BrewDog has today ‘torn up the rule book’ of beer distribution in a unique bid to help smaller bars and restaurants offer a broader range of craft beer to their customers. In a comprehensive rethink of mainstream distribution models, BrewDog intends to ‘save the capital from mediocre beer’ with its ‘London Direct’ system that allows customers to make smaller batch orders, 24-hours a day to suit their scale, customer demand and cellar space.

Using BrewDog’s new London Direct online delivery service, outlets can access the full BrewDog range, alongside other rare and artisanal craft beers, with much smaller minimum orders. Delivery is free to any location within the M25 and orders are made through a simple online interface that reduces the time lag between making the order and receiving beer. This greater flexibility and availability for smaller vendors is designed to offer a low-risk opportunity for publicans to join the craft beer revolution.

• The full BrewDog range will be available in keg and bottle including all limited release beers.
• BrewDog will also supply a range of Mikkeller beers having agreed exclusive UK distribution rights with the Danish brewery.
• Orders can be made online 24 hours a day.
• Delivery is free to all London postcodes within the M25.
• London has seen a surge in craft beer, with almost 35 local craft beer breweries in the capital.
• Specialist pubs and even Michelin star restaurants in London have added craft beer to their menu.

James Hickson, BrewDog’s resident craft beer baron commented:

“London Direct will help the craft beer revolution take over London one beer at a time. Up until now our minimum order has had to be a pallet which limited the opportunity for smaller retailers to offer an awesome range of our beers to their customers – London Direct smashes that convention”

“Our 24-hour online ordering service means pubs, bars and restaurants will be able to get their paws on our beers faster too, which means if you find yourself out of Punk IPA at the end of a busy Saturday, you can order there and then – no leaving voicemails for your rep or casting a carrier pigeon into the night.”

James continued:

“We want everyone to be as passionate about beer as we are, so we are always looking to smash any barriers keeping publicans from giving their customers a craft beer selection. We especially don’t want any outlet to be excluded from serving great beer because of their size. We know as well as anyone the value and importance of the little guys in keeping things interesting.”

BrewDog, Scotland’s largest independent brewery has today launched Fake Lager, a bohemian pilsner designed to be everything mainstream, mass-produced lagers are not. With a confrontational name and positioning, the brewer hopes Fake Lager will chip away at the stereotypes associated with the beer style that it feels epitomises binge drink Britain. The brewer also plans to host a nationwide ‘crap beer amnesty’, allowing people to trade-in their mass-produced mainstream lagers for a half pint of the Fake Lager craft pilsner at the brewer’s eleven bars.

• BrewDog caused short-term outcry amongst fans when it announced Fake Lager on April Fool’s Day claiming it was a “sell out” beer, and the brewery was going “mainstream”.
• Amongst the reported ingredients and processes in the April Fool’s Day prank were ‘Rice, Corn & Glucose Syrups’, ‘No hops at all’, ‘almost no flavour at all, hints of cardboard, snake oil and corroding metals’, ‘quadruple filtered and pasteurised to the point it no longer has a discernable soul’.
• Fake Lager will be available to buy from BrewDog.com and in any of the eleven BrewDog bars throughout the UK from April 6.
• As part of the launch, beer fans can swap a can, a bottle or even a keg of any ‘lowest common denominator beer’ for a bottle of Fake Lager in any of the BrewDog bars around the country on Saturday, April 6.

James Watt, cofounder at BrewDog commented:

“This is a beer aimed directly at the heartland of the mainstream beer industry; redrawing the battle lines of the craft beer revolution and signalling the beginning of the end for the mega breweries crying about beer duties and minimum price per unit legislation. Fake Lager will restore the muddied and bastardised pilsner style to its rightful position as a beer with complexity and character; not the shameful mass produced monstrosity that has become the stereotype in the UK.”

James Watt added

“The stand against the tasteless, apathetic beers like those peddled by the globe’s biggest mass production breweries isn’t new, but for too long lager has been seen as the lowest common denominator in Britain. Inspired by the actions of those beer lovers in Pilzen hundreds of years ago, we are outing the drab, over-marketed liquid cardboard flogged as lager in most of Britain’s shops and bars. Fake Lager is a statement of intent and the next step of the craft beer revolution. The gates have been breached; the big guns can smell the change is coming and they’re running scared.”

