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Q4 isn’t just the best retail sales quarter for normal merchants; it’s also the home stretch for merchants of the boozier variety. Not only do liquor sales sky-rocket during December, but liquor consumption rises hand in hand. As well, the booze consumed is generally a bit higher end on average, as people seem inexplicably willing to share The Good Stuff with that lousy alcoholic, Drunk Uncle Chuck.

So it’s no surprise that, with Christmas just around the corner, the LDB has massively updated their website advertising with all kinds of suggestions on how you should spend your fist full of cash bills (or “beer coupons”, as I like to call them).

How does beer stack up here? I’m hoping much better than usual, since unlike wine and liquor, beer 100% does come in Christmas variants, and there are lots of those available on the market right now. Let’s tally things up for my running LDB ad counter:

Ad 1: 36 page Holiday Gift Guide. This is a mini-version of the quarterly Taste magazine, distilled down to just product shots and tasting notes. In its thirty-six pages of booze photographed in front of background Christmas decorations, we are instructed to purchase: 15 types of Liquor, 28 types of Wine, and zero types of beer. I mean, you don’t want offend your friends and family by getting them beer, do you?

Ad 2: Just in case the glossy book wasn’t enough, we have a dedicated ad showing off the best hard liquor to slide under the tree. Oh wait, did I say best? I meant cheapest (see also: “Russian Standard Vodka“; $24.99 per 750ml)

Ad 3: This just links to a page of links to other ads, both current and from the past. Very meta, LDB.

Ad 4: Cute bears for charities. Sure, it’s not beer, but aaawwwwwww.

I’m not even kidding. Those things are adorable.

Ad 5: Gifts for the Season. Oh. Wow. It took a few months, but there it is. Amoung a list of booze apparently picked simply because they come in boxes, we find not one, but two beers: Historic Ales from Scotland, and Innis & Gunn 2010. Considering they’re lumped in with the “Palm Bay Holiday Pack” at the end of the list this isn’t quite the massive yay-beer victory we’ve been holding out for, but I will count it in the beer column none-the-less. But only as 2/14 of a point, to reflect all the Not Beer in there.

Ad 6: Don’t drink and drive. Hard to argue with that one.

Ad 7: A summary of “best sellers”, but strictly limited to wine. This is because a top 10 list of the LDB’s best selling SKUs would be entirely beer, but you can’t admit that can you?

So what’s the tally?

Liquor: +2.0 (1/2 of #1, 1/2 of #5)
Wine: +2.0 (1/2 of #1, 1/2 of #5)
Beer: +0.14 — We’re on the board! Yeah!
Corporate: +3

This brings our running total to:

Liquor: 8 (+2)
Corporate: 10 (+3)
Wine: 17 (+2)
Beer: 0.14 (+0.14)

Yeah! Progress! And now, continuing my trend of pointing out all the great beer the LDB could be featuring but elect to avoid talking about in polite company. Let’s see what’s available right now!

Beer 1: Parallel 49 Dark Christmas Cascadian Dark Ale

Look! It’s a beer with “Christmas” right in its name! How much more could you ask for in a booze-themed Christmas present? Add to that that this beer is a delicious example of an emergent style and that it’s the beer that set off the recent Cascadia kerfuffle, and you have not just something to drink, but something to talk about.

Listing: http://bcliquorstores.com/product/285338
Price: $5.50 for 650ml
Availability: Widely Available

Beer 2: Dead Frog Fearless IPA

Could this be the beer that makes us take Dead Frog seriously? Perhaps, but only if you buy it. Luckily for you, this excellent IPA is available widely in the LDB, and for cheap!

Listing: http://bcliquorstores.com/product/274191
Price: $4.99 for 650ml
Availability: Widely Available

Beer 3: Granville Island Imperial Chocolate Stout

In the past this beer has been gord-awful, with a cloyingly sweet milk chocolate body that just can’t stop yelling “Look at me! I’m Chocolate!” This year, though, they amped up the booze and dialed back the chocolate and we have a nicely balanced, warming winter ale, in which it’s hard to tell where the cocoa’s bitterness ends and the hops’ begins.

