If “Vermonster” Is Confusing – Isn’t “Monster” Worse?

Much is being made of a legal claim being brought against Rock Art, a small Vermont brewer, who makes “Vermonster” beer by a premium soda pop maker whose brands include “Monster” energy pop for confusing the brand – especially since the claim is being made in the name of the soda company’s plans to enter into the beer market. But not so much is being made on this point noted by one Green Mountain State publication:

Rock Art isn’t the only Vermonster out there. Ben & Jerry’s has long used the name for a massive tub of ice cream available at its shops. A spokeswoman for the company said she was not aware of any trademark issues with the name. “Vermonster” is also the name of a series of truck rallies in Bradford. Brooklyn Brewing Co. makes a barley wine called “Monster Ale.” A representative to the company declined to discuss whether Hansen had challenged its use of the name.

OK, that is a few points but you see my point, right. Good old Brooklyn Beer has had a beer called “Monster” on the shelf for quite a number of years. I have one in my stash right now. Simmering in its own wickedness, no doubt. There are others, too. Will they all get sued? The Bee-to-the-Ay lists 34 monstrous craft beers on the market already. What if all craft brewers shared in the idea and put out their own Monster and “-onster” branded beers, too?

We are only at the stage of the legal letter sent, we are told, by the specialist intellectual property law firm Knobb, Martens, Olsen & Bear. Which is good. There is still time to think of the big picture. It may well be that the negative reaction to the note may well lead the Hansen Beverage Company to reconsider their strategy. They look like they want to get along and have a happy name in the marketplace. Who doesn’t? Hard to overcome bad press.

In The International Monday Morning Papers…

Finally, I made it to the life of if not a jet setter, then, maybe a border hopper as this morning’s Watertown Daily News proves:

While heckling from the “cranks,” or fans, was not an official requirement of the game, there was certainly plenty directed toward all four teams. Mr. Drinkwater himself engaged in a fair amount of good-natured bantering as umpire and later as a player on the Rochesters, who won their first game against Kingston 9-2 but lost 12-4 in the championship round against the Ontarios… For Alan C. McLeod, organizer of the Kingston team, it was international collaboration that brought his players to the vintage games in the first place. “Obviously there’s a lot of camaraderie. Sackets Harbor got us interested in this two years ago,” Mr. McLeod said. According to the organizer, teams from Canada used to cross over into the States to play baseball with Americans as early as 1870.

Getting whupped 9-2 by the Rochester best nine is not exactly bad when you consider it was the fourth game for the Kingston St. Lawrence Brown Stockings and Rochester has run a weekly program for years. We got tagged for five in the sixth, too. We were down by just one before that. Have I made enough excuses? Need a lighter bat as well. And a bit more work on the fielding. And I shouldn’t have tried for second that one time but they did say that a ball that went into the bush was a double when they meant that a ball that went into the bush and stays in there was a double. I should have done a Billy Martin on those Rochestarians but I was way too out of breath.

BBQ Shack: Tail O’ The Pup, Ray Brook, New York

I had BBQ and specifically pulled pork three times on the road. State Street BBQ in Watertown, NY. Beale Street BBQ in South Portland, Maine. Tail O’ The Pup, Ray Brook, New York. I hate to rank good BBQ pulled pork but the Tail O’ The Pup’s sauced take was so soft you could have spread it into a paste with a butter knife. Beale Street’s was hearty and smoky while State Street’s was subtler, like a slow cooked Sunday pork roast. All good.

 

 

 

 

Tail o’ the Pup was also one of those places municipal planning standards would never accept in Canada to our great cultural loss. Part 1930’s roadside cottages. Part beer tent with its own band. Part diner set in the great outdoors.

Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, too. Who rents the cottages? Are there gangs of bikers out there who want that sort of thing? They must be people I would like to know.

Gas Station Saison, Utica Club And Fireworks

Apparently wherever I go I pack an extra 5 kilopascals or whatever atmospheric pressure is measured in. The weather has cracked from a month of wet to sunny and dry. Ran into a pal on a CNY backroad gas station three hours from either of our homes and was inspired to grab a 7 puck twelve pack of Utica Club, the local value brew. Then I got a few from Ommegang including their wonderful Hennepin at the corner store near Friday’s hotel. Another local brew. A huge downpour pushed us off the I-95 right at Well, as if Thor demanded I stop in at Tully‘s to see how things were with Dawn’s shop. Bursting at the seams with downeast ales and lagers. The week ahead? I’ll be hunting out Allagash and other Maine brews on tap at the neighbourhood pubs of Portland. It is a tough old life and, as with the scale of the fireworks at the harbour last night, a reminder of what a bigger freer land America can seem sometimes for those from the Great White North.

My Week In Beer… Or “I Travelled For No Beer”

Well, at least I did have a beer today – a Sacket’s Harbor IPA at the brewpub with lunch. I was at a thinking session so I won’t get into it but suffice it to say that Sackets Harbor Brewing Co. on a warm spring day is one of the nicest spots to have a beer I have ever come across. But the weird thing was that I came back across the border with not one bottle in the van. Mad? No, I am just planning to spend Victoria Day Monday in New York State’s 48th senatorial district inspecting the Crown’s former territories and I expect to hit Oswego’s C’s Farm Market with gusto. I did stare at a six pack of Sierra Nevada IPA for $9.49 at the gas station just before I crossed back across the border but I really have a lot of beer from the recent trip to Quebec as well as kind travelers to Michigan and Wisconsin. Do I need more?

