Harvester Brewing To Seek New Brewery Name

Portland’s gluten-free and multiple award winning brewery, Harvester Brewing, is seeking a new name for their brewery. This name change is not by the choosing of Harvester Brewing’s owners but from a legal spat with Hope Family Wines, a Paso Robles, California wine company.

Hope Family Wines has sent Harvester Brewing a legal letter stating that they do not have the right to use the name Harvester even though they are in different trademark classes. This reminds us of when Willamette Valley Vineyards made the then Willamette Brewing change their name which they are now better known as Oakshire Brewing.

The brands of wine that Hope Family Wines produces include Liberty School, Austin Hope, Treana, Candor, and Troublemaker. From searching their website we cannot find any mention of a Harvester name being used. A quick google search reveals that Hope Family Wines was set to launch a high-end boxed wine called Harvester back in 2011. Further on down the search it looks as if Hope Family Wines won an award in 2011 for its packaging of this box wine. When we went to look for an image online there is none to be found.

This legal action seems to be a bit far stretched regarding any confusion to a box wine that seems to be non-existent.

Here is more from the release that Harvester’s James Neumeister sent us:

If you were disappointed that you missed out on the opportunity to help name the first dedicated gluten-free brewery in the United States then we have some great news.  Hope Family Wines in Paso Robles, California has decided that our use of Harvester will create brand confusion and has demanded that we change the name of our brewery, despite being in a different trademark class.  Rather than spend time, money, and energy focused on a lengthy legal battle we have decided to ask our fans to help us choose a new name.

Hope Family Wines finds the use of “Harvester” in any form “unacceptable” so ideas like New Harvester Brewing or G.F.Harvester Brewing will not be permitted by Hope Family Wines.  We would like it if the new name worked well with our love of farming, farmers, and tractors so we can continue using our tractor logo but we will consider non-tractor related ideas too.

Please submit new name suggestions to contact@harvesterbrewing.com