Brit Pop

A lot has changed since 2007. The prospect of having a 150 IBU 9.2% hopped to hell double IPA available nationwide and selling well in a UK supermarket would have been unthinkable. You can now buy Hardcore IPA in Sainsbury’s. And Tesco.

Five years ago the UK was pretty barren for craft beer. Compared to the US where craft beer was flourishing our own shores were a hostile wasteland dominated by industrial multi-nationals with their insipid liquid cardboard backed by millions of advertising pounds and sleepy, stuffy cask brewers producing fundamentally steady brown ales, each one more boring than the next. Thornbidge and Dark star proved notable expectations back then. Exceptions which sadly proved the rule. If you wanted a quality dry hopped craft IPA in keg in the UK in 2007, your only outside hope was an import.

We set up BrewDog with a simple mission, to try and make other people as passionate about craft beer as we are and to show people there is an alternative to the mainstream beers which dominate the market. We want to show people just how rewarding and exciting craft beer can be: the more people making and drinking great craft beers in the UK the better.

We have perhaps been guilty of not updating our rhetoric from its combative 2007 tone to take account of the small, but growing wave of brilliant craft brewers emerging in the UK. We still hate the UK beer culture, we are still hell-bent on changing it and there is still so much work to be done to elevate the status of beer in our culture. But it has been great to start seeing spectacular craft beers brewed in the UK over the last 24 months. Craft beers which rival those produced anywhere in the world.    

The last couple of years have seen the emergence of a new breed of craft brewers in Britain. An emerging  groundswell which will become the future forefront of the beer industry. Brewers who are introducing drinkers in the UK to beer brewed with attitude rather than additives, passion rather than preservatives and flavour (and hops!) in abundance. Not constrained by tradition, not constrained by CAMRA but following their muse and brewing exciting full flavour craft beers across a huge flavour and stylistic diversity spectrum. And doing it really well.

You can look forward to more of the best of Britain’s craft beers being available in BrewDog bars in 2012 alongside our own beers and a selection of hand picked gems from the best craft brewers on the planet. Look out for Magic Rock, more Kernel, Camden, Lovibonds, Hardknott , Summer Wine and others in our bars from January as we look to showcase the new wave of British craft brewers.

It is only the very start. But the beer scene in the UK is changing.

*Oh and I did start 2 sentences with and. It is almost 2012. I think it is acceptable now.