Brewery name clash ends in Anarchy!
By: JimOldfield
September 11th, 2012
A northern brewery says it has been forced to change its name, to avoid a legal row with an established Midlands brewer.
Northumberland’s Brew Star brewery has renamed itself the Anarchy Brew Co – after its highly successful premium lager, Anarchy.
The Morpeth micro-brewery was challenged by Grantham’s Brewsters Brewing Company, which felt the Brew Star name was too close to its own, and could cause confusion.
Dawn and Simon Miles, who run the Morpeth brewery, said they decided to change its name rather wasting time and money fighting a trade mark action through the courts.
Anarchy, as their venture is now known, started up only in February this year, but has quickly established itself with three regular brews – Blonde Star, Sinistar… and Anarchy.
Of the wrangle, Dawn said: “It had been an unwelcome distraction from developing products and growing the business. After some internal discussion we decided to resist the temptation to battle it out, spending lots of money in the courts.
“We jumped at the chance to find a name that better described our philosophy and ethos about brewing craft beers in an unconventional way; we came up with Anarchy Brew Co.”
Brewsters – which has several SIBA national championship medals to its name – remains unhappy about the situation, however and says it has now received negative emails since Brew Star / Anarchy went public with its side of the story.
Says Brewsters: “We have been trading as Brewster’s since 1998, nearly 14 years. “How would anyone feel after years of building a business … to find someone set up the same business, a brewery, with a similar sounding name?”
To read both sides of the dispute in full, visit the links below.
Hand-Pumped link:
Brewsters
Brew Star / Anarchy
