Brewdog. Mediocre beer, great marketing, shitty company.

Consensus on here seems to be the beers is crap, so why so successful?

As in all things, marketing

Consensus on here seems to be the beers is crap, so why so successful?

Because loads of people like it.
Loads of people buy it.

STW isn’t an accurate representation of the UK in general. (Shock horror)

Because loads of people like it are susceptible to marketing.

@deadly – send me one of your empty cans; i stopped drinking their pallid insipid offerings some time ago.

Edit* don’t bother.

Clever lads that timed the market well. There beer is better than average and has clever marketing And in my opinion the majority of their beer is pretty decent and reasonably priced in comparison to some of the uk beer at the moment.

Rob Hilton – Member
Because loads of people like it are susceptible to marketing.

Like 29r’s, tubeless and dropper posts then… marketing/fashion is the lazy answer to everything you don’t like/understand

frankconway – Member
@mikenewsmith: I’ve avoided mainstream beers for decades and ‘think’ i know a little about beer.

Which areas are you samling from? Brewdog certainly has a much more new world taste to is across the board which to me makes it stand out a lot more from some of the more tradiotional UK brews people grew up on.

Brewdog is decent beer that costs more than it should, and that’s clever marketing, Apple, beat headphones an Bose speakers. Luis vitton handbags..

People pay for the name

Like 29r’s, tubeless and dropper posts then…

I’d be thinking more along the lines of Coke, Maccy D’s, pop music & Beats headphones.

Maybe I do understand!!

It’s not the worst beer ever, but the people I know who like it really don’t know any better/don’t think for themselves.

but the people I know who like it really don’t know any better/don’t think for themselves.

Well consider your sample size increased…

@!mikenewsmith: if you want to know something about the beers I grew uo on/with – how much time do you have?
My first pint cost me 1 & 10; translation – in old money that was 1 shilling and 10 pence which, in new math, is a smidge more than 9p (excluding inflation, npv and other mathematical constructs); pissed for less than a quid, including fish’n’chips for supper after 11pm closing
Home town – Wallsend; dominated by S&N (no, not SM) and fed brewery in working men’s clubs. Starting from that low point pretty much anything can be seen as an improvement 😛
Must go back to Wallsend sometime and see if that shit hole has improved; opening a Costa and Pret there will be like attempting to varnish a turd.

Home sweet home……..

@!mikenewsmith: if you want to know something about the beers I grew uo on/with – how much time do you have?

Whats your thoughts on the current crop of tasmanian pale’s or the barrel aged siason variations?
Do you have a place for Bok’s and what about a smoked beer?
What makes a good west coast IPA and whats the best varianet coming out of Aus/NZ these days?

It’s a big world of beer out there 🙂

The booze business has been marketing led for years, it is completely dominant in the spirits business and has been incredibly important in the beers business for years. A major brewer’s marketing expenditure will be greater than its raw material cost because it is more important. Discerning buyers are rare, people who think they are discerning aren’t. I have no illusions and drink local mainly.

@mikenewsmith; if I was out there with you we could compare tasting notes but…..I’m not and, unfortunately, there aren’t many australian/ tasmanian/nz beers readily available in Leeds.

Barrel aged saison – tick.
Smoked – german is my only real experience; interesting but too redolent of kippers soaked in brine.

You’re last comment makes my point – big world of beer out there.

Right, I’ve had my nightcap; you should have your morning snifter and then go to work 😀

I like their bottled ale fine – it must just be the marketing that rubs people up the wrong way as it’s a pretty normal brew underneath all the bollox, nothing polarising about the product really.

Out of the tap is a different story – a lot of beer drinkers don’t care for kegged ale and it doesn’t take much discernment to see how it’s a very different style. Too cold, too carbonated – too alcoholic for serious bevvying, accentuates the over-hopped / thin base IMHO. I’d give the brewdog bar a miss, there’s no shortage of quality alehouses these days.

Beer is fine, the only one that really stands out for me is Nanny State though, genuinely good tasting “alcohol free” beer.

As I don’t have a beard, I’ve never tried Brewdog stuff.

Saw the a TV program about them once, something about the workforce deciding on the next sales person, the enlightened Md and owner decided on different candidate. I mean, what’s the point.

Hand crafted marketing ploys.

enjoying the irony of a beer thread degenerating ito a pissing contest 🙂

Brewdog brew some good beer.

