Mine’s a pint. But not Brew Dog

You can’t really not serve someone in a pub because you don’t like what they believe. You’d rapidly run out of customers in some places.

That’s a very harsh criticism of the people visiting London. I suspect pubs and bars in Waterloo would do just fine without having to serve EDL members all dressed up and pumped up for one of their big days out.

I strongly suspect that if Brewdog were offered a partnership / buy in / take over / merger with a global brand and there was a potential multi million pay day it would be accepted.
The owners could then retire and live quite happily on the capital.
Which totally goes against all the start up , rebellious, anti established brewery war cries they banded around for the first 10 years or so.
Be next year probably. Someone like Heineken will structure a deal which will be acceptable.

I don’t mind their beer, but there’s plenty of other options owned and run by people who aren’t total wallopers. So they get a swerve from me.

Yep. In fact, they may have even played a part in creating that choice by stimulating the market BITD.

Long before the stories emerged, I tried them (see advertising thread – it worked on me then) and found their product “wanting”.  The alleged bullying and Dulnain trashing was too late, they had lost me already.

yes addave – and china.  Its just rare that anything I would want to buy is from China

Meh, thay’re no different to the Nazi-supporting donut shop furore in leeds.

Always wary of any business which spends an inordinate amount of time & money curating an image around a bang average product.

The brains behind are often outed at some point as less than desirable characters, if your product is good it sells itself, but then does that speak also to a vacuous audience who lap that shit up?

Scenesters trying to cash in on the bandwagon filled with tedious hipsters trying too hard to be edgy, they weren’t the first nor will they be the last.

So for all those that think it’s just folk being “trendy” by avoiding them, just remember some folk know what was going on. One of our friends was a signatory on that letter and suffered sexual harassment under a completely disinterested management. That was in the York bar FWIW.

Even before that “equity for punks” was a blatant cash grab, shareholders in name only and the “discount” was less than what Tesco got. Obvious **** are obvious.

As for the Nazi donuts, friends in the same circle had them doing catering at their wedding (before it all came out). Oops.

As for the Nazi donuts, friends in the same circle had them doing catering at their wedding (before it all came out). Oops

Awks. I went once, the donuts where shipped in, they just iced them. Bang average product propped up by marketing aimed at people trying too hard to be ‘unique’.

They were never aimed at hipsters (you know the ones who only drink genuine Andean beer in old jam jars).

They’ve been hard capitalists from day 1. “Punk” was just branding it was not cultural. The IPA was notable for being quite strong when it was first launched. I’ve never understood their popularity but I don’t drink Skol super and bark at squirrels all day.

They’ve never been a premium product as it’s always on offer somewhere, they even do offers on their own site where it can be as low as 50p a can.

They’ve clearly been very good at marketing in the past and built up the brand relying on people who don’t care buying their crap beer

It does but it possible – hence my Shand has nothing Japanese on it ( but I guess the tubeset is japanese?)  the one thing that is really difficult is derailleurs but I do like a rohloff

Italian tubeset on my Shand.

Italian saddle.

British (Hope) headset.

British (Rideworks) ecentric BB.

German Rohloff hub gear on Hope rims and swiss spokes.

German tyres.

British Hope front wheel and hub.

I think it’s the ‘peripherals’ that end up being non-European.

– bars and stem (Richey, assume made in Taiwan).

– crank – assume Taiwan again

– Gates belt drive and sprockets… belt is American, sprockets, unsure location of manufacture.

– shifters – where are SRAM Force made ?

Nice to know its an italian tubeset.  Ta

They’ve clearly been very good at marketing in the past and built up the brand relying on people who don’t care buying their crap beer

The problem is it’s not crap – as many others on the thread have pointed out. . Just perusing the beer isle of my local super market reveals about , 20-30 worse beers that people buy in their droves due to it being cheap by the box.

Brewdog strikes a decent balance between cheap and nasty carling/tennants dishwater and artisnal double dry hopped wafted past a Thai green curry flavour at $$$$ a can with interesting beers without being stupidly priced.

They are one of a number of reasonably priced local breweries round here.

British (Hope) headset.

British (Rideworks) ecentric BB.

German Rohloff hub gear on Hope rims and swiss spokes.

German tyres.

British Hope front wheel and hub.

Supporting Gaza genocide, then ?

Interesting pile on for BrewDog on here.
I don’t see Sam Smiths regularly getting a pile on for their owner’s (arguably worse) views/behaviour.

Some thoughts, for what it’s worth, as a shareholder from the first offering:

James Watt is no longer CEO, although obviously remains a major shareholder.

I don’t shop on their online shop any more, and many of the beers I used to enjoy are no longer to my taste.

If I want a pint on the way home, I will sometimes pop into Waterloo. It is, by far, the worst managed of the BD bars I’ve been to in London.
It seems to get a lot of heat in the papers, but I wonder how many other massive pub brands treat their staff like crap too.

Seems like all the “craft-ish” breweries that get big turn into dicks eventually or get bought out by an in-Bev or similar (Meantime, Beavertown, I’m sure there are more examples).

