Brewnanza

Brewdog makes me jealous – I wish I could get paid to package up all of my sarcasm and ire, and simply fling them at the world, unconcerned with outside opinions or consequences. Wait a second – I’m blogging right now! Sweet! All my dreams have come true.

The Scottish outfit is known for its extremely high ABV beers, as well as its…well, spirited promo videos. In response to the mass fervor over some of its higher-alcohol offerings, it even produced a 1% mild called Nanny State, simply to make a point:

Nanny State is our quiet and dignified response to the ongoing controversy surrounding Britain’s strongest ever beer, Tokyo*. Nanny State is a 1.1% ale. We have gone from making Britain’s strongest beer to a brew so low in alcohol it is below the legal classification of beer and not strong enough to be subject to beer duty.

Tony Naylor at The Guardian supposes Brewdog is missing the mark. He says the world needs some mid-range session beers, not this all-or-nothing approach:

It’s all good fun this, but a bit frustrating, too. The world really doesn’t need a 41% beer. Nor a 0.5% in-joke. No, in the face of a relentless rise in beer strengths, what the modern drinker needs and what BrewDog would be better applying their ingenuity to, is a genuinely brilliant, mid-strength session beer. It is a problem which few brewers seem keen to address, but if you a) love beer, b) would like to prolong the ‘three-pint plateau’ (that period on a night-out where you’re funny, chatty and relaxed, rather than dribbling incoherently in a corner), and c) are forever struggling to keep under 28 units a week, then there is almost nothing (good) out there to drink.

Thing is, Brewdog has done a brilliant job at branding. They’re all about the extreme (nay, the eXXXtreme) ends of the beer spectrum, and they’re all about making a point with their products. And what is that point, really? Boil it down, and it’s “Drink Our Beer.” Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Brewdog knows how to move its audience to buy bottles. Beer for punks, right?

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