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Radler trademark battle continues as DB releases the legal hounds on BRB

There was a bit of a storm in a beer mug back in July when DB was given the rights to use the generic term Radler as a brand name. Corporate bullying, some indie brewers cried. Cutting off your nose to spite your face and making consumers dislike you for no good reason, others shrieked. Mwahahahah, DB laughed. So when The Boundary Road Brewery launched its Lawn Ranger brew recently it claimed it was ‘Radler-style’ and put up a cheeky billboard saying ‘Fine, we won’t call it Radler then’. Now DB has set its lawyers Simpson Grierson on the case, saying the term ‘radler style’ is off limits and telling BRB to lay off the allusions. 

“We are sure the more than 300 brewers in Germany currently using the term radler would take issue with the stance from Monteith’s if they were ever to export their brews,” says Boundary Road general marketing manager Adam Maxwell.

Maxwell says Boundary Road has no interest in engaging in a drawn out legal battle with Monteith’s.

“The Boundary Road Brewery craft range launched in August is already off to a flying start and I am happy to leave it up to consumers to make their preference known.”

But in an effort to slow the flow of legal letters it is now referring to the beer as being ‘in the style known internationally as a radler’. It’s almost as good as ‘Formerly the Blackball Hilton‘.

DB’s spokeswoman Jo Jalfon was unable to be contacted.

This trademark stoush follows on from a spate of them this year, after Fonterra tried to trademark the term vintage and Moa sent a rather entertaining postcard back to France after being told to stop using the term champagne on its website.

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