BrewDog accused of stealing a rival’s brand

United Kingdom | Jump Ship Brewing, a start-up selling non-alcoholic beers, is suing BrewDog over claims that the multinational beer and pub firm could cause “confusion” and “harm” to its brand, media reported on 21 November.

Sonja Mitchell, Jump Ship Brewing’s managing director, launched the business in December 2019. The brewery offers five non-alcoholic beers, including its Shore Leave sour, which was first introduced in July 2022. The second version in the Shore Leave series, a berry-fermented sour beer, was released in May 2023.

In July 2023, Ms Mitchell discovered that BrewDog had shared an image of a soon-to-launch Shore Leave beer with the proposed tagline, “it’s time to jump ship”.

The brewery claims to have produced a Shore Leave beer first, but BrewDog has the name trademarked already.

A poisoned chalice?

According to Ms Mitchell, Jump Ship’s initial move was to send BrewDog a formal letter. In response she was offered a collaboration with the brewer.

She declined the offer. In a post on her LinkedIn page, Ms Mitchell wrote: “Their offer was vague and we did not see it as a substantive response to our claim. Effectively we would be giving up all the goodwill we believe we have built in the Shore Leave name. We want to maintain a clear distance between our brands, and argue that a collaboration would only increase confusion.”

BrewDog acts surprised

A spokesperson for BrewDog responded: “As the registered owner of the Shore Leave trademark in the UK, we are obviously surprised at this action, but also disappointed. Ms Mitchell might have challenged our trademark application months ago as is standard practice, but chose not to. We’ve sought to settle this matter amicably and offered a range of fantastic collab ideas, which would have had a huge boost for Ms Mitchell’s brewery. […] “We regret Ms Mitchell has decided to take this action instead of working collaboratively with us to help her business grow.”