Stone Brewing Co. Is Suing MillerCoors Over The Marketing of Keystone
Photo via Stone Brewing Co.
Since Friday, Escondido, CA’s Stone Brewing Co. and its co-founder, craft beer industry luminary Greg Koch, have been promising that a fight was coming. In cryptic terms, they implied that Stone was going to be picking a fight of unusual size and ferocity. And Monday afternoon, the hammer finally dropped: Stone is officially suing MillerCoors. Koch announced the news himself in a short video that lays out the grounds of their lawsuit, which stems from the marketing of the Keystone brand of beers.
According to Koch, the suit alleges that MillerCoors’ use of the shortened “Stone” or “Stones” name is deliberately intended to cause confusion with Stone’s name within the marketplace. Koch says: “We believe that MillerCoors is intentionally and deliberately trying to cause confusion in the marketplace with their Keystone brand. You can see it in the cans; you can see it in their packaging; you can see it in their marketing. They’re being surprisingly bold with this.”