Gone to the dogs
I’m sure that most readers will be aware of what has happened to BrewDog and no doubt books are already being written about it by better writers than me. That said, I like to think that London Drinker is a ‘paper of record’ and so I shall duly note what happened at the beginning of March and concentrate on what happens next. In fairness, it is quite a story. Founded in Aberdeen in 2007, the one-time ‘Punk’ brewers, who early on made it clear that they had no time for us crusty old cask beer drinkers, ended up running a multi-national, partly private equity owned global operation.
Readers will know that there had been problems for some time, evidenced by the closure of a number of pubs and their distillery business. This all came to a head when they simply ran out of cash. They have been acquired out of administration in a ‘pre-pack’ deal by an American company called Tilray Brands who began life as a cannabis producer and moved into consumer goods and brewing. They are currently the fourth-largest craft beer brewer in the USA and operate around 20 brewpubs. They also produce and market Carlsberg beers (including 1664) under licence in the USA.
Tilray are reported to have paid £33 million for BrewDog’s worldwide intellectual property, UK brewing operations and eleven ‘premier and profitable’ brewpubs. They are looking for staff to reopen these and have not ruled out re-employing people laid off in the administration. They may also reopen the distillery. The other 38 bars in the UK have now closed. The closed ones in London are listed in this edition’s Pub Information Update.
Tilray have gone on to acquire BrewDog’s operations in Australia and are negotiating to acquire its business in the USA. One report said that they have set aside funds to make a ‘significant’ capital investment. They appear to have every intention of continuing the brand and may use it to make their own beers more widely available.
The surviving sites in London are at Canary Wharf, Paddington, Seven Dials, Tower Hill and Waterloo. The others are Birmingham, Dogtap Ellon (the ‘home’ brewery), Dublin, Edinburgh DogHouse and Lothian Road, Manchester. (Subsequent to this article going to print it has been announced Bristol, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Glasgow and the Manchester Doghouse will reopen). Some 733 jobs survived but 484 were lost. The contract that BrewDog had to supply beer at the Lord’s cricket ground has been terminated.
Tilray had competition from Dublin-based C&C Group, who own Tennent’s and Magners cider, and, at one point, one of BrewDog’s founders, James Watt, was said to be prepared to invest £10 million in a rescue bid but this came to nothing. The American private equity firm TSG, who invested £213 million in BrewDog in 2017, are thought to have lost their money. BrewDog’s initial funding came from its ‘Equity for Punks’ scheme. Some 220,000 people are reported to have lost a total of £75 million. Simon Irwin, Tilray’s chief executive, has however said that he intends to reach out to the ‘equity punks’, saying, “They’re important to us. They’re important to be ambassadors to the brand and we should not forget them at all.” There is, I suspect, more to come with this story.
Innis & Gunn
Having missed out on BrewDog, C&C Group have made do with another Scottish brewer, Innis & Gunn. Very sadly, this innovative brewery, first known for their Original Oak Aged Ale, went into administration in early March and has since been sold to C & C for £4.5 million. C&C already owned 8% of I&G. Founded in 2003 in Edinburgh, the company acquired the Inveralmond Brewery in Perth in 2016. They also had taprooms in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The breweries and taprooms were not included in the deal, so have closed, with around 100 staff being made redundant. C&C intend to continue production of the I&G brands using their existing resources. Innis & Gunn used crowdfunding to purchase Inveralmond, believed to be around £3 million, and it is unlikely that any of this will be repaid. Ironically, before they had their own brewery in Edinburgh, I&G contract-brewed at Tennent’s Wellpark Brewery, which is probably to where the beers will now return.
McMullen’s sell tenanted estate
In February, in a move reminiscent of Young’s sale of the Ram Pub Company, McMullen’s of Hertford sold 30 pubs, comprising the greater part of their tenanted estate, to Punch Pubs & Co. Family-owned McMullen’s, who still have some 70 managed houses, said that ‘the future stewardship of the pubs and their publicans was central to its decision-making’. Punch, who are backed by the private equity firm Fortress and operate around 1,300 community pubs, said that the deal represents ‘a small but strategically important’ addition to their estate, bolstering its presence across Hertfordshire and Essex. Five London pubs are affected, in Barnet, Enfield and Finchley. Punch have promised that they will be investing in the pubs.
Brewery numbers
At the end of February, the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) released the latest update from their UK Brewery Tracker. Sadly, at 1 January 2026, we had 1,578 breweries, compared with 1,715 on 1 January 2025. On 1 January 2023, when the Tracker started, there were 1,828. This is a net closure rate of almost three per week. SIBA’s chief executive, Andy Slee pointed out that the fall off is not because of falling demand. It is down to the levels of taxation and the restrictions on access to the market caused by the tied house system, especially with non-brewing pubcos. The Competition and Markets Authority is currently investigating the ‘access to market’ issue, something for which CAMRA has long been lobbying.