CAMPAIGNING: Greg McGill from the Society of Beer advocates is boycotting DB products after it prevented a small brewery from using the name "radler".

Growing up in Timaru in the 1980s there were divisions aplenty. Some divisions were religious, where the pupils of the Protestant schools would rumble with those of the Catholic ones. Other divisions were economic, between the affluent farmer society and the more modest urban folk who worked in rural service industries or at the port.

But one of the biggest divisions was over what sort of beer you drank. At this time Speight's wasn't available north of Kurow and Monteith's was rarely seen east of the Southern Alps, so it was a simple clash between Lion and DB. In hindsight it was much ado about nothing, as both brews were over-sweet and over-carbonated.

However, at the time, it could and did lead to arguments at pubs and parties, often leading to fisticuffs (partially fuelled by some of the aforementioned products). Fortunately Timaru's social culture has grown up since then, and so has the beer industry.

The two big firms initially did their best to buy up the smaller and more interesting breweries (Lion acquiring Speight's and Mac's, while DB bought Monteith's). However, the good news for beer enthusiasts was the combination of a deregulated economy and a bunch of strongly willed individuals who valued taste over timidity, ensuring independent brewing took off apace.

Today there are more than 50 independent and craft breweries in New Zealand, producing a rich and world-class portfolio of beer styles. We have pale ales and special bitters, pilsners and stouts, heffes and porters, lagers and ales. However, we no longer have radler, at least not as a style.

Coming from the German word for cyclist, radler is a style of beer that mixed lager with lemonade or citrus. For the last 100 years it's been served up to Europeans who go riding from pub to pub in the summer, and is designed to be thirst-quenching and fresh for the parched cycler. Today it's estimated around half of Germany's breweries include a radler in their line-up and it is one of the most popular "mixed beer" styles.

Back in 2003, DB successfully applied for a trademark for the term radler, for their brew of the same name. This enabled them to take legal action against organic brewer Green Man in 2009 for using the term to describe their radler styled brew. The Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) took offence and with the pro bono help of Waikato intellectual property lawyer Ceri Wells, they challenged DB's trademark with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ). Two weeks ago IPONZ found in favour of DB. As a result anyone making a radler style brew in this country will not be able to label it as such.

The implications of this decision are not trivial, and neither is the extension.

Imagine if a coffee company trademarked "flat white", or a smallgoods company trademarked "saveloy", so no other company could use that term to describe their product. Not only does this rob beer drinkers from a global descriptive term, it also stifles entrepreneurialism in the brewing industry.

However it's worse than that. As a result of this decision, even imported radlers cannot be sold, and any existing ones out there must be lifted from the shelves. This means that in one fell swoop, one of the country's two giant brewers has effectively been granted dominance for an entire style of beer to the extent that their competitors will be physically removed. Rather than enabling commerce, this decision seems to have done the opposite.

Unlike Australia, New Zealand beer enthusiasts and trust busters have no cheap systemic option to initiate court review of unjust trademark decisions. But they do have another option: it's called social media and they are filling their boots. At the time of writing, "DB radler" is a trending national topic on Twitter and the content is none too flattering. A quick peruse of Facebook monitoring tool OpenBook suggests the same thing across the social network. Meanwhile online petitions and open letters are springing up, including one on the Liquor Ladder blog which credits DB with a Pyrrhic victory - one achieved at devastating cost to the victor.

A new Twitter hashtag has been born to allow easy referencing boycottdb and there's at least one phantom profile set up. Called DBBreweries its self- description is "champion brewery 2010 and corporate bully-boy".

Like Fonterra with the bogus YouTube clip, I'm guessing DB isn't too aware of this as it doesn't appear to do much social media. Meanwhile if you have a close look at the fine print of their terms and conditions on their website it includes "You may not link your website to this site without DB's consent. DB reserves the right to prohibit links to this site".

Having removed "radler" from the lexicon of marketing terms, perhaps next on the list at DB is the confiscation of the humble hyperlink. I'll drink to that: Yeah right.

Mike "MOD" O'Donnell is an eCommerce manager, professional director and author. He prefers India Pale Ale to Radler.