No this isn’t a tournament round of BeerDownload, but it is an interesting news story that came out yesterday. Port Brewing in San Marcos, CA (makers of the Lost Abbey line of beers) has decided to sue Moylan’s Brewery over Moylan’s new tap handle design which bears a striking resemblance to the Lost Abbey tap handle. The North County Times reported yesterday that “Moylan’s Brewery and Restaurant, based in Novato (CA), used a tap handle… bearing a stylized Celtic cross very similar to the one used by Port Brewing.”

Also from the article, “(Tomme) Arthur said Port Brewing first contacted Moylan in April and asked him to stop using the handle, but “we didn’t feel they were taking us seriously.” In a fax to the North County Times, Moylan expressed his disgust with the whole affair: “Real brewers don’t sue each other.”"

Since we at BeerDownload like to compare things and decide which is better, we thought we would present the choices here in a post.

Lost Abbey’s Handles

Moylan’s old handles

Moylan’s new handles

Does Port Brewing have a case? Are the Moylan handles confusingly similar to the Lost Abbey handles?

Update: Looks like Lost Abbey filed their trademark request on 5/14/10 with first use claimed for 7/1/07.

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