The BrewDog Founder Story

I am fascinated by origin stories and how brands came into fruition and one such story that really inspires me is that of BrewDog, a brand that has just announced its latest hotel venture this week on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, where each room has a beer tap installed and a beer fridge in the shower! 

This rapid growth and success has not come without its challenges. Founders of BrewDog Martin Dickie and James Watt, who famously went on Dragons’ Den and got turned down, started from humble beginnings in Scotland where they met at university. 

With Martin studying brewing and James studying law and economics, they joined forces and launched BrewDog in 2008 when they were both 24. It started life in a small industrial unit with the two founders and their dog.  They took any equipment they could get and afford and started by selling their beers from the back of a van at various Farmers’ Markets around Scotland.  

Things at this time weren’t great – they weren’t making enough money and they started missing repayments on their ￡20k loan they’d taken out to start BrewDog, but they always maintained their belief in their product. They slowly grew their beer offering and then their luck changed when they entered a Tesco bottle beer competition and won first, second and forth places. 

This was a gamechanger and resulted in Tesco stocking BrewDog in 500 of its stores purchasing 2000 cases a week. The founders agreed this was no problem, but it was still only them two (and their dog!) doing it all by hand. 

A frantic request to borrow more money to instil a bottle line was turned down due to their missed payments but luckily another lender granted them the loan meaning their empire could be born! Their Punk IPA was a hit with Tesco customers and soon other supermarkets followed suit and ordered BrewDog for their stores. 

Fast-forward to today and the brand is worth an estimated ￡1.8 billion (!) and is available all over the world and has its brewery HQ based in Ellon, Scotland.  

What I love about their story is the founders’ entrepreneurial spirit and the fact that they never gave up. In 2011, they offered Crowdfunding shares worth ￡2m to raise money and have done numerous publicity stunts over the years to raise awareness of causes they believe in. They have starred in their own TV series, Brew Dogs, have opened a series of hotels, have a beer club and breweries all over the world. Bet the Dragons are licking their wounds a bit now!