Brewdog sound in serious trouble.

So it’s all your fault then

 

I despise the owners of Spoons, but you can't argue with the quality of the renovations they've done to decrepit old buildings up and down the country.

 

Was about to say the same thing. They've taken on so many buildings that are architecturally extremely important but had fallen into disrepair, and given them new lives. Can't remotely think of another company that could have done that.

 

I'm John. Never worked in the brewing industry, though I do plenty to support it!

 

They are Private Equity owned so the acquisition will have been funded with a substantial amount of shareholder loans. Interest will accrue but profitability is stated after shareholder interest, making them appear loss making, but in effect it is just delayed dividend payments.
A better measure of profitability will be after adding that shareholder interest expense back to profit or using EBITDA.

 

I drink IPAs. Pretty much exclusively. Punk IPA is a decent drink. There's better, but Punk is in Spoons, so if we're off anywhere we can go in a town centre pub and I can get a nice drink at a reasonable price that isn't some fake Spanish rubbish that appears to be en vogue. It's almost doubled in price since Covid but so has everything else. If Brewdog goes under and Punk is replaced with another IPA I'll not care too much. But if goes away and it's replaced with yet another lager, it will be disappointing.

 

The John I was thinking of ( I cant pull his surname to mind) was a lad I used to talk to into the Ponty concourse, he worked for one or two breweries/wholesalers that we dealt with, I knew he took a job away from our patch, perhaps I just wrongly assumed it was the Brewdog one.

 

Ben Lockwood aka Loko. I think he's on the Trust committee. There was a bit of a dispute with someone on here regarding Brewdogs employment policy which led to him not posting any more.

 

Wonder how he feels about Brewdog now after the bad press after bad press they've received since that argument. At the time he was defending them rigorously.

Egg truly on face i feel.

 

He left brewdog at the beginning of this year so probably not

 

If going to a middle-of-the-road pub, I know I'm unlikely to find a micro-brewed IPA from round the corner. But unless the establishment is truly dire, there's a decent chance they'll have Camden IPA, Beavertown Neck Oil, or Punk. They're all absolutely serviceable, and far better than any mass-produced lager. Personally, I think Punk is the best of the three. The 3 breweries in question undoubtedly did a huge amount to make people aware that beer doesn't just mean cask bitter or mass-produced lager. Also, Brewdog is the only one that hasn't been bought out by a multinational behemoth.

 

The alchemy of private equity. Before debt interest and tax the business made a profit of £7.5m. The issue for businesses that are pe owned is delivering sufficient profit to meet large debt payments. Some of the loans have headline interest as high as 18% with interest payments alone of over £17m pa.

Bear in mind the loss of £37m is down from the previous year loss of £60m

 

I own a micropub, and whilst it's sad to see brewdog in trouble, they only have themselves to blame.
I am regularly contacted by 30-40 local breweries that smash anything made by brewdog out of the park! And are up to 50% cheaper.

I'd never even want to stock them, and the same goes for my circle of micropub owning friends.

Like I say, it's sad times and will only lead to more job losses should the (almost inevitable) closure or buyout happen.

 

That Alpaca Lypse isn't too bad either.

 

I actually thought it was very disappointing for Salt. Give me a Jute any day!

 

After walking up the hill from Broomhead reservoir to the Castle at Bolsterstone after already doing 17 miles on a red hot day, it was the best pint in the world.

 

We get Salt deliveries now and then. Mainly for their DIPA's. I think they have a place in Deptford, though I've not been. Not my favourite by any means, but solid. Prefer a Cloudwater, Verdant or Track DIPA generally, but they tend to be a fair bit higher in price.

 

I cant wait to see folk drinking Acorns Ale on our cruise next week.

 

Salt and Vocation for the price point are absolutely brilliant. Vocation probably has a bit more variety but they're both readily available, reliable and sensibly priced. Of the supermarket brands we get up here, Polly's, Brew York, Kirkstall and Buxton are all very decent as well.

Verdant Lightbulb is absolutely superb. A couple of pubs in Lincoln have in on tap pretty regularly, but it always seems to sell out within a couple of hours!

The Nottingham brewery Blue Monkey has just opened a taproom here as well - very impressed with their offerings so far, and sensibly priced for high-end beer, their session IPA coming in at £5.40 a pint.

 

Vocation is one of the others that we often get. Incredibly reasonable and very solid. They did a barrel aged series a few years ago and their kirsch impy stout is probably my favourite beer I've had (I do love impy stouts!)

Given we're due to move imminently, we've been running down our beer stores, so when we do move, and given it's much bigger... I can't imagine the amount of beer orders that will be placed! Love wheats, wits and sours too. Vault City do some amazing ones that are really hard to beat. Iron Brew sour... legendary!