Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company, is suing Anheuser-Busch InBev for “hijacking” its brand, reports say.
Anheuser-Busch’s Patagonia beer “has hijacked the outdoor company Patagonia Inc.’s decades-old identity,” Law360, a legal news service owned by LexisNexis, reported on Tuesday. Patagonia Inc. filed a complaint in California federal court on Tuesday.
The Patagonia brew features branding that is strikingly similar to the clothing company’s. The logo features the world “Patagonia” with a mountain silhouette, and its mission includes “a promise to plant a tree for every case of beer sold,” Law360 reports. Patagonia has based its business model on environmental stewardship for more than 40 years.
AB InBev’s promotion of the beer also included pop-up beer booths at ski resorts, with brand representatives “dressed … in down jackets and [giving] out beanies, T-shirts, and scarves bearing AB’s ‘Patagonia’ logo–all products that Patagonia sells, including in its stores in the very towns where AB has launched its beer,” the complaint says. “In short, AB has done everything possible to make it appear as though this ‘Patagonia’ beer is sold by Patagonia.”
Meanwhile, Patagonia, the clothing company has been producing its own beer since 2016, when it partnered with Portland’s Hopworks Urban Brewery to create Long Root Ale, a beer made using Kernza grain as part of a soil preservation effort. Patagonia debuted its second beer, Long Root Wit last week.
However, AB has been promoting Cerveza Patagonia in Argentina for several years, operating a brewery and bar in Rio Negro, a province in northern Patagonian Argentina.
According to the Cerveza Patagonia U.S. Facebook page, the brand “decided to expand our passion for beer and the outdoors to the U.S.” Its brand is copyrighted in 2019 in Fairfield, Calif. The brand also appears to have produced beer partnership with AB InBev’s 10 Barrel Brewing, as shown in several Instagram posts.
