Craft Beer Branding
By Richard Stobbe
In one of the more absurd episodes of bureaucratic overreach, craft brewer Stalwart Brewing Company ran into a regulatory headache when the LCBO raised concerns about the regulatory prohibition on health claims related to Stalwart’s label for ” Dr. Feelgood India Pale Ale”.
The regulator’s complaint was that the label – featuring a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a snake wrapped around a mash-paddle-medieval-sword, mimicking a Rod of Asclepius – was somehow crossing the line by making unsubstantiated medical claims…Because apparently Canadian beer consumers wouldn’t be able to decipher that “Dr. Feelgood” is not a real physician, and might think that the IPA contained in the can was real medicine.
Leaving aside the thorny question of whether IPA qualifies as medicine, the branding and trademark issues arises in a number of ways:
- Trademark  searches can clear a proposed brand as against other similar marks which may be registered or pending for similar products;
- Trademark searches can be done in conjunction with the process of meeting federal and provincial labelling requirements;
- This case is a reminder that trademark preclearance must also take into account other rules, such as:
- alcohol by volume declarations;
- the correct naming for “low alcohol beer” vs. “light beer” vs. “extra strong beer”;
- “Lager” on its own is not an acceptable common name for beer. The common name “beer” must be listed in addition to the description “lager”;
- naming conventions related to gluten-free beer.
On a positive note, the original Dr. Feelgood cans should now be a collector’s item.
Calgary – 07:00 MST
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