One of the new breed of high quality New South Wales micros is celebrating after coming out on top in a two-year battle with one of the world’s global brewing giants. SABMiller India, a subsidiary of the company that owns brands including VB and Carlton Draught, challenged Wayward Brewing’s application to trademark the name Wayward on the grounds that the name would cause confusion among Australian drinkers with their brands Haywards 5000 and Haywards 2000; yes, those beers you may have spotted in the fridge of the odd Indian restaurant.
The battle cost Wayward’s founder Peter Phillip approximately $15,000 to fight – plus an estimated $10,000 in lost time – but proved worthwhile when the Hearing Officer ruled this month that the Wayward trademark could be registered in Australia. Costs were awarded against SABMiller India, albeit nowhere near the costs incurred. But, says Peter (pictured above left after winning Best Beer at last year’s Australian Hotel Beer Festival): “It was almost worth the $15,000 to win.
“It’s not like something where you can just say, ‘This is stupid – I don’t want to defend it.’ If I didn’t, it would have been decided against me. You just wonder whether they think that [Wayward] is a one-man band which doesn’t have the money to defend itself, but it pissed me off so much I kind of thought, ‘Screw you!’. As much as anything, I wanted to defend it on principle.”
Funnily enough, this wasn’t the first trademark issue Peter had faced with his brewing company. Initially, he had planned to call the business Square Peg Brewing but discovered that in Australia wine and beer are considered the same product and there was already a Square Peg wine brand in existence. Thus, Wayward became its replacement – a name that he he has grown to prefer and one that still infers the same sort of meaning upon the brewing company’s ethos: being off the beaten path and having a sense of adventure.
“I found it wasn’t trademarked in Australia, the UK, the USA or Canada so I got up at 4am one morning and said, ‘I’m going to register it everywhere!’,” says Peter. “Three months later the trademark office accepted it then during the advertising period SABMiller India’s lawyers challenged it.”
Initially it was challenged on every ground possible, although as the process developed the argument came down to the Wayward / Haywards issue.
âWe always believed that the opposition was totally without foundation as our WAYWARD trademark is completely different in sound, appearance and meaning to their brands,â says Peter. âFor me it was always personal as I have put my heart and soul into building this business.â
His hasn’t been the only notable trademark issue involving small Aussie brewers in recent years. The most high profile saw Melbourne’s Thunder Road challenge CUB over the use of a number of the latter’s unused heritage trademarks. That case was decided in favour of CUB, although Thunder Road will no doubt have taken succour in the fact that since then they have been named Champion Medium Australian Brewery at the Australian International Beer Awards – the first time they have entered a beer competition. It’s a win that sets up an enticing possibility should the people behind the awards continue with their policy of inviting the Australian Small, Medium and Large Brewery champs to brew a collaboration beer as the winner in the Large category was… CUB.
More recently, Melbourne start-up Monster Mash was forced to change its name to Kaiju! Beer after a challenge from the maker of Monster energy drinks.
As for Wayward, which has hit the ground running with a series of high quality beers, such as the Charmer India Red Ale (pictured right), Keller Instinct Bavarian keller bier and Raconteur Biere de Garde, there is much more to celebrate too. Having operated as a gypsy brewer – brewing on other people’s systems – until now, Peter has just secured a site in Camperdown, directly across the road from the Malt Shovel Brewery, and hopes to start brewing their early next year.
âWe can’t wait to open our doors to the public and finally have our own breweryâ, says Peter. âWe have been holding back on releasing a number of new Wayward brews that we think people are going to love.â
The plan is to have a small tasting room alongside the 20 hectolitre brewhouse. It will require Peter stepping back as much as possible from his first business, which deals in superannuation technology. He had originally stepped down as CEO a year ago to focus on Wayward only to watch the business getting busier than ever, increasing from 35 staff to 90.
“The intention is that I’ll spend at least two days a week in the brewery but I’ll be taking on a full-time brewer and a sales guy,” says Peter. “My wife will be working in the business too.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be there two days a week to cause trouble.”
Something at which SABMiller India presumably think he’s rather good.
You can keep in touch with progress on www.waywardbrewing.com.au or via the brewery’s Facebook page.
