It’s tremendously hypocritical considering their Elvis Juice name change nonsense, but it’s just a big company acting like a big company.
Some people on Twitter seem to think this is the start of a major BrewDog backlash, but I don’t see it. The number of people who are happy to buy BD beers as a craft option in the supermarket dwarves the number of people who take an interest in their marketing strategy. If anything does them in, it will be their overstretching investment in the US and similar.
Clear panic there. “Our lawyers went rogue, honest!”
I think you’re right that it won’t be the start of a major Brewdog backlash. Perhaps in the fairly small, well-informed beer-wanker community, but Tesco aren’t going to stop stocking them, and they’ll continue to be the ‘craft’ beer of choice for many on those terms.
I think I view them as a gateway drug into craft beer now. Going from shit-lager, to an easily available craft beer like Brewdog, to eventually spending far too much on Eebria because there’s a limited edition brew in a fancy new can and discussing it on a forum. And there’s always the view that a rising tide lifts all ships etc.
As the resident BrewDog employee on this thread, I’m just gonna copy my thoughts from a thread on Facebook here…
FWIW, think we’ve totally come across as dicks about this, but understand the reasoning behind it.
Our marketing has always been hypocritical shite, BrewDog aren’t “punk” and never really have been: we’re just a hugely successful craft brewery that generally knows how to play the consumer and (fortunately) make good beers. When we do something like this it obviously jars given the bluster from our PR machine, but we wouldn’t have been successful without protecting the bottom line.
Anyway, James has now made an vaguely embarrassing backtrack on the whole thing, the pub has a shitload of free publicity (and some free cases of booze) and BrewDog get to turn around and blame it on the nasty lawyers whilst simultaneously getting free publicity for our upcoming spirit range.
I don’t want to sound like the Metropolitan Liberal Elitist twat that I am, but honestly who drinks this stuff? It must sell, otherwise it wouldn’t be sold?
Mate, I’m a brain surgeon - I can’t be drinking your fancy 6% craft beers on the morning before a big operation. 2% cooking lager is perfect just to get my hands steady but without clouding my judgement too much.