The Society of Beer Advocates is before the Intellectual Property Office in Auckland this week fighting for Dunedin brewery Green Man's right to call its shandy beer "radler".
It is asking the office to invalidate the trademark for "radler" it issued to DB several years ago for Monteith's Radler, a beer flavoured with lemon and lime.
The argument is that the word is an internationally recognised description for a shandy-like beverage - a style of beer rather than, for example, a beer a brewery invents and wishes to protect.
Radler means "cyclist" in German. The beer and lemonade concoction became popular in that country in the 1920s.
Legend has it that in 1922 the owner of a guesthouse near Munich frequented by cyclist and hikers in summer was running low on beer and augmented his supply by adding lemon and lime to it.
The fruity low-strength beer became popular and became known as "radler". The society points out that in the past 15 years 17 breweries in Germany alone have produced more than 37 variations of radlers.
DB has produced Monteith's Radler since 2001 and, in 2003, was granted a trademark by the office for the name. (The society is not aware of any brewery elsewhere in the world registering a trademark for this style.)Two years ago DB advised Green Man that DB had exclusive right to the name (implicitly threatening legal action) and, because the small brewery did not have the financial resources for a legal fight, it put a "cyclist" sticker over the name on the label for its lager diluted to 2.4% with lemonade concentrate.
Intellectual property law firm James and Wells, which is not charging for its services, and the society (a group of about 150 small commercial producers and home brewers which promotes beer and encourages craft breweries) took up cudgels on its behalf.
DB, the society argues, has consistently referred to "radler" on the Monteith's labels and packaging, on its website, brewery tours and even in a recipe book as a style of beer rather than a trademark.
It believes DB also acted in bad faith when it registered the word "radler" because it knew it was a descriptive term and must have appreciated that if it registered "radler" as a trademark it could prevent imports of other radlers (rival Lion, for example, produces a Barefoot radler in Australia which is not exported across the Tasman) and it would make it hard for others (like Green Man) to market a citrus-flavoured beer without calling it "radler".
A shandy is called a shandygaff in Britain and panache (meaning mixed) in France.
Lemonade is not necessarily the only ingredient. In Ireland it has fizzy orange and lemon drink in it. In South Africa it includes soda water, lemonade and bitters. In the United States it is one-third lemon-lime soda and called a Cincinnati. In Germany, one-third lemonade and a nip of cherry liqueur is Cold Duck.