Following the success of last year’s event, BrewDog is returning to Bogbain Farm, Inverness on Saturday 4th May for another celebration of great Scottish beer and music.   Brew at the Bog will showcase the very best homegrown Scottish musical talent combined with craft beer from the controversial brewery in an award-winning setting.

Forget T in the Park and its warm, insipid lagers, this Summer belongs to Brew at the Bog where good music and good craft beer come hand in hand.

• The festival kicks off at 11am on Saturday 4th May for 12 hours of the best new music and beer
• Bands appearing include Fatherson, Three Blind Wolves, Olympic Swimmers, Discopolis, United Fruit and Kitty the Lion
• The boutique festival has a capacity of 2000 people
• Limited camping available – campsite opens 4pm on Friday 3rd May until 1pm on Sunday 5th May
• Tickets cost £20 (no camping) or £30 (with camping) and are available online
• The Scotsman described last year’s festival as ‘one of the top 5 boutique festivals of the year’
• Influential Scottish music blogger The Pop Cop described the 2012 line-up as ‘the best homegrown line-up in living memory’
• Bogbain Farm was awarded ‘Best Unusual Venue’ at the 2012 Scottish Event Awards

This week BrewDog, Scotland’s largest independent brewery, is going to create the world’s first democratically designed beer. This ground-breaking approach will pass complete control over to craft beer fans who are encouraged to vote on the various elements of the brew on Twitter, Facebook and the BrewDog blog.

Every day at 12 noon throughout the week commencing Monday 25th March BrewDog will post on their blog asking beer fans to vote on three options for various elements of the #Mashtag brew.  They will also be offering advice to craft beer fans about the brewery process and the effect of various ingredients on the finished product.

The voting options are as follows;

• Monday 25th March – Beer Style
• Tuesday 26th March – Malt Bill & ABV
• Wedneday 27th March – Hops & IBU
• Thursday 28th March – Special Twist
• Friday 29th March – Name

Quotations

BrewDog co-founder and Head Brewer Martin Dickie commented:

“We have always been inspired by the passion, knowledge and enthusiasm of craft beer drinkers.  We have decided that democratic beer is the future and we are giving up the important brewing decisions to our fans, customers and any who wants to learn more about the craft beer process and cast their vote.”

Martin continued:

“BrewDog has always been about experimentation, and pushing the boundaries of what beer can be and do.  We can’t wait to see what weird and wonderful ideas our fans come up with.  The possibilities are endless.”

 Click the icons below to download high resolution images and the full press release.

BrewDog, Scotland’s largest independent brewery has officially opened BrewDog Leeds, its eleventh craft beer bar. Located at White Cloth Hall, Crown Street, the new bar will be the first opening of 2013, kicking off BrewDog’s aim to open 10 new UK and international bars this year. Last year saw BrewDog add five bars to its ever-growing roster.

• BrewDog Leeds is the 11th UK BrewDog bar to open.
• The bar will serve locally sourced food such as pork pies from The Little Yorkshire Pie Company and vegetarian scotch eggs from The Handmade Scotch Egg Co.
• The bar serves a variety of BrewDog beers alongside  draught beers from breweries all over the world, including Mikkeller, Bierra Del Borgo, De Molen, Nogne O, and Ballast Point.
• It took almost a year of court dates and appeals to get the licence for the site approved.
• This year BrewDog opened a new brewery in Ellon, Aberdeenshire which increased its production capacity ten fold.
• BrewDog aims to open a further 9 bars across the UK in 2013, plus more oversees.

Quotations

BrewDog co-founder James Watt commented:

“We’ve had our eye on Leeds for a long while now, but several forces conspired in an attempt to halt the craft beer revolution reaching this great city. It took us almost a year of court dates and appeals to finally get the licence for BrewDog Leeds, but now it’s here and it’s going to rock. The resulting bar is a testament to our passion and love for craft beer and it comes at a time when Leeds is boycotting yellow, insipid lagers that monopolise the area. Not anymore.”

