The aggressive, outrageous, infuriating (and ingenious) rise of BrewDog

In July 2010, a small brewery in the Scottish fishing port of Fraserburgh produced what was, at the time, the world’s strongest beer. Named after the Francis Fukuyama book that declared liberal capitalist democracy the peak of human political evolution, The End of History was, according to its makers, in a sense, the end of beer. At 55% alcohol-by-volume, the brew, a “blond Belgian ale infused with Scottish Highland nettles and fresh juniper berries”, was stronger than most whiskies, vodkas and gins. It sold in a limited run of 11 bottles, each artfully stuffed inside a deceased wild animal – seven stoats, four grey squirrels – costing between £500 and £700. One of the brewery’s two founders, James Watt, pronounced the drink “an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion”. In their “striking packaging”, Watt said, the bottles were “disrupting conventions and breaking taboos – just like the beer they hold within them”. Not everyone agreed. Although the stoats and squirrels in question had died of natural causes, the charity Advocates for Animals denounced “perverse” and “out-of-date shock tactics” that “exploited and degraded animals”. Alcohol action groups deplored a “cheap marketing stunt” that was deliberately promoting excess in a nation… Read full this story

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