When BrewDog first exploded onto the scene in 2007, I thought the punk analogy was lame. By 1979, punk was a spent force, a parody of itself. The true punks had already evolved into something far more interesting. Those who still called themselves punks were cartoonish figures with mohawks and leather jackets, posing for tourists and London postcards. Why align yourself with something with something that had become so tacky almost 30 years before?
Early on, there were some parallels. Where Malcolm McLaren stole ideas from The New York Dolls and The Ramones, Martin Dickie was heavily influenced by beer styles from the American craft beer movement, while James Watt lifted the entire brand tone of voice from California’s Stone Brewing Company.
The label copy for Stone’s flagship beer, Arrogant Bastard, reads: “This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it.” It goes on to suggest… “you stick to safer and more familiar territory – maybe something with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made at an independent brewery.” (Stone Brewing Co was acquired by Sapporo in 2022.)
The original Punk IPA label copied that first sentence word for word. The BrewDog brand was pretty much a cover version of this single label.
They did inspire people. Like the ’70s music scene, the 2000s beer scene was slow, dull and complacent. They came to burn everything down. They upset people and acquired a passionate fandom by doing so. Where punk said to young people: “Here are three chords, now buy a guitar and form a band,” BrewDog inspired countless workers in IT and finance to burn their suits and start breweries instead. Like the Sex Pistols, the motivation BrewDog gave others had a far bigger impact than what they achieved themselves.
Craft got noticed
The punk ethos at BrewDog didn’t last much longer than punk rock itself. Remember those label designs from 2007? They broke every rule of beer branding and good design practice in general, with off-centered, distressed text and a deliberate amateur aesthetic. In 2014, Watt declared the design to be “a bit too young, a bit neon and a bit tacky”. Everything was cleaned up for better stand-out on shelf. BrewDog had grown up and quietly stopped using the word ‘punk’ so much.
Where punk gave birth to indie and new wave music, BrewDog heralded the arrival of the craft beer movement in the UK – or at least, in the British public’s consciousness. It had been here all along, just not under that name. Like punk and indie, no one ever agreed on a definition of craft beer that we are all happy with. Like punk and indie, craft got noticed and assimilated by the big players of the mainstream, who simply cannot allow an independent, counter-cultural spirit to exist beyond their control.
Unlike some of those they inspired, BrewDog went willingly into this corporate world, becoming the thing they had once stood against, as most self-proclaimed revolutionaries throughout history have done.
Watt’s fatal error was there long before the rot was clearly visible. “At times we expanded too fast,” he said in a contrite Instagram post two days after the announcement of the brewery’s sale.
“At times”?
BrewDog had a mantra of growth before everything else, growth at any cost. And it proved to be very costly indeed, if not for Watt, then for hundreds who worked for him and invested in his company over the years.
Not long after they began opening bars, I got my hands on a copy of BrewDog’s bar staff training manual. It’s easily the best of its kind I’ve ever seen, as well as being one of the best pieces of beer writing I’ve read. It was so authoritative, inspiring and welcoming, it made me want to become a BrewDog barman. It wasn’t written by Watt, of course, but it was implied that it reflected his values.
Watt left but problems remained
This has, of course, been disproved. The truth came to light with the 2021 open letter from ‘Punks with Purpose’ – a group of former employees who painted a vivid picture of the “toxic culture” within the organisation. The response from BrewDog was to simply double down on that culture. In response to this week’s sale, one of the signatories, former brewer Charlotte Cook, has written about the harassment she received for daring to speak to the media about her (already terrible) experience with the company. In 2024, beer writer David Jesudason laid out in painstaking detail a culture of bullying and an unsafe environment at the brewery’s flagship bar in London’s Waterloo Station.
It made no difference that Watt stepped down as CEO months later. The culture was endemic throughout the company. For all his many faults, Watt brought an energy and dynamism to BrewDog that sent shockwaves through the brewing world. When he left BrewDog, that energy was no longer there but all the problems he had created along the way still were. A new captain can’t ‘steady the ship’ if it’s heading straight for the rocks and the rudder has been torn out.
In the end, John Lydon fronted ads for Country Life butter, and James Watt and his far-right influencer fiancée attended Nigel Farage’s 60th birthday party. As Lydon famously said, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
So what now?
Reactions to BrewDog’s sale – for less than each of the two founders pocketed when US equity firm TSG purchased a 22% stake in 2017 – have been largely predictable. There are people saying: “I never liked them, I always thought their beers were rubbish,” whose social media histories contradict them. The heartless dismissal of hundreds of staff is appalling – they are the people we should be thinking about – but entirely in character. The equity punks have been left penniless but ever since the ‘Equity for Punks’ launch, financial analysts have advised against seeing it as an investment scheme rather than a membership fee for a fan club.
And ‘craft beer’ didn’t die with BrewDog, any more than noisy guitar music died when the Pistols split. The labels change. We might call it something different. But breweries – some inspired directly by BrewDog – will continue to make beers that challenge mainstream conformity, just as bands like Idles, Kneecap and Wet Leg continue to do on punk’s 50th birthday.
