E-Malt.com News article: USA, CO: Denver Pearl Brewing Company to change its name

In yet another craft brewing trademark dispute, three-month-old Denver Pearl Brewing Company announced on August 20 it would change its name after two other breweries – one national and one local – raised concerns about similarities with their brands, First Drafts reported.

General manager and owner Colby Rankin said the brewery did research and conferred with lawyers before settling on the name (the brewery opened in June on Pearl Street in Denver’s Platt Park neighborhood). He said the brewery was aware “Pearl” had been used in brewing but thought it was on solid ground because Pearl Brewing in San Antonio, Texas, closed in 2001.

Pabst Brewing Co., however, still produces Pearl and Pearl Light beer in Fort Worth, Texas, for distribution in Texas and Oklahoma, and attorneys with Pabst threatened legal action, Rankin said.

Pabst representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The first concerns, however, were voiced by a local brewery Rankin said he did not want to identify. The news release about the re-branding plan sent to local beer press on August 20 put it like this: “One brewer from the local brewing scene threatened legal action as well, as they felt they were entitled to the sole use of the word ‘Denver’ in craft brewing.”

That might as well have named Denver Beer Co.

Reached Wednesday, August 20 afternoon, co-owner Patrick Crawford confirmed that Denver Beer Co. contacted Denver Pearl Brewing Company with concerns.

“We did talk to them,” Crawford said. “We had a meeting, invited them over for beers. We told them it was probably going to be a little confusing for both their customers and our customers. But we never did take or did plan on taking legal action toward them. We drank beers together for an hour.”

Crawford noted that in the increasingly crowded craft beer market, “it’s important to have something unique and differentiated” – a theme sounded at last spring’s Craft Brewers Conference in Denver, he said.

Strange Brewing renamed itself Strange Craft Beer Company after a high-profile dispute with a East Coast homebrew store. DeSteeg Brewing in Denver originally was to be called High Gravity Brewing until an amicable meeting with Gravity Brewing in Louisville.

Rankin, for his part, said legal action was discussed in the Denver Beer Co. exchange, though lawyers did not get involved. In any case, the fledgling neighborhood brewery decided to make a change.

“That is not why we got into the industry, man, to sit in a courtroom and waste money on that,” he said. “We want to be brewing beer and concentrating on the brewery instead of the outside things. The (brewery’s) lawyer said we would have a chance, but I just want to move on.”

“It affects us,” Rankin said. “We opened the first week of June, people are finally starting to know who we are, remember our beers and hear about us word-of-mouth. Now we have to change our name. That is kind of frustrating right now. But it’s also nice because we are only two months in and didn’t come several years down the road.”

Brewing on a 10-barrel system, the soon-to-be-former Denver Pearl Brewing does not adhere to a specific style, offering a little bit of everything with a focus on drinkability and lower-alcohol options, Rankin said. The brewer, Greg Matthews, previously brewed at the Rock Bottom outpost in Boulder County. The plan is to start distribution soon.

The new name will be unveiled at a “renaming party” Sat., Sept. 6.

Said Rankin: “We have definitely done a lot of research on it to make sure we aren’t going to run into anything else.”


22 August, 2014