Trouble brewing over ‘Hells’ lager name
Two UK breweries are locked in a dispute over the word ‘Hells’ with one of them accusing the other of passing off as its brand.
Camden Town Brewery has claimed that Redwell Brewery, based near Norwich, should stop using the name Redwell Hells for one of its lagers because it is too close to that of Camden Hells, one of its brands.
The London-based brewery filed an action for passing off at the English High Court.
Redwell said it accepted that the Camden brewery used the brand name first. But it has also claimed that ‘hells’ is a common term for a light German beer dating to the 19th century, and is used by more than 35 brewers in the UK, Germany, US and elsewhere.
Patrick Fisher, co-owner of Redwell, told WIPR: "We believe that we are right in our assertion that we can use Hells, as for many decades in the UK, Europe and across the world people have used the term 'Hells' to be associated with alcohol products.
“Camden have accused us of passing our own Redwell Hells off as Camden's, by which they mean we have actively gone into the marketplace pretending to be a brewery other than Redwell. This is a ridiculous accusation. Our branding is different, our product badge is different and we would have no reason to pretend to be another brewery to sell our own products, as we can do that very well ourselves.”
Fisher added that the company also changed the badge used on pumps that pour the beer so that the brewery name was larger than the word 'Hells'.
To raise money to fight the case in court, Redwell is running crowd-funding initiatives on the Indiegogo website, which include allowing fans to buy a Redwell branded t-shirt, glass and playing cards for £30 ($46). The brewery has so far raised £1,000, and said a donation of £30,000 would get the donor a case of Redwell beer every month for life.
In August 2013, WIPR reported that energy drink company Red Bull had threatened Redwell with legal action unless it withdrew a UK trademark application for ‘Redwell’.
Red Bull sent a letter to the brewery claiming that ‘Redwell’ was too similar to ‘Red Bull’ and that it would confuse consumers. The dispute was later resolved after Red Bull said it was happy for Redwell to use the name as long as it did not use it for energy drinks.
Camden Town Brewery did not respond to a request for comment.
