News: April 2010

A tiny English brewery, currently engaged in a trademark stand-off with a giant French Champagne producer, is refusing to back down.

Old Dairy Brewery, founded in 2009 just outside the village of Rolvenden in Kent, produces two regular beers, Gold Top and Red Top. Now the brewery is reporting that Champagne producer Heidsieck & Co Monopole, a division of the Vranken-Pommery Monopole organisation, is claiming that the latter infringes the trademark of its Champagne known by the same name.

However, Old Dairy managing director Lionel Fretz is standing his ground, stating that the two products operate in different markets and that his small business will not be bullied.