Specifically St. Arnold's IP (Hoppy Anniversary!)

I previously wrote about a tiny selection of St. Arnold's trademarks for Beer Bike in a 2023 post, but as we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the oldest craft brewery in Houston on the 8th, I wanted to revisit the topic. There is always more IP to be found, and perhaps more than just trademarks! We could even speculate about trade secrets. So open your choice of carbonated beverage, be it an IPA, amber, or root beer, and settle in for a little local innovation.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything that could potentially be a patent for St. Arnold's, yet again. It's not the first time I've tried. There are many reasons a brewery might have a patent, but the primary reason I've looked more than once is due to my memories of some Saturday tours years ago, from before their more recent major expansion in size. 

Please note that this is coming exclusively from my memory, so if anything is wrong, I apologize in advance. During one of my visits, I recall Brock Wagner explained how they encountered an issue when trying to move one of the ingredients--perhaps the grain??--from its storage to the actual brewing vats. Just like you'd expect of any good Rice graduate, they managed to create an innovative solution. I remember it was based on some basic tools, like chain links and pipe, was perfectly functional yet elegantly simple. I only wish I could find some photos of it, to verify my memory. I sincerely hope this isn't untrue; and I've also sincerely hoped someone might have tried to patent the idea. Alas, neither have panned out in my favor so far.

However, St. Arnold's does own many marks, especially as they've expanded over the past three decades. I found, in a very basic search for marks by owner, 18 in the USPTO database. Not all are live; 5 are dead. Of the 13 live marks, one is pending.

The dead marks include the abandoned word marks for Saint Arnold, taproom and bar services; Divine Reserve, beer; Saint Arnold Summerfest, beer; and Headliner, beer. Weedwacker, worldmark, for beer, was cancelled. 

The one pending but live mark is for Hop Spring, a hoppy, non-alcoholic sparkling water.

12 more marks exist, all as word marks, and mostly for specific beers offered: Santo, Art Car IPA, Pumpkinator, Lawnmower, Tarnation. Of course, there is one for Saint Arnold, with various beers listed. It was first registered in July, 1994.

What is most disappointing about these marks is that they are all simply word marks. As best as I can tell, there aren't any for the designs. The stylized Santo, Saint Arnold with his Texas sun/moon and beer stein, event the serif font with signature red color like their building seem like they should be protected.

I certainly associate this bishop image with their product

At least the labels are interesting, here's a specimen from the Lawnmower TSDR record:

Lawnmower always tastes like summer and baseball games to me

I suppose I can close this out with a trade secret speculation, since I suggested it above. While they may not officially have any, I imagine some of the exact brew recipes are held pretty closely and aren't shared with just anyone. The proliferation of microbreweries, and the increase in home brewing that was popular a few years back, could have made it important. Although any beer that isn't technically an adjunct has the exact same three ingredients (water, barley and hops), there is a ton of variation on the types of hop, the ratios of each, and the steps taken. Reproducing a Saint Arnold beer would take either extensive and excessive experimentation or some advance knowledge. So I'll just say it's possible they have some beer formulas that are protected. After all, each recipe is IP.