One of the reasons they cost more is that the ingredients cost more.

You can’t make a bitter, hoppy and high alcohol IPA for the same price as a traditional 3.5% – 4% English style bitter. You need a lot more of the raw ingredients. It’s basic economics.

They do have a lot of BS marketing and the MD seems to be a (rich) prick but to completely dismiss them would show a lack of understanding of the brewing process.

You can’t make a bitter, hoppy and high alcohol IPA for the same price as a traditional 3.5% – 4% English style bitter. You need a lot more of the raw ingredients. It’s basic economics.

You can just about count the ingredient list at some of my locals as the price and flavour goes up, the rest is also a bit of the tall poppy syndrome and that in many people’s eyes they are now big enough to be cool to hate (see also football etc.)

Mmm Brewdog are very much a brewer of the time. Got in reasonably early on the craft beer bandwagon and reasonably good at it.
Good marketing, but beers don’t really do anything for me.
I’d like to try one of their ultra strong beers, because it sounds interesting.
Most of their bottled stuff doesn’t do anything for me, but then the current trend of double IPAs massively over hopped isn’t my cup of tea.

The bully boy tactics don’t sit well though, especially when they were trying to be anti establishment, seems a little hypocritical to say the least.

People have different tastes I suppose.

Not on STW they don’t.

I like some of their beers, I love a sour hoppy beer. It’s not the first that I’d reach for if other things were available.

This caught my eye a whole back though BBNO and Brewdog[/url] they aren’t all bad. Although after the whole changing first names to Elvis thing, they need to follow their own lead here (pun fully intended).

Brewdog is decent average beer that costs more than it should, and that’s clever marketing,

Oddly I had a Punk IPA last night and it was fine, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to order a pint. However, I’ve also had one of their ‘shareholder’ only specials and it was horrific.

Intellectual property law is an interesting and frustrating area, as we’ve come to learn. The problem with having IP rights on anything is that once you’ve gone to the expense of protecting your product with a trademark you are then obliged to defend it proactively or lose it. It turns out that if you become aware of a possible infringement, no matter how minor, you run the risk of losing your trademark completely if you fail to defend it properly. It’s a sensible approach that stops companies just registering everything and sitting on it just to stop anyone else using it. But it makes it a constant process of proving you are using the IP and appreciate it’s value by defending it.

It goes something like this..

Court: So when did you become aware that this little shop in this town used your trademark in their name?

IP Owner: Oh years ago.

Court: Why didn’t you tell them to stop?

IP Owner: Well, there’s no harm. It’s just a little shop and it kind of seemed daft to lean on them.

Court: Well if you don’t care about your trademark then you won’t really mind if we give your trademark to this megacorp over here with their expensive lawyers who want to use it then.

IP Owner: what?.. wait! That’s not really proportionate!

Court: Well, the thing is that if you aren’t prepared to ask a little shop to stop using it then you have demonstrated that you don’t really need it, so we’re going to give these big guys a crack at it.

IP Owner: Bugger!

– Now that’s a massive simplification of a hugely expensive area of law but contains the essence of the fact that owning IP means a lifetime of management and expense. We’ve just had to prove to the US IP office that we are still sending copies of Singletrack to the US in order to get to keep our trademark there. Easy enough to demonstrate but still part of a continual process of IP management we have to keep doing and paying for – It’s very expensive, even when no one is challenging your trademark.

Now, i’m not defending Brew Dog at all. But there is a constant pressure on IP owners to defend everything and I can see how they cocked up here and allowed their lawyers to just shoot at will at everything they find. But someone up at the top signed off on the approach and it’s gone badly. There’s ways to demonstrate you are actively looking after your trademark without sending in the lawyers. Polite chats can happen and agreements can be made. Letting your lawyers loose on every little thing is always going to bite you in the arse on a PR level and in the bank account.

Can I just acknowledge that so many people on this thread are much better at beer than me and lots of other people here; and I salute you all for that, and for the fascinating and endearing ways in which you’ve demonstrated it.

Mark wins post of the month.

The bully boy tactics don’t sit well though, especially when they were trying to be anti establishment, seems a little hypocritical to say the least.

see this is why their marketing is so good. They have never tried to be anti-establishment. In fact the opposite; they are a massive company with huge branded bars all round the world, tens of thousands of shareholders, worth hundreds of millions of quid. They are very much establishment, except for the labels on their bottles.

