Witnessing the phenomenon of Britain's most famous new wave brewery alongside their people on AGM weekend
The sound
check has occurred, the stands are filled and the final few who grabbed a last
minute beer are taking their floor seats. The background music stops, the light
dims and an expectant whooping and cheering from the crowd rises. A pantomime
horse jounces onto the stage before separating to allow the fans a glimpse at
their band members.
They are James Watt and Martin
Dickie performing a routine
to a few thousand people, mostly adoring fans. On stage they are comfortable;
rebounding off each other like Ant and Dec or Barry and Paul. The
performance's mix between the usual self-fellatio and less familiar
self-deprecation draws plenty of laughs and cheers from the crowd. There is the
feel of camaraderie between the pair and the easy taunting of each other that
has come with years of friendship.
Rewind 24
hours and the pair are slightly different in a more reserved atmosphere. Holed
up in a meeting room beside their staff canteen, they are holding a Q&A for
eleven varied members of press and media at the brewery. Watt, in trademark
flat cap and denim shirt, is animatedly retelling the company history he's told
a thousand times before. Dickie, one arm resting on the chair in front of him,
is happy to wait until it's time to talk beer to raise his deadpan accent.
In
British beer terms, James and Martin are at Kim and Kanye celebrity status; and
in plenty of circles are as well regarded as that pilloried pair. Here are two
men that provoked people to request that I "burn
down the brewery" or "Tell James he's a cunt from
me" whilst in
Aberdeenshire. People scorn at the idea of visiting the east coast of Scotland
because of these two humans. Despite opinion, sharing Born to Die
and Dog E with the pair at
11.30am on a Friday, before many outside of the brewery have tasted it, isn't
lost on me as a beery moment.
James is
the foreman, passionately repeating the phrases you've heard or read as if from
a hymn sheet. "Two men
and a dog," "lied to get a bank loan," "we want people to
be as passionate about good beer as we are" are amongst the usual scripted
phrases. Questions are mostly directed, or at least handled, by Mr Watt. He's
probably heard most of them before. He's rehearsed in expertly deflecting
questions about Beer Hawk selling their beer, breweries such as Camden selling
out and opinions on Brewdog's marketing.
Though
that is telling of wise media training and experience for such
questions. The rehearsed answers pave way to a fixed stare
beneath the hat and more affirmative annunciation when I personally
ask them why they were only recently able to fulfil 65% of their orders.
Is there a pecking order in such situations? "It
won't happen with our new brewery," I
am told twice without any further illumination.
When the
question refers directly to the beer though, James looks straight to Martin to
provide the answer. Dry nearly to the point of indifference, Martin can talk on
beers, such as the coconut presence in the BA Albino Squid Assassin tasted, in
details James does not. Only one holds the answers to the type of coffee used
in Dog E or exact hops in Born to Die. There's no doubting they both enjoy the
beer, but brewing processes and recipes and not at the forefront of the minds
of both businessmen.
The
preconceptions others have that James is the brand whilst Martin is the product
seem exact here. Yet the pair of them have television shows to star in, American
breweries to build and an
establishment to destroy. Can one achieve all those things and still have such
involvement in the creation of beer?
For they
consider themselves the captains of this ship and there is quite the galley to
oversee. Make no mistake, this isn't a city centre archway. Visiting the
brewery is more akin to a controlled visit to a vast construction site than a
place of craft beer. A safety inspector runs through a brisk safety meeting,
complete with slideshow, before anyone steps foot on the main floor.
High-visibility vests, safety goggles and earplugs are all provided. It stops
short of a hard hat and vaccinations but immediately the tone of the day is
more operational than you may be accustomed to.
Even
without the
opening of the new 300hl site 3 the
operation was already colossal.
