Brewdog boss regrets ‘disaster’ TV appearance

The co-founder of craft beer brand Brewdog, James Watt, has admitted his recent appearance on BBC show Who’s the Boss was a “disaster”.

Brewdog founders James Watt (right) and Martin Dickie (Photo: Brewdog)

Some viewers have even pledged to never buy Brewdog products again after Watt was accused of hijacking the show.

Who’s the Boss sees British companies opening up the task of senior recruitment to their entire workforce rather than just management-level staff.

The final episode of the three-part series, which aired last week and was repeated on Sunday evening (13 March), saw craft brewer Brewdog take part in the novel process to hire a new area manager.

Three candidates were independently selected by recruitment experts for their suitability to the role. They were then put through a series of challenges that were secretly assessed by sub-senior Brewdog staff.

However, towards the end of the process, Watt intervened and changed the job role entirely because he didn’t think any of the three candidates were suitable for the area manager post.

After Watt’s intervention, two of the three candidates dropped out of the contest, meaning staff were left without a vote as there could be only one winner. The winner later decided he didn’t want the new job.

Viewers expressed their anger at the apparent hijacking of the show by the Brewdog boss on social media.

Gareth Snow said: “Because of the arrogance of the boss at Brewdog I would genuinely consider a different beer in the future if I had the choice”.

Twitter user @ThatRunningGurl said: “Wow. Brewdog owner is the definition of arrogance. What a d1ck.”

Johanna Anderson said: “Brewdog are totally putting me off buying anything from them. Too cool for school, eh?”

Watt himself admitted that the programme was “a bit of a disaster”.

“Being completely uncompromising when it comes to recruiting is great for a business. But bad for TV”, he said.