Here’s an interesting bit of knowledge:
Once upon a time in America, a man hired a struggling brewery to make beer from a recipe that he had learned in Europe. He began to sell the beer in the US, naming the drink after the town from which he had learned the recipe — Budweiser.
At the same time, beer being brewed in that town in Czechloslovakia was also called Budweiser, but this being the late 1800s (when the world was much larger) nobody in either place really knew about the other.
In 1939, after the two firms did discover each other, an agreement was signed that allowed the American company to use the name, partly due to fear on the part of the Czechs — Hitler’s army arrived just days after the agreement was signed.
Then, the Czech republic proceeded to become a backwater of Europe and so did most of it’s businesses…while the American firm proceeded to become very large indeed.
Today, Budweiser and Bud are famous American brands (regardless of what you may think of the taste), but the story behind has gotten more complicated.
The Czech government eventually inherited the local Budweiser name, and has been using it to grow a successful brewing business.
Anheuser-Busch has been less than enthusiastic about this because they have invested a lot of resources into the Budweiser brand and have turned it into a nearly universally recognizable name.
On the other hand, somebody in Czechloslovakia probably used the name first.
It’s not clear that they registered it first, though.
However, since the name refers to a place, the Czechs have been successfully using a defence that the French have used to protect the name “Champagne.” In short, products named after a place that are recognizeably from that place can be protected as “regional” appelations. That is, the Czech Budweiser company can use the name — and legally protect the name — as long as the product was acutally produced in the region. Several international agreements support thisx position– if you accept that Budweiser is only recognizable because of the region from which it originated. That’s not clear either. Personally, I had never heard of the region until I started researching the content of this message.
For Anheuser-Busch, this means that in many European countries, they cannot use the name Budweiser or Bud. Germany is one of those places.
I was only vaguely aware of any of this the other night when I was walking through our local Wal-Mart. I had heard that the Budweiser recipe came from eastern Europe, but that was about all I knew.
So I was a little surprised when I saw a recognizable bottle of “good ole American” Budweiser on one of the endcaps. As I got closer, I noticed the name was different, though. The beer was called “Anheuser Busch B” beer.
But hey, what is a life in Germany without drinking lots of different beers, right? So I picked up a bottle to add to my collection– although the beer was not actually brewed in Germany– it was made in the UK.
After we finished our trip inside the main Wal-Mart store, I took a moment to go into their drink market to see what other beers I could find. I was a little surprised to see a bottle of “Original Budweiser Budvar” on the shelf.
Anheuser-Busch apparently isn’t allowed to use the phrase “Original Budweiser”, although they do use the word “original” when tlaking about their brewing process on the label.
So tonight, I had a comparison taste test.
Here’s a picture of the competitors:
First, I tried the “Original”, then I tried the “copy”. And you know what? I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart except for the color of the bottles. They are very clearly brewed from the same recipe.
The only difference I noted was that the “Original” had a slightly stronger smell.
Oh, and the “Original” only cost 65 cents, versus the 1.05 euro of the “Copy”.
CeCe seemed to prefer to hold and attempt to drink form the brown bottle, but I wouldn’t take that as proving anything. Keep in mind that we’re talking about someone who willingly will try to drink the algae-green, scum-covered water of a stagnant fountain.
Well, OK, maybe that does explain why she likes Budweiser.
In any case, if you have time, you should check out the respective websites. Budweiser Budvar is here[click on EN at the top to read in English], and Anheuser-Busch Budweiser is here. The Budvar site has a highly detailed section called “trademark dispute” in the “about us” section, while the Anheuser-Busch group essentially ignores the whole issue. Even if you go to the main Anheuser-Busch site, the history completely ignores any mention of the other company. If you follow the link to the UK site, there is a FAQ page that says Anheuser-Busch coined the name “Budweiser”, and again no mention of its namesake.
If you know where to look though, there is some interesting information on the web. Here’s an article that outlines Anheuser-Busch’s position– bascially, they used the name first, and the Czech company that uses the name now inherited it from a company that post-dates the creation of Budweiser in the US. Essentially, their claim is that even though the name was used on regional beers, the current Czech company doesn’t hold a legal trademark.
And finally, here’s [sorry, link is dead] a story from the Seattle Times that outlines the overall dispute. It’s short and worth a read.
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