Brewdog — a business that epitomises a truly toxic trait of the hospitality industry

This post actually started out with the title — “Why does everyone hate Brewdog?” I have personally loved their beers for their originality and accessibility and have spent many evenings enjoying their pubs. I knew they had a particularly obnoxious and controversial PR team which has sometimes got them into trouble and into the news — but I couldn’t really understand why there was this collective hate for the brand. Oh how naive I have been.

The story of Brewdog on the surface is an inspiring one — two guys in a garage in Scotland just trying to make delicious beer their own way. Ten years later and it’s a global phenomenon — they have over 100 bars all over the world and turnover almost £300 million each year. Their products are now ubiquitous in bars and supermarkets across the globe, I once heard someone say “Brewdog has done for craft beer what Wetherspoons did for British pubs”.

The whole story is underpinned by this fact — a meteoric rise, fuelled by a toxic business culture created by one sociopathic man.

It began about a year ago when a group of Brewdog ex-employees posted on twitter a signed letter under the alias ‘Punks with Purpose’. They outlined the cult atmosphere of the company that is rife with misogyny and celebrates growth over all else, including the mental and physical health of their employees. Read the original letter here.

While apparently preparing to fight the Punks with Brewdog’s own public letter in response, the ‘reassurance’ given to their current employees was a little bit maddening:

“It is fair to say that this type of fast-paced and intense environment is definitely not for everyone, but many of our fantastic long-term team members have thrived in our culture. Our culture is built on rewarding and developing great people and focussing on growing our business.”

At this point all doubts of the company being a toxic cult have been dispelled. ‘Growth at all costs — even your sanity’ should be their slogan. Obviously the writers of the original letter (over 300 at time of writing this) categorically refute this response:

“Many of our signatories worked for Brewdog for years, and were extremely high-performing. To suggest that those who apparently couldn’t hack it are somehow less worthy in your eyes is grotesque; we believe this shows your true feelings of disregard for your staff, both former and current.”

James even told The Telegraph there was a mismatch in expectations of what workers were looking for and its culture, saying “we should have been clearer about the high performance culture.” Right okay, so there’s ‘high performance culture’ and then there’s forcing employees to do things beyond what’s expected of them because you put yourself in a position of power, making them feel so uncomfortable they leave your business and pen a three page letter about how disgusting it is to work for you.

The list of Brewdog’s various legal battles is a story all on its own:

• In 2010 they were slammed by an animal and alcohol campaign for a line of ‘roadkill bottles’, which were made from taxidermied stoats, squirrels and a hare.
• In 2017 they lost a battle with the family of Elvis Presley over the name of one of their beers — Elvis Juice. Apparently James and co-founder Martin changed their names by deed poll to Elvis to prove that the name wasn’t exclusive. This never actually happened, what they did was sign one piece of paper that changed their names in the eyes of just the Scottish law. To the rest of the world — where to change your name it’s a bit more complicated — they’re still James Watt and Martin Dickie.
• In 2018 they faced backlash for creating a pink version of the flagship Punk IPA and making it cheaper for girls. A 21% discount if you identify as a woman, supposed to be symbolic of the gender pay gap. It was later revealed that they paid female employees 2.8% less than men.
• In 2020 as we were all ordering crates of beer to our houses in lockdown, Brewdog claimed there was a ‘solid gold’ can of Punk IPA worth £25,000 within some of their cases. Winners of these later discovered the cans were mostly brass and just gold-plated, worth a fraction of the value.

The most recent development of this story is on an episode of the podcast Diary of a CEO, where James is interviewed for two hours about his beginnings, the rise of Brewdog, the mistakes he’s made.

Remember that inspiring beginning of two guys in a garage in Scotland, selling their beer local and winning hearts? Turns out James also just flat-out lied to the bank to get a loan to brew their first batch for retail. Or so he says. Also in this podcast he simultaneously says that when they started out it was never about the money, then five minutes later that his biggest goal in the early days was for the company to be valued at £1 billion…

He does however take the sole blame for the toxic culture created within his company. Which almost turns the tide a bit, you actually start to think that James Watt might actually have a soul. Then about ten seconds later he tries to blame the whole thing on him potentially being a bit autistic.

What’s really interesting about this story is that it just hasn’t gone away. At present there are two separate court cases ongoing, one of which involving the Punks with Purpose. James claims publicly that he is still being harassed online and that the perpetrators are a threat to the billion dollar business.

All over the world there are businesses with unhappy employees. I’m sure in many cases there are situations similar to what has happened at Brewdog — toxic cultures, harassment, lack of health and safety concerns. I know for a fact hospitality is an industry that is particularly rife with it, as sad as that is to state.

Which is why this whole thing is maddeningly frustrating, to bring things to back to where we started. Brewdog have built from nothing a business and a fantastic product which is original and exciting. It has really uprooted the whole craft beer world, and taken advantage of a relatively new corner of the industry to put their product in bars and shops all over the globe — a fantastic thing. This has been achieved at absolute light speed, because of the suffering of some of the people who have worked there. They were pushed too hard and were made to do things that weren’t okay, working in a toxic culture masquerading as ‘high-performing’.

This hits home particularly hard for me and has ultimately been the main driving force for writing this article. I have worked in places with toxic cultures, with managers that think they can get away with anything. Misogynistic men hitting on their female employees, or asking of their staff way beyond what is expected of them out of pursuit of sales, or just pure laziness. I have seen what happens to people when they’re not given the support they need at work — or given too much and its unwanted. It causes anxiety and depression, people want to leave but they’re too scared.

In the Diary of a CEO episode James talks about about how many mistakes he has made, coming clean about all of the accusations surrounding him and the business. He says he’s working very hard to become a better CEO, a better manager etc etc. All the way through this seemingly heartfelt apology I just cant help but think that he might just be lying through his teeth, because that’s what his PR team have told him to do. For the best interests of the company — for the growth of the company.

Maybe the apology is real — I hope it is. However, simply because of the suffering he has caused over 300 people so far (at least), I cannot in good conscience ever consume a Brewdog product again. Will I ever again buy a 6-pack of Elvis Juice, previously my go-to supermarket beer? It’s a resounding no.