http://goodbeerhunting.com/…/14/uawfc3z6nsdi9etplzvca53389r… Weigh in on this.

While we have an abundance of craft breweries opening every month, surely there will be lawsuits. A lot of these lawsuits go unnoticed, and a lot are frivolous. My personal favorites are the ones from startup operations that challenge longstanding breweries on the naming rights of a particular beer, or blatant logo theft (It happens quite often when you have a Bombshell logo: I’m looking at you Newcastle). Sometimes breweries have the funds to file and fight these lawsuits, sometimes no matter how flawed the case, the party in the right gets the shaft (Look at Bellows: http://www.newrepublicbrewing.com/…/luxco-sends-us-a-cease-…).

We are only just beginning to see the legal issues for craft breweries on the horizon. The fight to get taprooms established is still ongoing in some states (Mississippi), ridiculous laws lobbied by distributors such as AB InBev contend growler sizes in Florida (You cannot fill a 64oz growler, but you can fill a 128oz, or two 32oz? http://www.cbsnews.com/…/florida-bartender-fighting-growle…/)

Over the next couple of years it will become more blatantly apparent which brewers are in the business because they love brewing beer and sharing it, and which of these operations are being propped up with venture capitalist money and are in the industry to just make money, not even caring an iota for the quality of the liquid they are selling to the masses.