I don’t know what is weirder – coming back from the USA with no beer or what Greg Koch wrote in the comments on Wednesday. But what is weirder is that my post about “Hooray for Everything” rates #5 on Google right now for “American Craft Beer Week” so I suppose some pip squeek like me being less than wholehearted about one’s PR campaign might be the cause of some unhappiness – though others seem to have the same questions. But these things pass – Google rankings, PR campaigns, internet squabbles. Greg makes very good beer and that is the main thing.

I don’t know if I could sustain a “My Week in Beer Series” – I live in such a bubble and don’t get out much. What would it be like to live like Knut who nips south to Rome’s Football Pub, where a bar stool calls for me, when the slightest whim moves him. What would it be like to be Jeff, who runs the other greatest pub in Europe – grabbing a cask, conditioning it brilliantly and making a living from it. Such dreams. Jay still has the news, Stan is still on the trip and Lew has the blues. Such lives.

Me, I have a 3 Monts, a favorite pale ale, and spend Friday night watching Doctor Who with the kids. Beer in the rec room. A great end to the week.

Friday Bullets For My Day Off In The USA

My three hours at the NCPR phone farm starts at noon so I should get my butt out the door about nine thirty. I wonder of they will let me play with the Twitter controls. Things I do in the states: eat jerky (I have a rule – no jerky in the homeland); buy a local weekly newspaper (they still report who was visting from away like a Maritime weekly); look for flags (I still need a NY state flag); and shop at grocery store for cans of butter beans and multi-coloured goldfish crackers. In America the goldfish crackers come in different colours than orange. That is what makes the USA great. When I hear the “USA, USA” chant I think of multi-coloured goldfish crackers.

  • I watched the last ER and hated it. I hate ER. I used to comment on ER usenet groups when it was a cool show (holy oldie olson internet reference!) but I stopped watching around 1998. Death and death and more death. If they were such good ER doctors, the death parade wouldn’t go on and on. Plus I get that Stamos guy mixed up with the guy from “Joanie Loves Chachi” – but at least one Doctor Who crossover moment so at least that was something.
  • I do not yet see the world from the perspective of Davros’ toggle switch but I must say that the words “anti-facist demonstrators” do equally warm my heart. The juxtaposition with this and this should be more publicly troubling than it is.
  • I don’t know what to make of Harper these days but there is plenty of evidence that Canada is doing well economically under his watch.
  • Today is also an edition of The Session and the topic is smoked beer. Never heard of it? Start with our man in Ireland and follow the links.
  • Mr. Taylor and I engaged in a very interesting dicussion of social software and the courts this week. Have a look. Maybe we are both wrong.
  • When was the last time a First Lady said something that you though was simply solid advice: She told the 240 girls about growing up on Chicago’s south side, and urged them to think of education as “cool.” “I never cut class. I liked being smart. I liked getting A’s,” she said. “You have everything you need. Everything you need to succeed you already have right here.” I am going to use that line. I wonder if she is also strong on the use of 1970s British TV Sci-Fi as a tool for teaching about ethics and the importance of blasting things freom outer space?
  • I was listening last night to WFAN and the discussion of baseball ticket prices. At their new palace, the stinky cheater Yankees, the average gret seat now costs over $500 compared to about $150 at the Mets and Red Sox. Another reason to engage in recreation ritual hate. By the way, I watched the 2004 Red Sox ESPN summary last night. I am now very ready for baseball to begin.

That must be it for today. Where will I go by the end of the day? Maybe to the mall? Woot!

New York: Latvians Are Coming! Latvians Are Coming!

Sorry, not Latvians. Not at all. The story was co-authored by a Mr. Lattman. Misread that entirely. My fault. I blame the head cold. Nevertheless, this is an interesting tidbit in the Wall Street Journal today:

Private-equity firm KPS Capital Partners LP is angling to become a player in the U.S. beer industry. The company is in the final stages of closing a deal to acquire High Falls Brewing Co., the closely held maker of the Genesee and Dundee beer brands, according to people familiar with the matter. It also is among the final bidders for Labatt USA, an arm of the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev. KPS hopes to combine High Falls and Labatt USA, both based in upstate New York, and explore other transactions in the industry, which is undergoing rapid consolidation.

A player! Does that come with a smoking jacket and a gold cigarette case? It pretty much comes with all corner store and gas station sales from Syracuse to Buffalo and half of the rest of upstate NY. Interesting that the Labatt wing of the deal would make sense as part of the badly named Anheuser-Busch InBev efforts to pay down debt. Reuters reports that Labatt USA should gain ABIB (which I pronounce “ah-BEEEEEEEEEB” in a high piercing voice) about a tidy $100 million. Sadly, the same report indicates that the Rochester-based High Falls Brewery is only worth the assumption of its debt. But it is interesting that these tough times appear to be apt for a merger and consolidation focused on continued expanding brewing in what is otherwise a region which has known tougher times for a while now.

