Comments on: Sam to Sam: “Sorry About That”

By: Janjan

Janjan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:43:38 +0000

Well, Beer-folk, I’m from Portland Oregon and this certainly deserves commentary. I thought the article was really good and appreciated the thoughtfulness that was put into it. This is a case of a company with lots of money at its disposal, assuming that an individual was out to get them. We all know what happens when we assume… What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? What happened to good old common sense? I believe this should receive wide coverage because it’s a lesson to be polite. If SA Beer would have been polite and asked, they wouldn’t have gotten the bad press. And oh by the way, the irony here is that what SA Beer wanted was to avoid having Sam Adams who’s running for mayor use them as a marketing tool to get attention… and they’ve failed miserably. Come on you’ve got to admit, that’s funny!

By: Motor

Motor — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:12:50 +0000

I think this Sam Adams issue is relevant to beer because we’re all waiting for the day that A-B can buy the real Budweiser and take its name throughout the world. History- good bye!

As a Cal fan, the NFL attempted earlier this year to trademark the phrase “The Big Game”. Cal and Stanford’s football (some years rugby) seasons have ended with the Big Game for over a century. NFL backed down, but if they wanted to fight, think of the money wasted by the schools.

Sam Adams’ people should have done just a bit before unleashing on the guy’s site.

-Motor

ps: thanks for the shirt J. One of the nicest ts in terms of quality I’ve had in a while.

By: Jim Randell

Jim Randell — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:32:38 +0000

J
No blood, no foul! I’ve had a weird mood myself from time to time, mostly due to good beer deprivation! Keep on keepin’ on with the fine beer bulletin!
Jim

By: Gary McGath

Gary McGath — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:26:16 +0000

samadamsformayor.com is still displaying a statement that it can’t say anything because of the legal threat. Until Boston Beer retracts its Cease and Desist notice in full, it doesn’t deserve any conciliatory treatment.

By: J

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:49:21 +0000

Boy did I misread that. Sorry about that Jim, I think you caught me in a weird mood where I was suspicious of everything and in hindsight I read into your comment more hostility then is actually there. Again, Sorry. I was having a frustrating dialog with someone last night and this morning, and I think I took some of that frustration out on an innocent bystander: you. Thanks for writing back even when I was clearly being a jerk. All the best, J.

By: Jim Randell

Jim Randell — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 03:26:07 +0000

My not finding the matter worth the amount of verbiage devoted to it is a far cry from suggesting no coverage. I had hoped that one reader sharing his preferences would be of at least passing interest and was simply doing that. There was no suggesting that I would discontinue reading your site nor any suggesting that I wanted exclusively reviews. I’m actually very familiar with IP from work I’ve done in other industries and find Sam Adams initial approach very much in line with the state of play in that arena and I see no reason to expect a beer business to behave differently than others, for what I want from a beer business is good beer simpliciter.

By: J

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:41:14 +0000

Well, Jim, I don’t know what to tell you. Thanks for your honesty, I guess. When the publications that pay me to write for them give me assignments, I write about whatever topic they want. If you want to pay me, I’ll be happy to write about whatever you want. Until then, on the Bulletin I tend to write about what I find interesting. Given that I get a fair number of visitors, I suspect I’m not entirely alone in my tastes.

While the “beer and brewing” is unquestionably a very important aspect of the beer business, it isn’t the only aspect and not everyone believes IP to be a trivial subject. If all you want is reviews, there are plenty of blogs and websites that provide nothing but, including the 500-pound gorillas, Beer Advocate and Rate Beer. I try to provide an insight into how the business works in addition to covering beer and brewing generally.

I hate to think I’m losing a reader, but as you’re the first to suggest what they want to see written here, I feel I must continue to be true to myself and choose my own subjects to write about.

Sincerely,

By: Jim Randell

Jim Randell — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:02:54 +0000

I don’t find this matter worth the publicity it’s getting. I’m much more interested in beer and brewing than in such side trivialities as how beer businesses defend their intellectual property. I personally hope to read more about beers and brewing and less about such matters in future.

By: Keith Brainard

Keith Brainard — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:05:32 +0000

I was as mad as anyone about the way that Boston Beer Co. tried to strongarm the perceived infringement on their IP with the infamous letter. I even remarked about it at my own little blog at brainardbrewing.blogspot.com. But I am glad to see that they are trying to make it right. But at the same time, it really is a half-hearted apology, since they apologize basically only for not doing the extra research. And their statement about “you can use your own name for the election season, I guess” is pretty offensive.

But it is also hard to blame them for not doing extra research. It is really easy to look back at an incident and say “if only they had done this…”, but it is a lot harder to look forward at an action and say “I better do this…” I can think of lots of times that I acted in this same sort of “shoot first, ask questions later” manner.

So I want to just forget the past and move from where we are now. Boston Beer Co. said they never meant for Sam Adams the candidate to not be able to use his own name, so let’s believe them. Even if we as Nanobrewery fans think of Sam Adams as just barely smaller than Bud, really they are a small company, and if any of us got to their point, we’d probably be pretty strong defending our brand, too.