Nanobrewerys selling clones as their own

[dassy]

There is a nanobrewery in el centro here that is selling clones on tap as there own. They have switched some little things out here and there in there recipes but the brewmaster claims they are basically clones. Is this more common than I think?

I understand this should be in probrewer but I am not a probrewer and cannot post there.

Thanks

 

[eastoak]

well, if someone brews a DIPA and calls it pliny the elder that would be bad but if they brew a DIPA and call it something else with no intention of fooling the public, that is legit. are they trying to fool the public?

 

[Bobby_M]

It's completely legal unless they market it as a clone of something else.

 

[dassy]

He is passing them off as his own. He renamed them and everything. I was asking if I could get a recipe from him and he told me they were just clones he got online. I dont think it is public knowledge unless you press him for the details.

 

[eastoak]

He is passing them off as his own. He renamed them and everything. I was asking if I could get a recipe from him and he told me they were just clones he got online. I dont think it is public knowledge unless you press him for the details.

he might not be welcomed into the circle of pro brewers but as long as he's not passing the beer off as the original he's ok. if you opened up a brewery chances are you would brew the same styles of beer already being brewed by other breweries. for an IPA you might use crystal 60 instead of crystal 40 or flaked barley instead of malted white wheat but it would still be an IPA. somebody might think it tastes the same as some other brand of IPA but what are you to do? sounds like the guy you are talking about is lazy but that's about all you can say about it.

 

[azscoob]

A recipe cannot be copyrighted as it is simply a list of ingredients, so unless he were trying to pass it off as the real deal, there is nothing illegal about what he is doing.

 

[Yooper]

He is passing them off as his own. He renamed them and everything. I was asking if I could get a recipe from him and he told me they were just clones he got online. I dont think it is public knowledge unless you press him for the details.

My thought is "So what?" He isn't making up the recipes, but I don't think that's a big deal. If he "clones" Fat Tire, and serves it as his amber ale, then I don't see anything wrong with that at all. I mean, it IS his own. He made it.

 

[Hermit]

No guarantee the clone recipe is the same as the original anyhow. There is going to be plenty of overlap in recipes given the number of brewers. So he looks up a recipe and modifies it a little. Lots of secrets in the business. How do you know he is telling YOU the truth of how he works?

 

[dassy]

I don't think anyone would brag about cloning if they are a brewer selling there own brews. I just see people out there working hard to make a signature brew, only to have others take there hard work, clone it and call it there own. But I think it may happen more than I am aware of. I understand styles will be the same, but even style to style, beers taste different depending on ingredients used and process.

 

[WestCoastHopper]

Meh, just seems lazy. Defeats the whole point of becoming a brewmaster.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

Thumbs up to the guy for being straight forward about it. Almost every one my beers started us a clone, either my own attempt to clone something or a clone recipe taken from a book/internet. After a few changes you end up with your own beer.

 

[Yooper]

I have a friend who brews really good beer. A few weeks ago we got together at his place for a double batch to split. He brewed with his ingredients, water, and yeast, and I brought 5 gallons home.

We used my recipe, and some of my own homegrown hops. I'm drinking it right now, and you know what? It doesn't taste all that much like my beer.

Oh, it's good. But his water and water additions, his brands of malt, and so on, totally changed the beer.

What I am saying is even if New Belgium handed over their recipe to him (and they certainly didn't) and he brewed it with his system, water, house yeast strain, and fermented at a slightly different temperature- it's still a different beer.

Now, say he goes online to find a decent clone recipe. And he changes a few things in that recipe. It's definitely not a "clone", as he doesn't know the original ingredients. And he doesn't have the same water, house yeast, or even the same brand of malt.

I guess ideally a brewer would write their own recipes. But I don't hear anybody kicking Giarda deLaurentis because she might have tweaked a recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

Really, there are four ingredients in beer. But there are a ton of permutations. Most of a good beer isn't the recipe, to be honest. It's the skill of the brewer.

 

[HokieBrewer]

Legitimately cloning a beer is arguably harder than making a beer from a scratch recipe.

 

[LexusChris]

Really, there are four ingredients in beer. But there are a ton of permutations. Most of a good beer isn't the recipe, to be honest. It's the skill of the brewer.

+1 Yooper.

Brewcraft, technique & passion play an important role in brewing. Even at the homebrew level. You can look up medal winning recipes on several sites, but brew them up yourself, and you may not get an award. The recipe is only a part of the story...

--LexusChris

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

A recipe cannot be copyrighted as it is simply a list of ingredients, so unless he were trying to pass it off as the real deal, there is nothing illegal about what he is doing.

A recipe can be copyrighted.

A recipe that is simply a list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted.

 

[BetterSense]

Luckily, our terrible, stifling culture of "intellectual property" "protection" that smothers so many other creative professions has not been applied to food/cooking/recipes, so chefs cannot sue each and send the government enforcers against "derivative works". So we can have a culture of freedom and innovation in food and beer, and that's a good thing.

 

[eastoak]

A recipe can be copyrighted.

A recipe that is simply a list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted.

explain that one.

