Once upon a time, BrewDog used to be cool. That was a while ago now admittedly, but at its peak it rode that punky, vaguely Californian craft beer-and-annoying-beards hipster wave all the way to the big time: a global network of bars, lucrative deals with supermarkets and even a forthcoming feature film about how its then 24-year-old co-founders James Watt and Martin Dickie made millions so young.
Crucial to its hey-we’re-the-good-guys image was that for nearly nine years it has been a real living wage employer, committed to paying not just the legal minimum but the amount a person realistically needs to live on, which helped differentiate it from all the other corporate pub chains cashing in on the microbrewery trend.
