The BrewDog story small beginnings to Global Masterplans

Our founders James Watt and Martin Dickie decide they are fed up of the stuffy UK beer market… so, aged just 24, do something about it. Thanks to some very scary bank loans, the guys start making their own hardcore craft beers in Fraserburgh, a town in northeast Scotland. They brew tiny batches, fill bottles by hand, sell their first beers at local markets out of a beaten-up old van… and BrewDog is born.

The banks are somehow persuaded to give James and Martin more money… which they use to mastermind the UK’s strongest ever beer, Tokyo. The press go bananas, calling it “the downfall of Western civilisation”. The Portman Group (who make the rules for alcohol producers) ban our products. We carry on regardless, start exporting to Sweden, Japan and America and become Scotland’s largest independent brewery.

The banks finally stop giving us money… so we launch the ground-breaking Equity For Punks, offering people the chance to buy shares in our company. Over 1,300 invest and our anti-business business model is born. We continue to push boundaries by brewing the world’s strongest ever beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin at 32%. We also age a beer on the deck of a fishing boat and grow our business by 200% (in the worst recession for generations).

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