BrewDog is in trouble. Its beers have been axed by nearly 2,000 pubs. Punk IPA – once a craft beer titan – has vanished from bars across Britain. The firm is closing ten of its own pubs, including its flagship bar in Aberdeen. Last month, co-founder Martin Dickie left.
There’s little doubt that BrewDog has lost its shine; it’s no longer the cool brand it was. But the firm’s troubles are nothing to celebrate.
James Watt and Dickie, the two Scottish lads who founded the firm, are heroes of mine. They took on the beer giants and built an empire from a shed with raw cheek and grit. Their success is a tale of a British triumph that shook an industry, riled the PC mob. Now, BrewDog fights to stay afloat.
Back in 2007, Watt and Dickie, fed up with bland lagers, brewed Punk IPA in a Fraserburgh garage – a citrusy belter that rocked the trade. I stocked it in my London pub in 2008, paying a daft sum for their taps, cheeky sods. Punters loved it.
Their marketing was pure genius: they drove a tank down Camden High Street to mark the opening of their first bar in London; they dropped stuffed cats from a chopper over the capital to jab ‘fat cat’ brewers. They made a 55 per cent ABV beer, The End of History, sold in taxidermy squirrels for £500. Animal rights folk lost their minds, but newspapers – and anyone with a sense of humour – ate it up.
It was a brilliant circus and earned Watt and Dickie plenty of critics. They called corporate beers ‘whores,’ staged a dwarf protest outside Parliament for beer laws. Their Equity for Punks scheme got fans buying shares, turning drinkers into rebels. Their antics worked: Tesco slung Punk IPA in every corner shop; my regulars loved its swagger. From their humble origins in Aberdeen, BrewDog’s beer would later be sold as far afield as Japan and Brazil.
They brewed under the sea for a laugh, had a US reality show, Brew Dogs, for three seasons. Lager lads were converted into craft fanatics. The brewery grew from nothing into a ‘unicorn’ business worth hundreds of millions of pounds in just a decade.
But the firm’s success wasn’t to last. Big chains, chasing cheap beers for skint punters, now favour Beavertown or Camden Town; beers that come with less baggage, and lower cost. Pre-tax losses at BrewDog have grown from £30.5 million in 2022 to £59 million in 2023. Sales have also slowed down: revenues rose by less than £3 million to £357 million in 2024.
The truth is that the craft beer market is crowded: now every hipster cafe, petrol station and even vape shop, flogs IPAs. Wetherspoon’s 800 pubs are BrewDog’s lifeline; lose that, and they’re in trouble.
Punk IPA – once a craft beer titan – has vanished from bars across Britain
BrewDog’s critics are unlikely to shed tears about the firm’s difficulties. In 2021, dozens of ex-staff formed a group called ‘Punks with Purpose’. There were allegations of bullying and reports of a culture of ‘fear’ at BrewDog. A 2022 BBC documentary claimed that Watt made US female bartenders uneasy. Watt denied the allegations against him.
I have some sympathy with Watt: it’s hardly surprising that, in the process of building up a spectacularly successful business, he made enemies. Perhaps some of those who didn’t like BrewDog’s working practices just weren’t up to the job. Either way, BrewDog did its best to clean up its act. Watt stepped back as CEO in May 2024. James Arrow is now steering the ship, and is trying to take a very different course. But, with both founders gone, it’s a different beast.
Whether BrewDog can survive its travails – I sincerely hope it does – we should raise a pint to the two lads who took on the world and revolutionised beer. Their grit’s what Britain needs more of. We need bold minds like Watt’s and Dickie’s in politics, not just pubs, to shake up the mediocrity. Watt’s ferociously anti-Brexit, and I have no idea what his broader politics are. We would certainly disagree on Britain’s departure from the EU, but we desperately need successful, entrepreneurial people to remember their patriotism and re-enter civic life. Let’s raise a pint to BrewDog – and hope it bounces back.
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