Surviving The Hill From Hell

hill1That is what the boy called it. The Hill From Hell. 1500 feet long with about a 150 foot drop. Some days when the snow blows children play there, tumbling in the billowy fluffy. Other days when the fields are green, rabbits gambol. But when it is a sheet of crusted and lumpy ice, morons from Canada go there and naively accept that speeds pushing the acceptable pace of a car in town are the sort of thing that makes for a fun Sunday morning.

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The oldest child afterward noted that the rustic man with the first aid kit at the top of the mountain was not going to have been much help. They were exhilarated after the first run. They begged to stop after the second. The photo in the middle? That is a zoom shot of the lower half. Click on it. See that faint haze of orange at the bottom? That keeps you out from under the wheels of cars and, across the road, the lake. It doesn’t have a hope against an eight year old on a flying saucer.

It is in a park. A park like any other park. It almost ate my family.

A City Of 1890 In Love With Strong Ales

qcc

I had reason to mine the archives of The New York Times today – for entirely proper purposes, I can assure you – but it was quite a moment, that moment when I knew in my small way that I was living out the life Pattinsonian, beery archive sleuth. What I came upon today was an 1890s travel piece with beer references worked in for good measure, the sort of thing our pal Evan Rail of Beer Culture fame, provides for The New York Times today, 118 years later. This is the key beer-related bit.

…The similarity to the English extends quite noticeably to minor matters, even to eating and drinking. Pipes rather than cigars are smoked in the streets and public places. English relishes and sauces in great abundance are displayed upon the dining tables. Lager beer is wanting almost absolutely. I remember in all my travels, extending through hundreds of miles in Ontario, beginning at this place, to have seen the sign “lager beer” displayed only once. Light wines are rarely called for. Strong ales like Bass’s and stouts like Guinness’s abound. Coffee is rarely served and when ordered is found to be a mockery. Tea is, next to mineral waters, the stable temperance drink at table…

That is an interesting bit of social observation. The whole piece with its August 16 1890 dateline is interesting and, if you have any idea of Kingston and its rare preservation of a huge part of its Victorian architecture, one that you can immediately place in the streets about the downtown. Except there’s lager beer here now. A little too much, frankly.

Who Was The Last Slave In Ontario Or Kingston?

levi1Right: Levi Veney, ex-slave who lived in Amherstburg, taken at J. D. Burkes’ store, 1898. Archives of Ontario. Click for large view.

I am not one of those anti-MSM, “the boogiemen are just round that corner now that Democrats are here” sorts of persons that have been so tediously active in the blogosphere in the last 24 hours…but when I heard a self-congratulatory reference in a CBC radio piece suggesting Canada not having a history of race issues as had the USA, it did grate on the ears. Reminded me to switch stations. But it got me thinking…there must have been a last slave in Canada. We traded in human souls with the best of them before a certain date, before the long path to today began. Google Books to the rescue with the 1869 book History of the Settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario), with Special Reference to the Bay of Quinté by Wm. Canniff. where we read at page 574:

…when the British Act of Emancipation was passed, in 1833, setting free the slaves in all parts of the Empire, there was no slaves in Canada, Upper or Lower. Thirty years previous had the evil been crushed in Lower Canada, and forty years before Upper Canada had declared that it was “highly expedient to abolish slavery,” and had enacted laws to secure its abolition…

The story goes on to mention the slaves of of the first Loyalist familes who settled along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario and down the St. Lawrence and, at pages 576 and 577 there is this extraordinary statement:

We have before us the copy of an assignment made in 1824 by Eli Keeler, of Haldimand, Neweastle, to William Bell, of Thurlow, of a Mulatto boy, Tom, in which it is set forth, that the said boy has time unexpired to serve as the child of a female slave, namely, ten years, from the 29th Feb. 1824, according to the laws of the Province ; for the sum of $75. Probably, this was the last slave in Canada whose service closed, 1835.

It appears from that reference and a few others that a child of a slave was a slave until majority during the transitional period. So who was the last one alive? Probably not this gentleman, given Mr. Veney above, but he is worth mentioning now as Canniff did at page 577:

In the Ottawa Citizen of 1867, appeared the following: A BRITISH SLAVE — An old negro appeared at the Court of Assize yesterday, in a case of Morris vs. Hennerson. He is 101 years of age, and was formerly a slave in Upper Canada, before the abolition of slavery in the British possessions. He fought through the American war in 1812, on the side of the British; was at the battles of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane, and was wounded at Sacket’s Harbour. He is in full possession of all his faculties. He was born in New York State in 1766, and was the slave of a TJ. B. Loyalist, who brought him to Canada. He was brought to this city to prove the death of a person in 1803, and another in 1804.

If he was wounded at the 1812 Battle of Sackets Harbor (there was another in 1813) that means he was at least in Kingston then as the British force was based here, a generation before the Martellos were built. I will have to see if that case is reported, if it actually gives his name.