Are they just a bunch of punks playing around who got lucky or are they marketing geniuses who are really onto something?
At 24 years old in 2007, Martin Dickie and James Watt, of Aberdeen, Scotland, decided mainstream beers were boring and tired, uninteresting and flat. They had no money, no property, and no means, but what they did have was a lot of attitude! And it appears with that, everything else followed suit.
Today, they run the biggest independent craft brewery in Scotland, with more than 67 employees and over 6,000 shareholders and outputting more than 26,000 HL (21,800 barrels) a year, with bars in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Camden in London, England.
According to their website, "...We leased a building, got some scary bank loans, spent all our money on stainless steel and started making some hardcore craft beers." They started out brewing tiny batches and selling them off the back of their truck, but never let go of their goal: to make other people as passionate about craft beer as they were.
Their website states, "The BrewDog brewery sits amidst the harsh and rugged landscape of North East Scotland. We do everything on site, from taking in the best raw materials and to shipping the packaged craft beer. We are rocking a 50HL Brew House, which is powered by energy drinks and loud metal music brews round the clock."
With some humor, some unique concepts, a bit of swearing, and a lot of hard work, BrewDog craft beers are taking the U.K by storm and growing. With beers like "Tokyo", the U.K.s strongest ever beer and "Tactical Nuclear Penguin" which at 32% is touted as the world's strongest beer, and an online investment opportunity called "Equity for Punks", the company is pushing the boundaries of what mainstream beer producers call normal - but they picked up the Gold Medal for "Hardcore IPA" at the World Beer Cup and James became Scotland's youngest ever Entrepreneur of the Year.
But that's not all: "We also brewed a beer at the bottom of the ocean (seriously), dispensed a 28% beer from a modified deer's head and grew our business over 200% (again!) as we started building our new eco-brewery with demand for our beers reaching scary new levels."
BrewDog craft beers is beer and a company with a bite.