Formal notice issued by the widow of the Beatles singer, a French brewery sold several thousand “John Lemon” beers in a few days, which it will no longer be able to market after July 1, the brewer told AFP on Tuesday.
Five years ago, the brewery was looking for a name for a blonde beer with ginger and lemon “and we said to ourselves that John Lemon was cool,” said Aurélien Picard, boss of the brasserie de l’impressionerie in Bannalec, in Finistère. “We are a brewery that has existed for 10 years and we make puns around the names of our beers,” he explained.
Mireille Mafieux and Yvette Ornière
In its catalog, we find a “fragrant blonde” beer called Jean-Gol Potier, an allusion to the famous fashion designer, a “contraband brunette” named Mireille Mafieux, not far from the name of the singer, and a “staining redhead” called Yvette Ornière, reminiscent of the famous accordionist, all accompanied by drawings of characters.
But, at the end of March, a Dutch law firm served notice on the brewery to stop marketing “John Lemon”, under penalty of having to pay substantial sums to the Yoko Ono Trust, responsible for protecting the image of John Lennon.
“There were figures with 100,000 euros, and between 150 and 1000 euros per day in penalties if we did not go in their direction, if we did not stop. Basically, they asked us to recall all our products and to immediately stop the distribution of the brand which was protected,” described Mr. Picard.
Finally, after exchanging letters, the brewer, who sells to wine merchants, grocery stores and restaurants within a 40 km radius, obtained authorization to sell its 5,000 bottles in stock by July 1.
Except that the publicity generated by the affair accelerated sales: most of the beers were sold within a few days. “It’s been crazy. I have less than 1000 left,” says Mr. Picard. “It was rather funny in our misfortune.”
The brewer, which has two employees and sells between 50,000 and 80,000 bottles per year, is now looking for a new name for its thirst-quenching lager. He wanted to call him Yellow Lemon but the Dutch lawyers told him that “it was too close to John and that any visual allusion to Mr. John Lennon was prohibited,” he said.
