost.)

They do it to get a particular flavor profile. That profile is wholly uninteresting, imo. But again, there's no need to make up stuff or pass on urban legends to make A-B appear bad. They can do that on their own through some of the things they actually do. Using false claims to say "A-B is evil" just discredits the whole argument.

-Steve

While I haven't had an industrial light lager in the last 10 years, I believe I could still distinguish Bud from Coors and Millers. Bud tastes like water that was used to cook corn while Coors and Millers have no taste at all.

Dick