Washington - If you believed the Trouble Brewing beers
sold at Walmart are truly craft beers, instead of private-label beers produced
at a large industrial brewery in Rochester, New York, you're not alone. But one
Cincinnati beer drinker is so mad that he's suing the world's largest company
over what he's calling the "wholesale fiction" around the ales,
seeking compensatory damages "in an amount to be determined at
trial."
A class-action complaint filed in the Hamilton County,
Ohio, Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Matthew Adam "and all others
similarly situated," alleges that Walmart used a "fraudulent,
unlawful, deceptive and unfair course of conduct" to market and sell its
four Trouble Brewing beers as craft beers, and because of this, "Members
of the public were fraudulently induced to purchase Defendant's Craft Beer at
inflated prices."
Ragan Dickens, Walmart's national director of media
relations, said in an email statement, "We hold our suppliers to high
standards and are committed to providing our customers the quality products
they expect. While we have not yet been served with the complaint, we take this
matter seriously and intend to defend ourselves against the allegations."
Adam's attorney did not respond to email or phone messages seeking comment.
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The 12-page complaint, published online by Consumerist,
reiterates most of the facts laid out in a story this reporter wrote last month,
down to quotes from a senior buyer for Walmart's adult beverage team: The four
Trouble Brewing beers were created for Walmart by WX Brands, a company that
"develops exclusive brands of wine, beer and spirits for retailers around
the world."
Though the cans say the contents were "brewed
by" Trouble Brewing in Rochester, New York, no American brewery with the
name Trouble Brewing actually exists. They're actually produced at Genesee
Brewing, makers of Genesee and Genesee Cream Ale, on a contract basis. Genesee
is owned by North American Breweries, a subsidiary of Costa Rica-based Florida
Ice and Farm, which includes breweries among its holdings.
These "statements and omissions were material to the
transaction at hand," the complaint says, "as Plaintiff would not
have purchased [the Trouble Brewing beer] otherwise."
Beyond the issue of where the beer is made, the lawsuit
is partly based on the fact that it's not craft beer, a claim that Trouble
Brewing never makes outright on its label, though Teresa Budd, a senior buyer
for Walmart, told me, "We were intentional about designing a package that
conveyed a look and feel you'd expect of craft beer."
Definition
The Brewers Association, a national trade group for small
brewers, defines craft brewery as being small (under 6 million barrels produced
per year); independent (less than 25 percent owned or controlled by a non-craft
brewer) and traditional (making traditional beers, not flavoured malt
beverages, alcoholic sodas or other products). Further, Julia Herz, the Brewers
Association's craft beer program director, told me last month that "we do
not classify contract companies as brewers because they don't have a brewers'
notice from the Tax and Trade Bureau."
This is not the first lawsuit filed by a consumer who
alleges being misled into thinking that a product made by a large company is in
fact produced by an artisan brewery or distillery, and it certainly won't be
the last. The problem is that the track record of these lawsuits isn't very
good. Last June, for example, a federal judge dismissed a case brought by a
California beer lover who claimed that Blue Moon, which is owned by Coors, was
marketing itself as a craft beer produced by the Blue Moon Brewing Company. The
judge found that "a reasonable consumer was not likely to be
deceived" by Blue Moon's packaging or website.
Read also: Inside London's craft beer boom
In 2015, a federal judge dismissed several lawsuits
against Tito's Handmade Vodka from consumers who complained that the vodka was
not, in fact, handmade as the label asserted; Maker's Mark had similar suits dismissed
the same year.
But Templeton Rye Whiskey settled a 2015 class-action
lawsuit in which a man from Iowa claimed Templeton was "deceptively
marketing" its whiskey as a small-batch spirit distilled in Iowa using a
"Prohibition-era recipe." In fact, it was made at the large MGP
Ingredients distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and then blended with flavouring
agents before being bottled in Templeton, Iowa. Consumers who had bought
bottles of Templeton Rye between 2006 and 2015 were eligible for a refund of $3
per bottle, or $6 if they kept original receipts, according to the Chicago
Tribune.