16
votes
Belgian authorities destroyed 2,352 cans of American beer advertised as 'The Champagne of Beers' because it is not, in fact, Champagne
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- Published
- Apr 21 2023
- Word count
- 366 words
That seems a bit silly, it’s clear that “Champagne” in “Champagne of Beers” is an analogy. Like if someone says, “this is the dark souls of sudoku”, it’s clear that they mean it’s sudoku with characteristics of dark souls, not dark souls.
It's clear to a fluent English speaker that it's an analogy. A strict regulator importing a product into the EU common market might be concerned about people buying it based on the one or two keywords they understand.
I agree, but… I'm not surprised. They take those protected terms seriously.
I think it makes more sense if you think about it like Bing advertising as "We're the Google of search engines" to mean that you can search the internet and get useful results. I know it's not a direct analogy since they're both search engines, but I think that's how they would view the usage of the word - that sure, it makes sense, but it's not acceptable. heh. Even though I think you and I can agree that as far as we're concerned, we get what they were saying and it's fine¹.
¹ if inaccurate… lol
It actually does happen with companies, though. It was a thing that ycombinator startup classes were filled with companies purporting to be the “X of Y”, where X is a well known company and Y is another field.
Atob, for instance, is a somewhat significant startup that works on payments for trucking, and their tagline was “the Stripe for transportation”, piggybacking off of the large and well known payment processor and YC alum Stripe.
For companies, it’s a matter of trademark, and in that case there’s a solid argument that “X of Y” is not a trademark violation, hence why companies do actually do it.
I think that’s more about talking to journalists and raising money, though?
I wonder if Belgium would have done anything if the nickname wasn’t printed on the cans.
People focusing on the Champagne protection are missing the forest for the other forest.
In the EU there are very strict false advertising standards, period. This was both false advertising and protected name infringement.
I could see the protected name infringement claim, but false advertisement, really? Metaphorical language is not the same as stating a falsehood.
I'll still give this one to the Belgian authorities on the grounds that any analogy comparing Miller High Life to something actually good is false advertising.
And nothing of value was lost. Carry on.
The basic reply I was expecting. lol. Although my personal preferred beer is one of the cheapest out there - but I don't like alcohol and do like the taste of beer, so I very occasionally want one with pizza or spaghetti, and cheap very light beer with as few calories as possible (yay diabetes) is perfect for that.
I won't argue that, cheap beer has its place. There's better options out there than Miller High Life IMO.
I cut down my drinking a good bit, so I will pay more than I used to.
I personally prefer a Belgian Witbier with pizza/pasta. A citrus shandy can also be quite nice in the summer.
Alt link: https://archive.ph/QCgTb
Am I wrong to think that Miller Lite is far better than High Life?
Eh, they're all rather meh, in my humble opinion. :)
But I already outed myself as to what I drink, so people can judge my taste as they will. :D
I’m not saying it’s amazing. But it’s interesting that the lite version tastes better to me.
I personally like Miller Genuine Draft the best of the bunch. People like to shit on most big brewery beer, but IMO even Miller and Coors Lite have their place, especially after working outside in the hot sun all day.
Hell yeah. Could use one right now tbh. Just finished a 2 day 100 mile bike trip.
Oh nice. Go anywhere in particular for the trip, or just biking around where you live?
I biked from the SF peninsula to Santa Cruz and back, staying overnight.
Oh, damn nice. That looks like some very pretty coastline. Did you stop by the Big Basin Redwoods State Park on the way? I've always wanted to see a Redwood in person. Closest I have come to that is seeing the giant Western Red Cedars and Douglas Firs in Stanley Park but they both only grow up to ~60m (~200ft), as opposed to the 90m+ (300ft+) of Redwoods.
I wasn’t on the coast much. Mostly in suburbia and the mountains, but there are definitely lots of redwoods lining Soquel San Jose Road.
I’ve been to Redwoods National Park. It’s a beautiful region of the country.
Ah, shame you weren't able to stick to the coast much. But even the mountains there look nice (suburbs not so much ;). Seeing some Redwood and Sequoia trees, and visiting the National parks named after them, are definitely two things on my bucket list though. I'm jelly!
The coastal highway seems pretty dangerous to me! It's hundreds of miles of blind turns filled with a high proportion of hot shots looking to show off their new sports car. Also a good amount of cyclists, but it's not for me.
Ah, that makes sense. That doesn't sound particularly safe or relaxing, so I don't blame you for not taking that route.