Bitter battle for heritage beer brands

In a David-and-Goliath battle over the ownership of a portfolio of heritage Australian beer brands, Goliath has won. A decision by the Australian Trademarks Office on Wednesday confirmed CUB’s ownership of its famous heritage beer brands.

Earlier this year, Thunder Road brewed a beer from a 130-year-old recipe it had discovered that was traced back to the original Carlton Brewery, a forerunner of today’s CUB. The craft brewer also created a Collingwood Draught for the grudge AFL match between Collingwood and Carlton.

CUB have scores of old brand marks that are no longer in production from breweries that have been shut down ages ago (even by their own admission) that use regional, town or suburb names all over the country.

‘We continue to believe that CUB’s control of geographical place names for beer, like Richmond, Ballarat, Brisbane, and Cairns is unfair and wrong,’’ the Thunder Road spokesman said. Their claim being that this banking of trade marks was one of many structural barriers to the growth of the craft brewing industry in Australia.

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