Toilet system ‘tapped out’ and bar almost ran dry on maiden voyage of Brewdog’s craft beer airline

Brewdog’s transatlantic airline for craft beer fans had to close its filled toilets two hours before the first flight from London touched down in Ohio.

(Photo: Brewdog)

A spokesperson for craft beer giant Brewdog told the drinks business the plane was “about 20 minutes from running out of beer,” while the lavatories “tapped out shortly before” the flight’s descent into Ohio. However, the company added that the passengers and crew “remained in high spirits.”

Brewdog, which opened a beer-focused hotel in the US last year, announced plans to launch an airline designed for fans who invested in the brewer’s crowdfunding campaign, Equity for Punks, in October 2018. The flight would take UK investors from London Stansted to the brewer’s US headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, where they would be able to take a tour of the stateside brewery, as well as visiting the DogHouse hotel, and a string of craft breweries based in Cincinnati.

The bespoke BrewDog Boeing 767 took off from Stansted on 21 Febuary carrying 200 investors as well as 50 members of the beer business’ team. Brewdog founders James Watt and Martin Dickie were also on-board to greet passengers, reports Lonely Planet.

The brewer also used the opportunity to debut a new beer, Flight Club; a 4.5% IPA brewed with additional citra hops to combat the flavour dulling affects the cabin pressure can have on passengers’ palates.

The maiden voyage, Brewdog said, was “suitably stocked with a wide range of awesome craft beers made at our brewery in Aberdeenshire, and our passengers came very close to drinking the plane dry! I think by the time we landed we were probably about 20 minutes from running out of beer.”

But that wasn’t the only problem the crew had to manage. Beer writer Adrian Tierney-Jones wrote on Twitter that, two hours before landing in Ohio, the lavatories became so full they had to be closed “such was the volume of micturation.”

9 hours – loos had to close two hours before landing such was the volume of micturation – us sensible types stopped drinking

— Adrian Tierney-Jones (@ATJbeer) February 22, 2019

“The toilet system on board tapped out shortly before our descent into Ohio,” the spokesperson added, “but our passengers and the crew remained in high spirits – it didn’t spoil their experience on the world’s first craft beer airline!”