No "Best" Beer or Coffee Dunkin’ Donuts has just filed a trademark application for the mark BEST COFFEE IN AMERICA. It's unlikely their application will be successful because of what happened to Boston Beer Company when they filed to trademark the slogan THE BEST BEER IN AMERICA. In that case the Trademark Office refused to register this mark to the makers of Samuel Adams because it found the mark merely descriptive of and laudatory for the goods at issue. The Boston Beer Company appealed this decision, but the appellate court severely stated that the mark was “so highly laudatory and descriptive of the qualities of its product that the slogan does not and could not function as a trademark to distinguish Boston Beer’s goods and serve as an indication of origin.” |
Women Wanted Carlsberg Group CEO Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen says in spite of gimmicky "innovations" in beer marketed to women, they remain a huge untapped market but catering to them requires a new approach in management, strategy, and product innovation. Currently their customer base is less than 20% female; to increase this number Carlsberg is inventing several female-friendly products and test marketing them in small, highly developed markets like Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark. If successful there the company believes that the drinks might work in other larger markets. Carlsberg has tried this before when they launched "Eve", a light, fruity, sparking low alcoholic drink that was beer-based. Eve was successful in its launch market of Switzerland and Russia. Another attempt by Carlsberg was a the creation of a light beer called Copenhagen, a name intended to evoke fashion and design. “Many young people aren’t keen on the bitter aftertaste of beer,” said Kirsten Ægidius, VP Marketing for Carlsberg. “We have created a highly drinkable beer with a balanced taste, a real alternative to white wine and champagne.” The product is currently being tested in various Nordic markets. Several other companies are also working on products geared to women. Molson-Coors Co. sought to “remove the gender imbalance that exists around beer consumption” and boost its sales to women, which amounted to a meager 14% of sales in the past. To do this, the U.K. and Ireland offices launched the Animée drink last year, which has 4% alcohol and is a lightly sparkling, finely filtered brewed drink in three flavors: crisp rose, zesty lemon, and clear filtered. The company’s marketing says it is aimed to “dispel the perception among women that all beers look and taste the same.” It said 79% of women in the U.K. never or rarely drink beer and, after many surveys, they hope Animée changes that objection without being patronizing. Animee has shown some promise but has not been the runaway hit the company had hoped for. |
| Feature News from beernexus.com |
Edited by Jim Attacap
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| BEERNEXUS the crossroads of the beer world |
Whiskey to Beer To Whiskey
Considering the ubiquity of barrel-aged beer
that is, beer aged in whiskey barrels for the
sake of adding a warm, boozy smoothness,
it was probably inevitable that one brewery would take
the next logical step. New Holland Brewing has taken
whiskey aged in barrels that once housed beer that
once housed whiskey. Here's the process: New Holland,
in Mich., regularly buys used barrels from Kentucky
bourbon distillers to fill with its venerable imperial stout,
Dragon's Milk. The beer spends 180 days in the barrel
acquiring flavors (whiskey and wood, mostly), while the
barrel, in turn, takes on flavors of the beer.
For years, that would be the last stop for the barrels.
New Holland would use them as displays, firewood or
sell them to rainwater collectors. But then the brewery
had an idea: Why not put whiskey in them for another
90 days?
The result, released this fall, is Beer Barrel Bourbon,
which picks up an admirable web of flavors from the
barrel's many lives. BBB is nicely sweet and impossibly
smooth thanks to the beer's influence, which sands
down the whiskey's rough edges with faint notes of
roasted barley and chocolate.