BrewDog, the Scottish craft brewer once valued at £1 billion and celebrated as Britain's proudest start-up, was sold to cannabis firm Tilray for £33 million in a pre-pack administration in March 2026. The fire sale wiped out thousands of crowdfunding investors and capped a spectacular fall from grace.
Founded in 2007 by James Watt and Martin Dickie in a garage in Fraserburgh, Scotland, BrewDog pioneered Britain's craft beer revolution with an anti-establishment punk attitude, publicity stunts and the innovative Equity for Punks crowdfunding scheme, which raised tens of millions from beer fans. By the mid-2010s it had bars across Europe, a brewery in Ohio, and exports to dozens of countries. In 2017, private equity giant TSG Consumer Partners bought a 22 per cent stake, valuing the company at £1 billion.
The cracks appeared in 2021, when more than 60 former and current employees, organised as Punks with Purpose, published an open letter accusing Watt of presiding over a 'culture of fear' at the company, with toxic attitudes, bullying and misogyny said to be rife. Watt apologised but insisted many claims were exaggerated. In 2022, a BBC Scotland Disclosure documentary, The Truth About BrewDog, aired serious allegations of inappropriate workplace behaviour by Watt, including claims that female bartenders were advised on how to avoid his unwelcome attention. Watt denied the allegations and lodged a formal complaint with Ofcom.
The controversies struck at the heart of the brand: a company that sold itself as the ethical alternative to corporate beer was accused of behaving worse than the establishment it mocked. BrewDog lost its B Corporation certification, and Watt's credibility took a further hit when it emerged he had bought shares in Heineken despite years of publicly attacking multinational brewers.
Watt stepped down as chief executive in 2024 but stayed on the board. The business, however, kept deteriorating under the weight of rising costs, flatlining sales and persistent losses. When the pre-pack administration came in March 2026, nearly 500 jobs were lost, suppliers who had frozen deliveries over unpaid bills were left empty-handed, and production ground to a halt for lack of hops, cans and ingredients. Former private equity backers and thousands of crowdfunders got nothing.
Tilray chief executive Irwin Simon has pledged to rebuild trust with British pubs, paying off key suppliers to restart the Ellon brewery. Watt, meanwhile, has launched new ventures including Social Tip, a platform paying people to post about brands on social media, and industry gossip persists that he wants to buy BrewDog back. Punk, it turns out, was easier to market than to manage.