Listing: http://bcliquorstores.com/product/442772
Price: $5.75 for 650ml
Availability: Widely Available

Lighthouse Brewing has been slowly upping their game, at least in the form of the “Small Brewery, Big Taste” series, which come in skillfully screened 650ml bombers. The latest of these is “Siren Imperial Red Ale” and man is it ever good.

Make no mistake, this ale screams Dean McLeod, the chap that has reinvented one of Victoria’s biggest brewery. The body is a massive warm hug of amber maltiness, backed by a healthy punch of hoppy citrus-ness. The hazy body indicates that a healthy amount of yeast was left it, explaining the almost Belgian funk on the body. I wish I could adequately describe this one, but I just can’t. You need to buy it.

Is it just me, or does each LH beer’s label have less clothes on than the previous?

We all know Lighthouse has been getting better recently, but honestly I did not expect of beer of this quality to come from them any time soon. Imperial Red Ales are finicky beers that are very hard to do right; that Lighthouse has served up a nigh-perfect example of the style makes me seriously excited to see where they go next. This beer is effectively serving notice that Lighthouse is to be taken seriously, and not just for their top flight IPA. Driftwood & Central City? Move over, you have company at the top.

Coles notes:

Even though it won’t cellar, it’s still fantastic.

This is the third of three posts on the Cascadia trademark dispute that consumed BC Craft Beer in fall of 2012. To read the whole thing from the beginning click here

Time for a quick update on this whole mess. Since we last checked in with our heroes, a few intriguing developments have arisen. I’ll leave the big bombshells for the end of the article and instead start with the minor stuff.

First, hey you assholes posting obscenities to Steamworks’ Facebook, stop it. You’re doing nothing to shine a light on the issue and doing a whole lot to legitimize Steamworks’ new hobby of Facebook Post Deletion. Here’s a thought: instead of posting: “Wotif I traydmrk YOU! DICKFACES! LOLZ!” how about you learn to spell, and ask a legitimate question about how the proposed licensing will work? I kinda want to know. I bet Steamworks does, too.

Second, reconsider boycotting Steamworks. I know I might have said that word in my first article, but I regret it. We all make mistakes (hint hint Steamworks). The decisions we don’t like are being made by Eli Gershkovitch, the owner, and he doesn’t work in the brewpub, the brewery, or the Rogues. However, A lot of people who are definitely not Eli do and they don’t like this whole situation any more than we do. Spending a bit less at any of these places for the two weeks in which you’ll keep to the boycott won’t affect Eli in any noticeable manner, but it will affect the wait staff, the bartenders, the cooks and other folk right before Christmas. If you elect to continue your personal boycott after these considerations, that’s fine, but definitely do think about all the people involved who don’t have a trademark.

Third, we should rejoice! Steamworks has brought back Cascadia Cream Ale for us all to enjoy. Don’t believe me? Go to the brewpub website and see for yourself! It’s right there front and centre on the tap list… coincidentally where Nirvana Nut Brown was on Friday… and with the same recipe and commercial description as Nirvana Nut Brown. I guess it’s hard to remember how you used to describe a beer that you haven’t brewed in a few years, but I can help. Always helpful Chuck, that’s what people call me:

Sounds great; I have to admit, I kinda want one, but I’m not so sure I can actually get the beer described above. Go in to Steamworks today and order it. See what happens. Let’s just say it’s very hard to instantly brew up commercial quantities of beer, or really, even a tap handle that fits in with your new branding.

Fourth… this is the big one I hinted at. “Cascadia” isn’t the only trademark Eli has. Nope, he has lots more. Let’s skip right past the weird (“Alyeska”) and the local (“Ripple Rock”) and go straight to the contested: “Nitro.” Yes, it turns out that “Cascadia” isn’t the only generic beer term that Mr. Gershkovitch has registered. “Nitro” is an even more widely used term (to describe simply the type of gas a beer is pressurized with), but yet he has it, in both Canada and the US.

