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BrewDog: yet another hip company using 'rebel' language to sell its stuff

Clear as mud. That article seems to be based on the statement from the "Hand and Heart" agency and yet seems to add in quite a bit of stuff that isn't in that statement. So, is it speculation, or has info been leaked to the article author somehow?
 
equationgirl said:
Looks like an industry wide problem to me.
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Above is from page #173, relating to stories of other breweries behaving really badly**. I don't dispute the specific stories at all.

**Including Newport's own Tiny Rebel, the quality of whose beers has npticeably declined in recent years anyway :hmm:

But I disagree that shitty behaviour, especially on a Brewdog scale :mad:, is "'industry-wide" in the Trade

From what restricted amount I know from a few people I know who work in smaller, mostly independent breweries, there are plenty of breweries who do treat their employees well, or at least perfectly acceptably :)
 
William of Walworth said:
Above is from page #173, relating to stories of other breweries behaving really badly**. I don't dispute the specific stories at all.

**Including Newport's own Tiny Rebel, the quality of whose beers has npticeably declined in recent years anyway :hmm:

But I disagree that shitty behaviour, especially on a Brewdog scale :mad:, is "'industry-wide" in the Trade

From what restricted amount I know from a few people I know who work in smaller, mostly independent breweries, there are plenty of breweries who do treat their employees well, or at least perfectly acceptably :)
Click to expand...
I agree that smaller independent breweries are, on the face of things, more likely to treat their staff better (if it assumed for the sake of argument that better = not what Brewdog does).

But on the basis of as you put it "a limited amount of data' that can't be bootstrapped to 'all the brewing companies including the big corporates behaving perfectly - and by extension associated bars, pubs and restaurants selling their products.

Apologies - I cannot remember the exact term for a premises owned by a brewery. Covid brain fog still gets me on occasion.

Sexual harassment is not a problem most men see for the most part. I once was shown an article by a colleague about common types of sexual harassment and he asked me how many of the ten I had experienced. When I told him six, he was quite surprised. I showed the list to several women colleagues, who reported similar. So do we all run to HR to report each and every instance? Christ, no. That would be a nightmare.

So what you're seeing with the Brewdog reports is the worst of it, the tip of the iceberg - not an outlier.

Great to see you on the thread :)
 
I'm not fundamentally going to disagree with anything you've just said, equationgirl - I've seen shittiness in the retail end of the drinks industry and although I've no idea what goes on in the big breweries, it would hardly be a surprise if they're not havens of enlightened staff treatment and equality.

But I think you have to look at this as not just one big homogeneous industry. No one expects Carling to be anything but a lowest-common-denominator-pleasing corporate. That doesn't excuse them if they're unethical, but the root of the particular anger with Brewdog isn't that anyone thinks they're uniquely terrible but about how much it jars with their self-presentation as independent, craft brewers doing it for the love of it. And not only are they bullshitting everyone but they tarnish the image of the part of the industry they're pretending to be part of - in fact, pretending to be the main standard bearers for - that really is full of people doing it for the love of it and keen to do business differently: if you've ever read any of the trade and promo beer magazines you'll have seen multiple articles about LGBTQ-run breweries, zero-carbon pledges, circular economy, etc. I'm not saying there aren't bad 'uns there too of course, but I think it'd be very unfair to assume every company that makes beer is part of whatever iceberg Brewdog is the tip of.

Having said that, TBH, thanks to Brewdog, I'm now wary, possibly unfairly, of any of the 'crafts' who've managed to get their wares into major stockists nationally - Tiny Rebel, Camden, Northern Monk, etc. I'd rather stick to what's in the local independent bottle shops and tap houses even if I can afford less of it.
 
Going slightly off topic, the thought of "craft beer" sends shivers down my spine. What is craft beer? There is nothing like a decent pint of cask beer hand drawn or preferably gravity fed.
 
hash tag said:
Going slightly off topic, the thought of "craft beer" sends shivers down my spine. What is craft beer? There is nothing like a decent pint of cask beer hand drawn or preferably gravity fed.
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There's no real meaning to the term "craft beer" -- it can mean, or even not mean, a whole range of things, accurately and inaccurately!

I try to avoid using the term, really.

Corporate Coors with "Doom Bar" (ubiquitous, boring shite!) have tried to describe their "beer" as "craft beer" recently! :mad:
And "Doom Bar" is often the token, single, 'real ale' in a pub. Its presence is to me the giveaway sign of an ultra-lazy (or overcontrolled! :hmm: ) landlord/pub manager :mad:
 
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billy_bob said:
I'm not fundamentally going to disagree with anything you've just said, equationgirl - I've seen shittiness in the retail end of the drinks industry and although I've no idea what goes on in the big breweries, it would hardly be a surprise if they're not havens of enlightened staff treatment and equality.

But I think you have to look at this as not just one big homogeneous industry. No one expects Carling to be anything but a lowest-common-denominator-pleasing corporate. That doesn't excuse them if they're unethical, but the root of the particular anger with Brewdog isn't that anyone thinks they're uniquely terrible but about how much it jars with their self-presentation as independent, craft brewers doing it for the love of it. And not only are they bullshitting everyone but they tarnish the image of the part of the industry they're pretending to be part of - in fact, pretending to be the main standard bearers for - that really is full of people doing it for the love of it and keen to do business differently: if you've ever read any of the trade and promo beer magazines you'll have seen multiple articles about LGBTQ-run breweries, zero-carbon pledges, circular economy, etc. I'm not saying there aren't bad 'uns there too of course, but I think it'd be very unfair to assume every company that makes beer is part of whatever iceberg Brewdog is the tip of.

Having said that, TBH, thanks to Brewdog, I'm now wary, possibly unfairly, of any of the 'crafts' who've managed to get their wares into major stockists nationally - Tiny Rebel, Camden, Northern Monk, etc. I'd rather stick to what's in the local independent bottle shops and tap houses even if I can afford less of it.
Click to expand...

This is an absolutely great post, and expresses, much better, what I was trying to reply to equationgirl yesterday :) :cool:
 
billy_bob said:
Having said that, TBH, thanks to Brewdog, I'm now wary, possibly unfairly, of any of the 'crafts' who've managed to get their wares into major stockists nationally - Tiny Rebel, Camden, Northern Monk, etc. I'd rather stick to what's in the local independent bottle shops and tap houses even if I can afford less of it.
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Tiny Rebel are definitely wrong'uns: Tiny Rebel Sexism ⋆ Laura Hadland: The Extreme Housewife ⋆ Sexism in beer
Campden Town Brewery was bought by ABInBev, the world's largest brewing company
There have been problems at Northern Monk too: Northern Breweries caught up in harassment complaints
 
And to be fair, giving a burger a puerile name is obviously the thinner end of the wedge compared with allegations of harrassment, but it undermines what I said before and bolsters what equationgirl said about culture - casual, laddish micromisogyny stuff like 'The BJ' is arguably evidence of an engrained culture even among the more right-on-seeming small outfits. And of course I'm less likely to notice that end of the wedge than a woman is. I'm inclined to go off and check up on the credentials of all the brewers I gravitate towards now (Almasty, Anarchy, Pollys, Two by Two, Flash House, Cloudwater ...)
 
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