But what labels. I did a 2hr copywriting session the other year, and one of the examples the tutor used was a Brewdog label. The layers of doublespeak and general bluster were really quite ingenious.

It’s frustrating to me how many people buy into it, but I can’t deny it’s been done incredibly well. IMO it’s up there with the Stella Artois ‘reassuringly expensive’ campaign. Take an unremarkable beer, pretend it’s the height of class and sophistication, and rake in the cash. That was genius, and so, it turns out, is applying the ‘punk’ thing to beer…

Brewdog rebuttal here.
https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/blog/please-dont-steal-our-trademarks

They have never tried to be anti-establishment. In fact the opposite; they are a massive company with huge branded bars all round the world, tens of thousands of shareholders, worth hundreds of millions of quid. They are very much establishment, except for the labels on their bottles.

How long has it taken to go from an idea to this though? They were disruptive to the market from the day they arrived and took on the guys who were orders of magnitude bigger than them. All credit to the guys for making such a successful business. It’s also a million miles away from Stella.

SATIRE: An open letter from BrewDog

🙂

Am I allowed to drink this beer I bought or not?

Bez, only if you have a safety pin in your nose.

They have never tried to be anti-establishment.

This is complete and utter nonsense. Firstly, you don’t start a multi-national business overnight, where they were 10 years ago was entirely anti-establishment.
Also, as someone who spent 8 years working in multi-national brewer, and knowing more than a thing or two about the workings of Brewdog (Shareholder, ex-colleagues, close family working there in various roles), they are still very far from the “establishment” when compared to the way the big multi-nationals operate. Yes they are establishment in craft terms, but in the grand scheme of things they are a very different beast to a Carlsberg, Heineken, AB-Inbev.

Am I allowed to drink this beer I bought or not?

Of course you aren’t. Haven’t you been listening?

People who are better than you, have told you it’s rubbish.

Even if you do drink it, and enjoy it, you aren’t actually enjoying it. You are just being fooled by marketing.

Sadly, you aren’t really good enough at knowing what you enjoy, to know wether you are enjoying it or not 🙁
So drinking it is pointless really.

Tap water for you I’m afraid.

They have never tried to be anti-establishment. In fact the opposite; they are a massive company with huge branded bars all round the world, tens of thousands of shareholders, worth hundreds of millions of quid. They are very much establishment, except for the labels on their bottles.

They are very anti-establishment if that establishment is the likes of AB In-Bev.

They are not a massive company compared the market leaders.

The beer they produce is way better than the likes of Bud, Stella and the absolute piss that is Corona.

If you think Brew Dog rip people off, what about people flogging Corona for £3.50 a bottle? Now that’s a real rip off.

I like their Mr. President American double IPA and the Tropic Thunder stout. Both appear to get largely favourable reviews online too. The rest of their stuff (that I’ve tried) has been a bit meh.

People who are better than you, have told you it’s rubbish.

Even if you do drink it, and enjoy it, you aren’t actually enjoying it. You are just being fooled by marketing.

Sadly, you aren’t really good enough at knowing what you enjoy, to know wether you are enjoying it or not
+1

If you think Brew Dog rip people off,

I don’t think they rip anyone off! 😆 Their beer is fine, better than many.

I think they are extremely shrewd businessmen with a tremendous marketing acumen. Being small doesn’t make you ‘anti-establishment’ by default, however. Nor does accepting an MBE 😉

And my point about Stella wasn’t to compare InBev and Brewdog, just specifically the marketing angles. Both very clever, both very successful.

@tenacious-doug

you mention family working there – do you know if they are actually anti-establishment in their working practices? For me that would be stuff like good union recognition, or co-operative tendencies, stuff like that. But maybe other things too I guess…

Am genuinely interested! 🙂

Of course you aren’t. Haven’t you been listening?

People who are better than you, have told you it’s rubbish.

Even if you do drink it, and enjoy it, you aren’t actually enjoying it. You are just being fooled by marketing.

Sadly, you aren’t really good enough at knowing what you enjoy, to know wether you are enjoying it or not
So drinking it is pointless really.

Tap water for you I’m afraid.

This ^. Personally I really enjoy Brewdog stuff but now I feel like maybe my taste buds have been wrong all the time and I’m drinking bilge water because beer snobs are telling me otherwise.