MillerCoors has been sued for not producing Coors Light in the Rockies. This sounds familiar. Remember when Blue Moon was sued for not being craft beer?

Big Beer is starting to hear it from consumers. Whether you want to call these consumers clueless, or not is up to you, but marketing your brand accurately is much more important to the beer drinkers. We can thank the craft beer movement for that. According to MSNBC

According to the suit filed in Miami-Dade County by plaintiff Joaquin Lorenzo, MillerCoors claims that Coors Light is “brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water,” are false. Although MillerCoors still operates its famed brewery at the base of the Rocky Mountains, Lorenzo says it is no longer the sole location where Coors Light is produced.

MillerCoors advertises and markets its Coors Light beer through several media outlets with the language: “Proudly brewed in the Rocky Mountains tradition,” “When the mountains turn blue it’s as cold as the Rockies,” and “What would we be without our mountains?” The plaintiff writes, “Based on this and other marketing by defendants, reasonable consumers believe that Coors Light sold in the U.S. through defendants is exclusively brewed in the Rockies, and not in other parts of the United States.” He also suggests that these false advertisements have allowed MillerCoors to sell Coors Light at a premium price — a price he says he would not have paid if he knew it was not exclusively brewed at the brand’s Colorado brewery. A 24-pack of the beer sells for about $15.

Can’t say I fully agree with him. I don’t consider paying $15 for a 24 pack of beer to be a premium price.

Lazaro claims that if he would’ve have known that the Coors Light beer is not exclusively made in the Rocky Mountains he would’ve purchase other less expensive beer.

Can you imagine paying $15 for a 24 pack of, say, Stone Brewing? Anyway, hopefully you are all aware that Kona Brewing isn’t brewed in Kona, Hawaii either, right?

SAB MillerCoors has been having a hell of a last 6 months. They are also in the midst of a takeover by AB InBev, which would form a Voltron sized MegaBrewery.

Part of me suspects suits like this are started by craft beer lovers, who are choosing to fight back against Big Beer using guerrilla warfare tactics. Hey, Big Beer is curbing distribution and buying up all our breweries. Let’s sue them! Maybe it’s some subversive tactics being puppeteered by the folks at the Brewers Association? Who knows?

I do find it odd these folks are truly bothered by Coors not being brewed in the Rockies, or that they actually believed Blue Moon was craft beer. But I also live in Bellingham, WA, in the Pacific Northwest, which is a veritable sounding board of craft beer. Is the rest of the US truly that unawares?