Seattle Brewery Received Cease and Desist for Beer name

Peddler Brewing Company of Seattle, WA has received a cease and desist from the Lost Coast Brewery of California for their previously named Tangerine Wheat. Peddler changed the name to Tangerine Hefeweizen as a result. The issue with naming rights and copyright is well documented by us. Here’s the story from KOMOnews.com

Ballard-based Peddler Brewing Company recently renamed their Tangerine Wheat to Tangerine Hefeweizen after receiving a letter from Lost Coast Brewing Company. The Eureka, California-based brewer has a trademark on the term “Tangerine Wheat,” it said, arguing the name is “a well-recognized mark in (the) brewery’s production, sales, and related services.”

“(The company) has expanded substantial sums in promotional efforts to create a distinctive identity with this produced beer product,” the letter continues, “which is threatened by your unauthorized use of the TANGERINE WHEAT mark.”

“The name tangerine wheat to us describes exactly what the beer is. It’s a wheat, brewed with tangerine,” countered Dave Keller, co-owner of Peddler Brewing. “We never even thought that could possibly be trademarked.”

Because of the huge influx in craft breweries in the last few years names are becoming hard to come by. There are now nearly 3,500 breweries in the US.

While they changed the name and done so reluctantly, they seem to have also let the issue go.

Peddler, which just celebrated its two-year anniversary, is run by three people. Beers are distributed within 15 miles of the brewery’s location, Keller said, or “as far as (my brother) is willing to drive.”

Lost Coast, by contrast, is the nation’s 33rd-largest brewery, distributing to 22 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada, according to its website.

Representatives for Lost Coast didn’t return calls for comment Monday.

Keller said his company complied with the request — and found the letter flattering, in some ways.

“It was almost a little bit of validation to what we were doing that this large brewery from down in California decided we were threatening in some way and needed to send us this letter,” Keller said. “They shouldn’t have been granted that trademark, I don’t think, but they were and it’s within their right to do that. I’m not bitter about it.”