There is nothing "brilliant" about this. People just like seeing smarminess, particularly if it's directed at a "big evil corporation". Frankly I thought the guy's response was douchey.
Putting any personal feelings about smarminess aside, I assume people are using the word brilliant to describe this because:
1. He complied with the order
2. ..while gaining an enormous amount of press
3. ... and generating more revenue
If enormous corporations are going to lawyer after tiny business, it's awesome for said businesses to use PR-judo to leverage the attention into something positive.
And profitable. Until his publicity stunt, he'd sold enough of them to earn six entire dollars of legitimate United States currency. And now it seems like more people are having their alcoholic F Word more often. The lawyer gets paid, Starbucks protects it's mark, this guy's brewery is selling drinks, and we get an entertaining story. Everyone wins.
To be fair, his claim to have sold "six dollars worth" based on the one or two dudes who said they were drinking it on Untappd (which is sort of like Foursquare for beer) not actual sales numbers. I'm not begrudging him for it, but he was being fudgy with numbers for the sake of splashiness.
I agree with you. On top of that, the response wasn't even that well written, and the fact that the business owner somehow thought he was entitled to use a Starbucks trademark just because he was too small a fish to fry is rather ridiculous.
