Harvester Brewing Changing Name to Ground Breaker Brewing

Gluten-free brewer forced to change name after letter from winery

Portland gluten-free beer maker Harvester Brewing will be changing its name to Ground Breaker Brewing.


At the beginning of July, Harvester announced that it would be forced to change its name because a California winery called Hope Family Wines wrote a letter saying that they found any use of the word Harvester to be "unacceptable." The winery had a boxed wine called Harvester, three years ago, that does not appear to be available anywhere. They were apparently concerned that people would confuse Portland's gluten-free beer with their nonexistent wine.

"Rather than spend time, money, and energy focused on a lengthy legal battle," wrote Harvester in apres release a month ago, "we have decided to ask our fans to help us choose a new name... 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.

Looks like they got their wish. Ground Breaker—suggested by a Facebook fan of the brewery—was one of their first choices, but the brewery set it aside initially because of worries about conflicts with other trademarks; apparently these issues have been solved. 


A cursory search shows Ground Breaker as the name of a realty company and an album by the Eric Mintel Quartet.


No word yet on whether the band is concerned about being confused with a bottle of beer.


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