James Watt continued:

“2012 was a great year for us with bar openings in several major UK cities, and we see the Leeds bar as the harbinger of a new, assertive chapter in the craft beer revolution. The long fight it took to get it open only served to bolster our determination to continue to challenge the current understanding of beer in the UK. A West Yorkshire bar is a strategically important asset in this on going fight. Our location in the 250-year-old White Cloth Hall puts us in touch with the history of the city and we hope BrewDog Leeds is the beginning of a significant contribution to the cultural make-up of Leeds.”

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In a statement released on the BrewDog website, co-founder James Watt stated that the proposed minimum pricing reflected the changing dynamic of beer purchasing in the UK, with an increasing level of consumers looking for a more premium beer experience at home, rather than in a busy bar environment. He also stated that the proposed changes will not affect craft brewers pricing:

“The new minimum price of £0.50 per unit for Scotland and the proposed £0.45 a unit for the rest of the UK will not affect any craft brewers pricing (Punk IPA currently retails in the off trade for around £0.90 per unit equivalent). The proposals will mean that the multi-national corporate hammerheads no longer allowed to discount their liquid cardboard to embarrassingly pathetic levels it will act to level the playing field in the off trade. Craft brewers can’t, and shouldn’t, discount their beers and sustain losses. With less of a price differential now in the off trade between industrial and craft beer it will be far easier for the consumer to trade up to awesome craft brews.”

In response to last November’s report by Alcohol Concern which showed that children think cheap alcohol is to blame for drunkenness amongst young people, James also said this.

“The report makes for sobering reading, but sadly wouldn’t surprise many. This government has been far too slow to implement a minimum unit price in England and Wales. BrewDog supported the Scottish government’s 50p minimum unit price back and May and we are calling for England and Wales to follow suit. As a nation, we need to re-evaluate our relationship with alcohol; it should scare us that children are saying it’s more cost-effective to get drunk than to go to the cinema, but the most shocking part is the ‘drinking to get drunk’ statement – people should be drinking to enjoy the taste and quality, it’s obvious we need to give children proper alcohol education if this is what we’re teaching them.  A minimum unit price will go a along way in tackling the ‘stack them high, sell them cheap’ model employed by mainstream drinks businesses.”

To read James Watt’s full response to to the proposed minimum price of 45p on a unit of alcohol, please visit the BrewDog website: http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/brewdog-backs-minimum-pricing 

Click the thumbnails below to download high resolution images of the new Ellon Brewery.

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to give us a call using the contact details from the dropdown contacts box above.

Enjoy!

Click the thumbnails below to download high resolution images of the new Ellon Brewery.

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to give us a call using the contact details from the dropdown contacts box above.

Enjoy!

BrewDog, Scotland’s largest independent brewery has officially opened BrewDog Birmingham, its tenth craft beer bar. Located at 81-87 John Bright Street, the new bar will be the last opening of 2012, which has seen BrewDog open five bars, including three in the last three months.

• BrewDog Birmingham has a capacity of 122
• The bar will serve a selection of cheese and meat boards featuring locally sourced produce
• All food is sourced from within a 15 mile region
• The bar serves a variety of BrewDog beers alongside  draught beers from breweries all over the world, including Mikkeller, Evil Twin, The Kernel, Flying Dog, Rouge and Ballast Point.
• BrewDog aims to open a further 10 bars across the UK in 2013, plus more oversees.

Quotations

BrewDog co-founder James Watt commented:

“As the second largest city in the UK, it was inevitable that BrewDog would set up shop in Birmingham. Ever since we opened our first bar in Aberdeen in 2010 we’ve had a chorus of Birmingham folk asking when we will be coming to town. It’s been a long time coming, and we couldn’t be prouder to have BrewDog Birmingham see out what has been an amazing year for us and our bar division.”

James Watt continued:

“As with any revolution, it needs the support of the masses and with the opening of BrewDog Birmingham, we can now say we are a step closer to having a physical presence in all the major cities in the UK. This bar is the latest arrow in our quiver as we confront the monolithic mega corporations peddling sub-standard, insipid liquids passed off as beer. We’re proud to finally be established in the Midlands as it’s an area with such a rich brewing history and we hope our new bar will get the disillusioned falling in love with great tasting beer all over again.”

Click the icons below to download high resolution images and the full press release.