BrewDog thought 2021 was bad. Then came 2022

BrewDog got off to a bad start in January with a BBC documentary alleging a toxic working culture at the brewer. CEO James Watt denied the claims, but several brands severed ties with his company, including Manchester brewery Cloudwater, which announced it would wind down its deal for BrewDog to contract brew and supply its beers to Tesco. Queer Brewing, which had also been brewing drinks with BrewDog through a collaboration with Cloudwater, made a similar announcement. And Ascension Cider requested that its drinks no longer be sold in BrewDog bars.

For most brands that would have been enough trouble for one year. But BrewDog’s November ‘anti-sponsor’ campaign against the World Cup in Qatar brought allegations of hypocrisy, after it emerged it had just signed a deal to distribute beer in Qatar.

When the ASA rapped BrewDog over an email jokingly referring to its fruit beers as one of shoppers’ 5 a day, it wasn’t even the worst news of December. At the start of the month BrewDog was stripped of its B Corp status after certifying body B Lab decided it could no longer back the brand’s ethics. Watt told staff BrewDog had “decided to step aside from our B Corp certification for the time being”.