Mariah Calagione @ Dogfish Head Addresses the Black & Blue Label Controversy with Ellicottville Brewing

Apparently Dogfish Head & Ellicottville Brewing Co have had come “discussions” over the use of the name “Black & Blue.” This from Mariah Calagione @ Dogfish Head:

This week, our colleagues at Ellicottville Brewing Company made some public misstatements about our business practices. For many years, we have sold beer under the name Black & Blue and it is among one of our annual Occasional Rarity releases. Years after we started selling Black & Blue, Ellicottville started selling a beer under the same name — Black & Blue. It was confusing for consumers to have two different companies to use the same name for their beers. Because we exist within a community built on camaraderie and collaboration, for over nine months, we respectfully requested, through numerous telephone calls and letters, that Ellicottville stop use of the name Black & Blue. Virtually all of these letters and telephone calls went unanswered by Ellicottville. Rather than selecting a different name for its beer, or picking up the phone to discuss the matter, Ellicottville hired an attorney who wrote a letter to us demanding that we stop using the name Black & Blue or face legal action. Because we used the name before Ellicottville, Ellicottville eventually changed its name to "Black & Blueberry" and we have no problem with that. We have not taken any legal action against Ellicottville. We would gladly have allowed Ellicottville an opportunity to exhaust its inventory so it did not have to discard labels, but Ellicottville never asked us to do so. We apologize to the awesome fans of both breweries for having to listen to a tit-for-tat public airing of a business matter and hope it doesn’t jade your view of either company. This is all we plan on saying about this matter so we can all move on and enjoy the next pint.