This week’s Meet The Brewer, comes from north of the border where James Watt from BrewDog has kindly taken time out from his world domination plans and fishing to complete our little feature.
Like many of the things BrewDog do this is likely to divide opinion so if you have any thoughts please leave them in the comments section a the bottom.
James and Martin from Brewdog
What is your brewery capacity?
15,000 HL per year.
What is different about your brewery?
Our FD is a Chocolate Labrador and our night shift is made up largely of penguins.
We are dedicated to making contemporary and progressive beers showcasing some of the world’s classic beer styles. All with an innovative twist and customary BrewDog bite.
How long have you been brewing for?
2 and a half years as BrewDog, 5 years overall. Martin and I homebrewed together before BrewDog.
How did you get into brewing?
We could not find any beers we wanted to drink in the UK and decided the best thing to do was start brewing our own. Most UK small breweries are ever so boring, we wanted to do something relevant and edgy and introduce craft beer to a whole new audience in the UK.
Both only 24 at the time, we leased a building, got some scary bank loans, spent all our money on stainless steel and started making some hardcore beers.
What beers do you brew regularly?
BrewDog Beers
- Trashy Blonde
- 5am Saint
- Punk IPA
- Tokyo*
- Hardcore IPA
What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
- Tactical Nuclear Penguin
- Sink the Bismarck
- Paradox
- And our upcoming new Abstrakt series.
Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
Consumers are going to wake up to the lies of the faceless corporate multi-national monstrosities and the bland liquid cardboard they industrially spit out.
People have been brain-washed by vindictive lies perpetrated with the veracity of pseudo-propaganda. They can’t help but be sucked down the rabbit hole.
Bracken BrewDog
At BrewDog we are on a mission to open as many people’s eyes as possible.
The UK beer scene is sick. And we are the f*****g doctor.
What is you proudest moment in brewing?
A gold medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup was pretty damn cool.
Brewing 2 collaborations with Stone (our brewing idols) was awesome, just like playing music on stage with our favourite band!
Do you have any brewing regrets?
We don’t do regrets at BrewDog!
What was last beer you drank?
Three Floyds’ Lord Admiral Nelson. Stunning beer from one of my all time favourite breweries.
What is your favourite hop?
The current batch of centennial we have is superb. We love using loads and loads of hops atBrewDog.
The freeze hopping process used in Sink the Bismarck produced staggering results. We used Amarillo for that.
What is your brewing ambition?
We just want to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as we are. That is our goal, hopefully while having some fun along the way too.
Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
Darth Vader, who I still thing will be the CEO of InBev.
Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
Alesmith Speedway Stout.
Favourite hobby outside of brewing?
Does sleeping count as a hobby?
Anything else you want to tell us?
Look our for loads of exciting things happening over the next 12 months including our first BrewDog pub in Aberdeen.
The best way to stay up to date with everything BrewDog is on our blog
Thanks to James for filling that in, you can follow him on Twitter here, you can also follow Bracken here and Martin here. You can also visit their website here.
Brewdog has definitely influenced the way I look at beer. I now refuse to buy the bland, boring ales from ‘traditional’ brewers and instead look for varieties that push the boundaries a bit and make me say ‘wow’. Cheers Brewdog
An interesting read, although it seems to me as if it is more of marketing speil than a brewer talking about his passions, like in previous versions of the series [great series BTW].
However I am willing to forgive BrewDog as they make some ground breaking beers
Dave, I admire your commitment to Brewdog but I can’t help feel it’s a little misplaced. Brewdog may have the capability to make ground breaking beers but it’s a long time since they’ve focussed on that, all of their current attention seems to be taking up with generating PR and media noise.
I think Brewdog need to take a step back and reassess what they’re about, it smacks of hypocrisy that they talk about the “lies of the faceless corporate multi-national monstrosities” when they concentrate on getting media coverage at any cost. For a brewery that claims on it’s on website “We are committed to making the highest quality beers with the finest fresh natural ingredients” to produce the appalling Nanny State and now the completely inappropriately named and, it appears from reviews, undrinkable,Sink the Bismark (it’s not tongue in cheek, it’s offensive)demonstrates they have clearly lost their way and the multi-nationals they lambaste are operating with a great deal more honesty.
If they really are passionate about craft beer, and not about making media noise, they’re going the wrong way about it.
bring back Chaos Theory! alternatively, give me the recipe and I’ll brew it at Steel City 😉