BrewDog, the Stale Beer of Hipster Capitalism

BrewDog is closing ten bars across the UK, with staff reportedly given “three days’ notice”. Unite Hospitality said: “BrewDog have announced that they are closing 10 flagship bars from Aberdeen to Camden, as soon as THIS FRIDAY! In what universe is 3 DAYS a morally (or legally) acceptable notice period for a proper redundancy consultation for the workers impacted?!”

James Taylor, the chief executive of the brewer, told staff in an email that it was no longer viable to keep the bars open. They are in Aberdeen, Brighton, Camden, Dundee, Leeds North Street, Oxford, Sheffield, Shepherd’s Bush, Shoreditch and York.

Trade unions remind us:

It may be the end of a very particular brand of hipster Scottish capitalism which postured as ‘Punk AF’ but gathered a stream of criticism, including claims of toxic workplace practices, alleged inappropriate behaviour, and desperate advertising. 

The company saw spectacular growth from humble origins when James Watt and co-founder Martin Dickie started their business aged 24 from a garage in Fraserburgh. By 2023 the beer was available in 57 countries, producing 367 million cans and employing 2,530 people across its head office, four breweries and over 120 bars. So, this may not be last orders.

But the gap between the company’s image as an edgy, disruptive, mouthy brand and the reality of them being an expensive, exploitative workplace with a litany of complaints against them is like a case study in late capitalist deceit.

Just last week we reported on BrewDog’s “Lost Forest” project at Kinrara near Aviemore: “Thousands of acres fenced off. Marketed as restoration. Sold as carbon credits” [Ossian, Punk Beer and Greenwash ] but the ‘controversies’ surrounding this company go way back.

In 2009 the drinks industry body intervened over ‘Speedball beer’. The Portman Group said in a ruling that it was “entirely inappropriate” to name an alcoholic drink after the “extremely dangerous practice” of combining heroin and cocaine. The firm agreed to change the beer’s name to “Dogma” but it marked the start of a pattern of ‘shock marketing’ which regularly tipped into farce and controversy in a desperate need for attention.

In 2012 it wrapped beer with an abv of 55% in taxidermied animals, it said it had sourced humanely by using roadkill. In 2013 the Advertising Standards Authority held up a complaint about language on BrewDog’s website, including its description of itself as “a post Punk apocalyptic mother f***** of a craft brewery”.

But the company’s desperate attempts at marketing were never really the problem.

In 2020 Edinburgh Live reported on how BrewDog accused of ‘stealing’ marketing ideas through ‘fake’ job interviews – Edinburgh Live.

BrewDog, which built a reputation as a “punk” challenger to mainstream beer brands, has faced multiple allegations of poor treatment of staff. In 2021, the company apologised to former employees who accused the company and its co-founder, James Watt, of fostering a “culture of fear” in which workers were bullied and “treated like objects”.

In 2024 the company was accused of sacking an Asian staff member after she voiced her distress when members of the far-right English Defence League met in the London bar where she worked [ BrewDog sacks Asian woman after reaction to EDL members meeting in bar | BrewDog | The Guardian].

Explaining the closures and redundancies, James Taylor, who took over as chief executive less than five months ago, said that “despite our best efforts”, it was not able to make the bars viable “due to their size, location and other limiting factors”. In reality, the company’s owners have created a toxic brand.

The decline of BrewDog is like a modern fairy tale of excess, infantilism, and the vacuous nature of hipster capitalism. Everything is cast aside for the single, desperate goal of growth. BrewDog is that weird brew of counterculture rhetoric mixed with toxic management playing on the idea of being a ‘craft’ beer while operating the worst corporate practices.

As Hannah Twiggs wrote last year [BrewDog: how the anarchic brewery went from progressive to problematic]: “What goes up, must come down. BrewDog’s rise had been aggressive, outrageous, sometimes ingenious. It stands to reason that their downfall would be too. Years of bad behaviour began to catch up with them. In 2021, a group of more than 100 former BrewDog employees published an open letter accusing the company of fostering a “culture of fear” in which workers were bullied and “treated like objects”. The letter claimed the Scottish brewer had cut corners on health and safety, made promises it didn’t live up to, and created a “toxic” culture that left some staff suffering from mental illness. “Being treated like a human being was sadly not always a given for those working at BrewDog,” the letter alleged.”

Punk AF.