Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, it’s presumable you’ve heard of the David and Goliath-like battle blowing up online over the past week. Hansen Beverage Corp., the makers of high-fructose corn syrup otherwise known as Monster Energy, have sent a cease and desist letter to Vermont’s Rock Art Brewery, claiming the brewer’s “Vermonster” label on select beers caused brand confusion with its “Monster” energy drink.

Since we all know what Monster Energy is, I will divulge a few background nuggets I’ve dug up on Rock Art Brewery. Essentially it’s the classic story of an American Dream come true—a small family-run business up in backwoods Vermont that started in a basement, and garnered enough local support and popularity to be able to move into a real office/brewery and hire 7 more people. The owner and his wife are still very hands on with the operation. Well, the American Dream has turned on them. Hansen’s argument is that there will be confusion in the customer’s mind between the two products, especially if they decide to branch off into making beer in the future.

Owners Matt and Renee Nadeau are fighting back, claiming there is no infringement issue and that the “nuisance lawsuit” is another case of corporate bullying and brand over-protection. Nadeau says that his lawyers have told him that there is no copyright infringement. However, they can still take him to court at a whopping 65 Gs, and if he wins, they can appeal a few times. After one or two of these, he won’t be able to pay for the court costs, and that results in an automatic default. Essentially they will take him to court until he’s burned through all of his cash.

Now, this post isn’t intended to point fingers or predict outcomes—that’s been done through the frenzied talk of twitters and message boards for the past few days. The real interesting thing here is watching the juggernaut machine that is online PR and social media do its work.

In the past, a dispute like this would normally get the ol’ sweep-it-under-the-rug-and-wipe-our-hands-clean treatment. Much of the communication surrounding the issue would limited to contacts of the brewer and, perhaps, some particularly alert outsiders. But with the easy access and viral power of social media, Monster could be facing a nasty PR shitstorm and heavy amounts of damage control to remedy the situation.

Rock Art Brewery has posted an online video on its site that sums up its operations and breaks down the legal implications against them. The video and subsequent viewer feedback, which have effectively put a name and story of struggle to the issue, has exchanged hands from blog to facebook page to tweet post across the web in recent days. By using links, embedding video, and marking with twitter hashtags such as #boycottmonster and #monsterboycott, the cause has gathered snowball-effect momentum to the extent that at the time of this blog posting, it’s Facebook group,  Vermonters and Craft Beer Drinkers Against Monster, had reached 15,000 strong.

Now, Associated Press and various other other mainstream news outlets have picked up on the story and, because of its juicy nature, are following it fervently. It will be interesting to see how Monster reponds, perhaps with an online PR campaign of its own. Needless to say they have the money and resources to do it.