Unlike Cascadia, though, Steamworks appears to have never actually made a beer named “Nitro” (at least according to ratebeer.com, beeradvocate.com, untappd.com and yes, even steamworks.com). When pushed, Gershkovitch will most likely point to their use of a nitrogen tap for dispensing Heroica, but as much as selling some beer as “Cascadia Cream Ale” counts as a trading under a mark no matter what the beer actually is, not selling something as “Nitro” doesn’t count even if the beer in question really is nitro’d.

See? Doesn’t say “nitro” anywhere on it.

As upset as all you beer geeks are no doubt getting right now about this Nitro thing, you’re not as upset as Indian Peaks Brewing Company. Indian Peaks, aka Left Hand Brewing, have a bit of an issue with Eli’s US-registered Trademark for “Nitro,” and have challenged it. The US Patent and Trade Office kindly exposes all the documents that have been filed thus far, and man oh man soap operas have nothing on this. (Note: go to the PTO site here, then do a search for TMs with “Gershkovitch” as the term and “Owner Name” as the field, find Nitro, then click the TTAB button for all the gossip. I’d link directly, but that only seems to work with individual docs.)

Left Hand is making some rather… um… interesting statements as to the nature of Mr. Gershkovitch’s trademark. I beg of you to go read those filings yourself to get the full impact from the source, especially Left Hand’s claims and Mr. Gershkovitch’s response.

If you’ve noticed that I’m not cracking a joke here, it’s because this isn’t all that funny. Left Hand alleges that Mr. Gershkovitch straight-up lied his way into a trademark registration by misleading the US PTO into believing he was registering a mark on a product he traded in the US. In short, they claim that Steamworks has never sold a beer under the mark “Nitro” in the USA (despite the TM using US bottle labels as evidence of trade). Backing up that claim is a statement that there is no “Beer Certificate of Approval” for Steamworks in Washington State, and that Steamworks’ own website doesn’t mention a beer by that name. Gershkovitch, for his part, denies all these allegations (minus the one about his website) and asserts that he has traded under the “Nitro” mark continuously since November 2004.

In case you are wondering, the US PTO takes a dim view of things such as these alleged activities, even requiring an applicant to acknowledge, on pretty much any filing, that a false or misleading claim can land his or her ass in prison. Now I must stress, nay shout out, the word ALLEGED there. This proceeding is still underway, and will be for some time. Left Hand has proven jack shit. I could allege tomorrow that Santa Claus is an Immortal Zombie Nazi Alien who touched me in my bathing suit-only area and the initial exchange of legal documents would look pretty much the same as these. Only time (and lots of legal bills) will determine which version of events the US PTO finds to be more substantiated. Note how I didn’t say “win.” No one wins here.

Except the lawyers. They always win.

However, we can do our own homework: have you ever bought a “Steamworks Nitro” in the Pacific Northwest? Also, since Left Hand contends their beer is widely available in the PNW, how about a “Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro”? And I have to ask Steamworks: why did we have a big party celebrating the launch of your beers in bottles this fall, when you’ve been making bottle labels for Nitro continuously since 2004?

I also have to remind everyone else that, while the comments on this blog are often interesting, they are not evidence of anything, aside from the general decay of humanity’s grasp of grammar.

Lastly, before everyone who’s decided that they don’t like Steamworks goes rushing off to give praise to Left Hand… what exactly do you think LH is going to do next, assuming they win and Steamworks’ trademark is struck? Play nice and say “Oh, those staggering court costs? Nah, we’re good. We don’t mind that. We did it so Nitro could be free, man, freeeeee…” Screw that, you know fully as well as I do that they’re going to instantly turn around and register their own Nitro trademark, and we’ll effectively have swapped one Nitro trademark owner for another with a tighter claim to the mark.

Not much of a victory, is it?

Update: Steamworks has cialis dosage rates relinquish the Nitro TM in the US, without any official compensation.