Portman steps up battle with BrewDog

By Ewan Turney

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Portman Drug addiction Heroin Illegal drug trade

Speedball: subject to Portman ban
Speedball: subject to Portman ban
The war of words between the Portman Group and BrewDog has stepped up a gear after the industry watchdog banned its Speedball beer.

The war of words between the Portman Group and Scottish brewer BrewDog has stepped up a gear after the industry watchdog banned its Speedball beer.

Portman's Independent Complaints Panel upheld a complaint from Alcohol Focus Scotland that the beer's marketing is associated with illicit drugs. But BrewDog claims it released the beer in August to deliberately provoke Portman after it investigated, but later cleared, its three best selling beers — Riptide, Punk IPA and Hop Rocker. BrewDog called for Portman to be scrapped earlier this month.

Portman said Speedball is the name given to the potentially lethal practice of combining heroin and crack cocaine to give both sedative and stimulant effects.

BrewDog marketed the drink on the label as a "class A ale" containing "a vicious cocktail of active ingredients" which creates a "happy-sad" effect.

"The blurring of alcohol and illicit drugs fosters unhealthy attitudes to drinking and trivialises drug misuse," said Portman chief executive David Poley.

"BrewDog is profiteering from the scourge of illegal drugs, mocking the misery caused by misuse. The company is seriously misguided in its claim to be educating and preventing people from misusing drugs.

"We are taking urgent action to protect the public from exposure to such negligent marketing."

Provocation

However, director and head brewer Martin Dickie said: "We were extremely fed up of Portman trying to take our three best selling beers off the shelves so we thought we would give them something to complain about.

"We only ever printed 5,000 labels and there has only been 1,184 bottles sold in the UK. We sell it in the US as Dogma and will now use this name.

"Portman is full of sensationalist nonsense. We did this to provoke them because there has to be a point where the consumer gets to decide what they want. It is absolutely ridiculous to say we are promoting illegal drug use. This is nanny-state gone mad. This beer has only ever been sold to hardcore ale drinkers. It is a very exclusive niche beer.

"How much money has Portman wasted with this? We were trying hard to restore some credibility for them and prevent them looking like the complete joke they have become — they should really be thanking us if anything."

'Portman Group should be scrapped'​.

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