 

[Sheldon]

thats not being a brewmaster, its just brewing!

 

[Weizenwerks]

explain that one.

A recipe is a set of instructions to combine ingredients in a specific process to achieve a specific result. Because it involves a process, it can be protected. Merely listing ingredients without a process cannot, it's nothing more than a shopping list.

Ingredient list like this:

6lbs wheat
6lbs pilsner
1oz Hallertau
WLP300

is just a list and not a true recipe, thus cannot be protected. Gravity and fermentation could be added without issue too.

Now add mash schedule, temperature, hop addition timing, etc that's a true recipe in that it involves a process to go with ingredients. That can be protected.

 

[Weizenwerks]

thats not being a brewmaster, its just brewing!

I don't think anyone is a master of brewing nor will ever be.

 

[luke2080]

A recipe is a set of instructions to combine ingredients in a specific process to achieve a specific result. Because it involves a process, it can be protected. Merely listing ingredients without a process cannot, it's nothing more than a shopping list.

Ingredient list like this:

6lbs wheat
6lbs pilsner
1oz Hallertau
WLP300

is just a list and not a true recipe, thus cannot be protected. Gravity and fermentation could be added without issue too.

Now add mash schedule, temperature, hop addition timing, etc that's a true recipe in that it involves a process to go with ingredients. That can be protected.

I cannot see a way a brewing recipe can be copywrited, even including the process. The process of brewing has been around for what, 5k years? Sort of beats out any patent rights.

(And you can't copywrite a process...you can however, patent it)

Brewing would all fall under "Trade Secrets". The same reason Coca-Cola keeps their recipe under lock and key. It is a trade secret. If it was found out, it damages their company but is totally legal to use.

It is very much legal to reverse engineer something and use it as your own, you just need to not infringe on any TradeMarked names.

Pharma companies protect themselves a bit by placing a patent on their products, because they are patenting specific bio-chemicals (or whatever) for a Specific Use. After 17 years, they lose business to the generics, because they just reverse engineer what they had and sell it on the cheap.

Beer however, has one purpose (to make life awesome), and only has 4 real base ingredients as pointed out. Thus the trade secret ruling, and importance to TradeMark names. (Thanks Anchor, for not letting anyone use the name Steam in their beer type)

As a side note, probably not the best marketing plan to say you just copy other really good beers.

 

[luke2080]

I don't think anyone is a master of brewing nor will ever be.

Umm...people that have their Masters in Brewing Science would probably disagree.

I like to think that my Masters in Business makes me the Master of My Domain.

 

[luke2080]

Yes! Triple Post! Clearly I am working hard today.

Just wanted to point out this probably does not belong in the recipe/ingredient thread.

 

[sheeshomatic]

I don't have a problem with it at all. Though I would hope that a nanobrewer selling their beer has an interest in improving any recipe they make towards their own tastes. We're all making clones, really. Brewing beer has been around for millenia and brewers have used various tricks, thousands of ingredients, combinations, etc. It's all been done. I think that's what makes people so rabid when a new hop variety comes out.

All of my recipes are based, in some way, off of a beer I like a whole lot. They're not clones, because I don't know the actual recipe of the original, but more like homages. And sometimes I actually think I brew something better than what I'm looking to match. Those are the ones you can really be proud of.

 

[Pdeezy]

I heard burger king is just taking hamburger meat, buns, and vegetables and calling it a Whopper instead of a McDouble.

Bastards.

The guy in question sounds like a ******, but he's not breaking the law.

 

[CrookedTail]

I don't see the big deal with this. If you brew to style, most beer recipes are very similar. For instance most hefe-weizens are created using essentially the same recipe.

 

[Taypo]

I've tried smoking brisket using recipes from half a dozen different chefs/grillmasters. My brisket is good (not perfect, but getting there) so does the fact that I'm using someone else's base recipes make my brisket "phony"?

 

[sheeshomatic]

I've tried smoking brisket using recipes from half a dozen different chefs/grillmasters. My brisket is good (not perfect, but getting there) so does the fact that I'm using someone else's base recipes make my brisket "phony"?

Only if it tastes like clams.

 

[Pdeezy]

I've tried smoking brisket using recipes from half a dozen different chefs/grillmasters. My brisket is good (not perfect, but getting there) so does the fact that I'm using someone else's base recipes make my brisket "phony"?

Send me a sample of this "phony". I will be the judge here.

 

[Weizenwerks]

I cannot see a way a brewing recipe can be copywrited, even including the process. The process of brewing has been around for what, 5k years? Sort of beats out any patent rights.

The process of making a specific recipe, not brewing in general.

(And you can't copywrite a process...you can however, patent it)

A process with ingredient list is a recipe and can be copywritten if printed.

(Thanks Anchor, for not letting anyone use the name Steam in their beer type)

Except the Germans did it before Anchor and call it dampfbier.

Umm...people that have their Masters in Brewing Science would probably disagree.[/qote]
If you master a science then you know every single thing there ever is to know about it. That is impossible, thus no masters of brewing truly exist. There are no masters, only students. Naming a piece of paper on a wall something doesn't change anything either.