I don’t see Sam Smiths regularly getting a pile on for their owner’s (arguably worse) views/behaviour.

That’s a good point, I must admit I was completely ignorant about Smith Sr’s behaviour until recently. Last time I was in one of their pubs it was just nice to have no Telly or music blaring, he seems to have completely lost the plot and ruined the name since then. More people should be talking about that.

Dunno about worse though, trans bashing and condoning sexual harassment is bad enough in its own right. I’d say equally bad.

Brewdog strikes a decent balance between cheap and nasty carling/tennants dishwater and artisnal double dry hopped wafted

So do plenty other beers.

YMMV but certain beers I don’t drink because I don’t like them. There are others I won’t drink because they’re just shit

Meanwhile there after others like BrewDog I won’t drink cos the people involved or the company are pricks

Each to their own and all that…..

You can’t really not serve someone in a pub because you don’t like what they believe. You’d rapidly run out of customers in some places.

You absolutely can. Retailers are under no obligation to retail, they can refuse entry/service for wearing non-prescribed shoes. Whether that’s a wise business decision is another matter.

I saw this literally last week, we’d pre-booked a function room in a pub and the gorillas on the door were trying to block ticket-holders from entering because they had boots on. We’ve just fallen out of a hacker conference mate, footwear is the least of your worries here.

This subject is interesting though. In one-coloured corner we have “black woman doesn’t want to serve racists,” in the other-coloured corner from a few years back we had “fundamental christians don’t want to bake a gay cake.” Seconds out, round two.  We can’t really have it both ways, I’m siding with both the Brewdog employee standing up for her principles and the cake-buyers not being prejudiced against; but this is a dichotomy, a bias of my own making, one of those states has to be wrong.

I strongly suspect that if Brewdog were offered a partnership / buy in / take over / merger with a global brand and there was a potential multi million pay day it would be accepted.
The owners could then retire and live quite happily on the capital.

I would be astonished if that wasn’t their long-term plan from the outset.

Interesting pile on for BrewDog on here.
I don’t see Sam Smiths regularly getting a pile on for their owner’s (arguably worse) views/behaviour.

We-ell, the clue to the topic of discussion is in the thread title.  Feel free to start a thread of your own, I am ignorant of any Sam Smith’s wrongdoing beyond making – generously – mediocre ale.

I strongly suspect that if Brewdog were offered a partnership / buy in / take over / merger with a global brand and there was a potential multi million pay day it would be accepted.
The owners could then retire and live quite happily on the capital.
Which totally goes against all the start up , rebellious, anti established brewery war cries they banded around for the first 10 years or so.

They really sold out when they sold a large share to TSG and screwed over all their “equity punks” but they’ve had beer in Tescos since almost day 1. They’ve already had a multi million payout and were greedy for more, but covid ruined their chance to float so TSG’s share is now worth ~£700m and increasing by 18% a year. That leaves bugger all for the other shareholders.

I’m gonna stick my neck out here and suggest the situation described in the article was pretty crap for all involved and serving the punters was the only pragmatic course of action.

If you’re working a bar for a relatively low wage, ejecting 10,15,20 guys, whatever it is,  because you don’t like their politics is a big ask- especially if they are at that particular moment doing nothing except sitting having a drink.

Serving them and waiting for them to move on is often the only practical solution. Anyone who’s worked in a bar solo will know the feeling.

Its crap for everyone but let’s be honest- challenging them and asking them to leave could easily have ended in a trashed bar, assaults, injuries or worse.

Let’s be real. It’s easy to have principles when you’re not the one being asked to single handedly confront and eject a bunch of EDL guys for a minimum wage bar job.

For anyone curious about the Sam Smiths thing, check the Controversies section, beginning 2011.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Smith_Old_Brewery

In one-coloured corner we have “black woman doesn’t want to serve racists,” in the other-coloured corner from a few years back we had “fundamental christians don’t want to bake a gay cake.” Seconds out, round two. We can’t really have it both ways,

Not equivalent – refusing to serve racists is not prejudice.  Refusing to serve gay folk is.

Its illegal to discriminate on grounds of race or religion in the supply of services – quite rightly.  its not illegal to refuse to serve racists.  Being a racist is not a protected characteristic,

Being a racist is not a protected characteristic,

But they’re the most persecuted people in the UK!

The article doesn’t mention anything about the behaviour of the EDL members present, only that the woman saw them at the bar when she started work and went straight to her manager to complain. It doesn’t sound like anyone refused to serve them. However, the report mentions her language at this point and it’s given as the reason for dismissal.

I’m not condoning racism but it comes across as a non-story to me.

I was in a pub once, a chain pub, I think it was Stonegate when a bunch of EDL types rocked up en-route to somewhere else…

It’s very difficult for the bar staff. as unless they cause a problem, there’s no real reason to refuse service, despite they were all wearing black clothing adorned with questionable insignias and trying to be quite menacing, they didn’t ‘technically’ do anything illegal.

They cleared off after one round, thankfully, as they got a frosty reception from the bar staff and the locals.