Can you patent a beer recipe?

[slackerlack]

Do breweries patent their beer recipes or do they just keep them a secret or do they not even care if everyone knows what it is?

 

[HSB]

I suppose you could, but I doubt it would make sense from a business standpoint. It would make more sense to treat it as a trade seceret (like cola companies do). To patent a recipe, you are essentially publishing it. Once that cat is out of the bag, it would be difficult to constantly try to protect yourself with patent law.

Now if you invented some new process or mechanism for the creation of beer, that may be patent worthy.

 

[billf2112]

I do not think you can. I know perfume companies cannot patent a scent (which is nothing more than a recipe).

That is why they call them secret recipes, they need to hide the recipe from others to protect their product.

 

[remilard]

No but you can patent a process.

Recipes are like 5% of wort production and wort production is 5% of beer making. The recipes simply don't matter. Most pro brewers will give them out freely. There are some exceptions in terms of breweries and also beers and breweries that otherwise give out info. Stone doesn't like to talk about how arrogant bastard is made because it is the most important beer in their brand and is very unique. New Glarus doesn't talk about how they make Wisconsin Belgian Red for similar reasons though I think parts of the process are obvious (lots of cherry juice concentrate including some unfermented with a base beer that has lactic sourness).

Jamil Zainesheff has probably done a better job of monetizing beer recipes than anyone. For 80 recipes I would venture to guess that he has made modest five figures so that's what someone could shoot for.

 

[the_bird]

You absolutely cannot patent a recipe - why do you think Coke has to keep their formula a secret?

 

[user 30639]

I suppose you could, but I doubt it would make sense from a business standpoint. It would make more sense to treat it as a trade seceret (like cola companies do). To patent a recipe, you are essentially publishing it. Once that cat is out of the bag, it would be difficult to constantly try to protect yourself with patent law.

This. If you patent something, you have to register it with the US patent office and anyone can go online and read your recipe.

And how would you enforce your patent anyway?

 

[johnp]

I'm raising this thread from the dead to ask an add-on question.

Let's say as a homebrewer I come up with a great recipe and the head brewer for a commercial brewery tastes my beer and wants to buy my recipe from me. What options for sale of the recipe do I have?

I guess I could sell the recipe outright. But I don't know how well it would do and therefore I can't judge what it might be worth. For example Stephen King sold the rights to what would become the Shawshank Redemption for a mere $5000.

Could I choose to just make royalties from the beer? For instance, I get $0.50 per beer sold? And if so - what if the brewer decides to stop producing the beer. Does that mean I can take my recipe and sell it to a different brewer? And what if the original brewer wants to start making the beer again? He already has the recipe now! Whats stopping him from brewing it without permission?

Thoughts?

FWIW, this is purely hypothetical, and I have no magical recipe that anyone would want to buy from me.

 

[Yooper]

I'm raising this thread from the dead to ask an add-on question.

Let's say as a homebrewer I come up with a great recipe and the head brewer for a commercial brewery tastes my beer and wants to buy my recipe from me. What options for sale of the recipe do I have?

I guess I could sell the recipe outright. But I don't know how well it would do and therefore I can't judge what it might be worth. For example Stephen King sold the rights to what would become the Shawshank Redemption for a mere $5000.

Could I choose to just make royalties from the beer? For instance, I get $0.50 per beer sold? And if so - what if the brewer decides to stop producing the beer. Does that mean I can take my recipe and sell it to a different brewer? And what if the original brewer wants to start making the beer again? He already has the recipe now! Whats stopping him from brewing it without permission?

Thoughts?

FWIW, this is purely hypothetical, and I have no magical recipe that anyone would want to buy from me.

Well, just to put this out there- if a brewer tastes your beer, and loves it, he can just back to his brewhouse and duplicate it. It's pretty easy to do, even if the ingredients aren't exactly the same. Of course, unless you were using something really unusual (a friend used bog myrtle), that is.

If he offered to buy it, I'd sell it. It's pretty much worthless, so if you could get money for it it would be a great deal. It's not like a book or other literary property.

 

[johnp]

Well, just to put this out there- if a brewer tastes your beer, and loves it, he can just back to his brewhouse and duplicate it. It's pretty easy to do, even if the ingredients aren't exactly the same. Of course, unless you were using something really unusual (a friend used bog myrtle), that is.

If he offered to buy it, I'd sell it. It's pretty much worthless, so if you could get money for it it would be a great deal. It's not like a book or other literary property.

Exactly! I forgot to mention that. This would really only work for something pretty unique.

 

[krackin]

Oh hell yeah. I have 6 recipes that the Mafia wants in order to SMaSHs BMC with. No deal.