How can a company own a style?

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Wine lovers, ask yourself how you would feel if there was only one brand of sauvignon blanc allowed to be sold in New Zealand.

What if one winery was allowed to trademark a varietal name and, in so doing, prevent anyone else from using it?

You might think it's unbelievable, but it's precisely what's happened in the case of a beer style. DB Breweries, producer of the Monteith's range of beers, has been granted a trademark on the name Radler and is now preventing other brewers from using it.

But radler, like pilsener, porter, brown ale, bock and many others, is a recognised style of beer. The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia confirms, "A radler (German for `bicyclist') is a mixed drink made with beer and soda pop. As such, it is a type of shandy. The radler is popular in Germanophone communities in Europe and around the world, where it has a long history."

Even Monteith's own website acknowledges Radler's stylistic heritage: `The style originates from Bavaria and was first created in the early 1920s by the owner of an Austrian gasthaus, Franz Xaver Kugler. In search of an invigorating brew, he developed an easy-drinking lager bier with a citrus twist flavoured with lemon and lime. The perfect treat for the many cyclists (`radler' in German) and mountain hikers who visited his alpine guesthouse."

Whether Kugler actually invented the style is debatable, but radler's popularity as a low-strength quaffer is not. The website ratebeer.com, for example, lists a huge number of breweries around the world which produce radlers indeed in the first hundred results of a web search, the brewery names, alphabetically sorted, only get as far as the letter H!

Dunedin's Green Man Brewery began making a radler in November last year but DB's lawyers recently served papers ordering the brewery to cease selling it. Unable to afford a protracted legal battle with DB, the tiny organic microbrewery capitulated and has relabelled its beer Green Man Cyclist. But the beer-loving members of New Zealand's Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) are furious.

In an open letter published online, SOBA's secretary Greig McGill says: "We think Dominion Breweries have been extremely disingenuous in attempting registration of Radler as a trademark, and IPONZ (the Intellectual Property Office) have been incompetent in granting it to them. SOBA would like to see this decision reversed and common sense to prevail." I can only agree.

Clare Morgan, DB Breweries' general manager marketing, argues, "When Monteith's Radler was first introduced, the word `radler' meant nothing to New Zealanders." Maybe true, but it wasn't so long ago when most Kiwis hadn't heard the names sauvignon blanc or pinot noir either, and no wine company had the temerity to attempt to trademark them. Should public's ignorance of a beer style be a reason to justify the granting of the name as a trademark? I think not.

Whether DB's effective "ownership" of a recognised beer style continues unchallenged remains to be seen. Meanwhile the internet is buzzing with the story and even the mainstream media seems to be getting revved up. That can only help.

Declaration of interest: Geoff Griggs is president of the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA).