Full Description
Beer affects the law, and the law affects beer. The regulation of beer goes back thousands of years, and beer laws have shaped society in both obvious and unexpected ways. Beer Law provides a fun and accessible account of the complex interaction between law and beer. The book engages with a broad range of beer law topics including: • Health, • Intellectual property, • Consumer protection and unfair competition, • Contract, • Competition, • International trade, • Environment, • Tax. The book also provides a detailed description of beer, brewing, beer as a product, and the brewing industry, as well as an overview of some broad lessons from the regulation of beer. Given the importance of understanding law in context, the book also explores beer, beer culture and beer laws in more detail with a focus on Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Nordic countries, North America, and Britain and Ireland.
Contents
1. About beer, beer brewing, and beer law; 2. Germany - purity laws, beer gardens and beer wars; 3. Healthy laws for unhealthy beers?; 4. The Nordic countries - from 'lagom' to the extreme and back again; 5. Beer seen through intellectual property glasses, and intellectual property through beer glasses...; 6. Belgium as a beer country (or beer as a Belgian country?); 7. Consumer protection and unfair competition law; 8. Czech beer culture - the Urquell and 'going for a one'; 9. Contracts, competition, international trade, and the environment; 11. Why tax beer - what has it achieved?; 12. British and Irish beer traditions; 13. Broader lessons from the regulation of beer; Postscript.