Offices brimming with all manner of personnel litter the site. Fork-lift trucks
fly by routinely in the enormous warehouse. An onsite laboratory, with 9 full
time members of staff, spends its days looking at scientific ways to
meticulously improve beer. The barrel ageing programme is so large it takes
place at an off-site facility half a mile away. If Brewdog want a nailed
definition of craft - and James tells us that he does
- then size limits are not going to be included.
Paul from Cloudwater
Brewery is at the AGM on the
Saturday and rather taken aback by the scale of the sheer scale of it, just
before he was to host a tasting of his beers to 400 people. "I think the most I've done a
tasting with before is about 17 people," he quips. This is the same Cloudwater
Brewery scrutinised so heavily for their size upon opening last year, despite
the fact their entire facility could fit comfortably into the area Brewdog uses
to store cardboard.
The
personnel themselves have experience far removed from brewing. Those running
the more financial focused side of the business have been head-hunted for their
occupational capabilities; taking control of companies with nationwide
influence and offices. Some of those involved in the brewing also have surprising
backgrounds. One of the people heavily involved in beer quality and consistency
did a similar role at Anheuser Busch in the U.S. for years.
The
operation continues nationally. The ten-person strong social media team
actually take up residence in a London office. A London based PR agency also
handles a lot of the advertising from a base 550 miles away. They admit to
being mostly responsible for the ill-advised No Label beer and campaign.
This is certainly not a business confined to its Ellon base.
Yet the two front men
repeatedly say they care about two things: their beer and their people.
They employ over 500 people and have over 30,000 shareholders, 6000 of whom
will be in Aberdeen on this weekend for the AGM. If James and Martin aren't as
heavily involved in the brewing side anymore, is it the same with people?
Standing in Underdog - the underground club-style bar of
Aberdeen's Brewdog Castlegate - as it's just passed midnight on the same day of
the Q&A, one of the brewery's marketing team is enjoying a few drinks with
us. Unprompted and out of context, he starts repeating some of the words I'd
heard from James Watt that morning. "We're
only 0.1% of the market - we want to be 1%." "We're tiny in
comparison to the likes of Sierra Nevada." All of it is said in that first person
pronoun talk.
Fourteen hours later,
in the midst of the AGM, I jest with another member of the marketing team about
the slight narcissism involved in the merchandise availability of
James-Watt-style Brewdog branded denim shirts. He briefly shares in my humour
before catching himself and saying "Yeah,
they're really cool aren't they?"
Add to that the
numerous times I've witnessed employees of the company defending it on social
media and explaining how much they love their jobs. Beyond the possibility of
Science Fiction chips being inserted into these employees that makes them
recite their love for the Punk brand at all times, one can only assume the
other possibility: that these people really love the company and are devoted to
its ethos.
The same can be said
for the many shareholders attending the AGM. Each has bought into something
they believe in and support. A couple of attendees tell of how they have been
every year. They have a weekend routine for it; the same town to stop off on
the way, the same cafés to visit, the same restaurant the night before. They're
happy to make an AGM a mini holiday and drink little more than Punk IPA when
they arrive. They are fans. They are Punks.
That's
the word again that is championed and scrutinised. Denial of it is foolish. The Brewdog
team and fanclub are not punks in the same way Lady Gaga's fans
aren't actually monsters and fans of Taylor Swift aren't
actually quick half-pints squeezed in before the train home. They've claimed
the word for themselves. They are the super loyal fans, cheering from the
bleachers whilst their heroes work the stage. The heroes are both revered and
hated in this world in near equal measure but here in this Aberdeen conference
centre they are rockstars.
Back in that Q&A
session on Friday morning, Martin quips that he hasn't heard a song other than
The Wheels on the Bus in nearly a year. It is a reminder that, beyond the
marketing personas they have created for themselves, there are two highly
successful guys with young families; young families whom I imagine will be very
proud of them.
I was in
Aberdeen for the weekend by Brewdog's invitation. I am not a shareholder. I did, however, have an excellent time.
For
further reading on Brewdog's future plans post United Craft Brewers, see this
post from Pete McKerry on brewgeekery
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