Say Hi to Martin Keith

We chat to our Glasgow ruler of madness...

As with all of our bars, there’s a ringmaster to the madness and in the case of BrewDog Glasgow, Martin’s your man with a plan…well, maybe not so much a plan, maybe more like a strategy for unbridled chaos, but good intentions all the same.

Martin’s doesn’t have a job title (it’s impossible to actually nail down what he does) so we just refer to him as ‘Martin who runs BrewDog Glasgow’ or – in his own words – ‘BrewDog Glasgow Enforcer’. Nice.

So buckle up, sit back and please keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times as we say hi to Martin:

“Hello, yes, I’m Martin and I run BrewDog Glasgow. I’ve worked in bars on and off since I was young and eventually ended up managing a bar in Glasgow where the emphasis was on music. While this was fun I also got kind of bored on the beer front having to drink the same old stuff. I know Mark Hislop (who manages BrewDog Newcastle) from our formative years working the Glaswegian bar scene and it was he who introduced me to craft beer and got me passionate about an alternative to the mainstream.”

Needless to say, Martin found BrewDog Glasgow a breath of fresh air in a city where craft beer haunts were few and far between. Even today, Glasgow remains a mixed bag although more and more places are starting to take note of the growing craft revolution:

“I’ve seen a really great response to craft beer in the city. We get so many craft beer virgins coming in and getting instantly converted which is always fun. We also get folk coming in for food and for our live music events like Saturday nights where we have DJs spinning vintage 45s. The clientèle are so varied, from beer geeks to families to tourists; we’ve built up a great bunch of hardcore regulars too.”

As the capital of rock’n’roll in Scotland, it’s hardly surprising that our Glasgow HQ also acts as a pretty kick ass live music venue as well. But as they say, there’s no smoke without fire and there’s no rock’n’roll without topless screaming groupies (OK, we may have made that bit up). So what is the weirdest music-related incident that’s happened?

“Well, well once had a morris dance group do a guerrilla gig in the middle of the bar on a Saturday afternoon, if that counts as weird? In terms of rock’n’roll things that have happened to me personally, I once got invited by Roger Daltry (from The Who) to play the Royal Albert Hall. Shameless plug I know but so fucking roll’n’roll!”

So you've probably noticed by now that BrewDog Glasgow is as much about the music as it is about the beers and who are we to argue? If you don’t fancy pairing your beer with food then you can quite easily pair it to a beat instead.

But to end on a beery note, we asked Martin to describe himself in three beers and were pretty impressed by his answer:

“If I was to sum myself up in three beers it would be 5am Saint, Tokyo Rising Sun and AB:04 because I’m ginger, well-aged and impossible to get hold off.”

Want to hang out with Martin and the rest of our Glasgow craft beer posse? Either head down the BrewDog Glasgow or drop Martin a line – [email protected]