Brewdog planning movie on its journey

Brewdog founder and CEO James Watt has announced plans for a film charting its journey from a small independent micro-brewery to a global brewing giant.

Writing on LinkedIn, Watt said the film had a working title of Underdogs: The Rise of BrewDog.

He said: “It has been so exciting to work with such talented people on the script of this amazing new movie:

“Since Martin & I started BrewDog, both just aged 24, the journey has been remarkable – high highs, low lows, failures, successes and a healthy dose of controversy along the way.

“We can’t wait to bring the story to the big screens. Watch this space!”

Commenting on the story, LinkedIn users were quick to suggest songs for the soundtrack and also possible leads to play Watt and his fellow co-founder Martin Dickie.

Tom Cruise

One user called Paul Thomson-Clark said: “Who’s playing the lead roles? Have Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt had a call?”

Watt replied: ‘That would be amazing ”

Another user suggested the song Tubthumping by Chumbawamba as it “has to be one of them for sure (just as you get your first rejection from the bank for a loan)”.

Brewdog’s journey began in 2006 and quickly grew in the next few years as the British craft beer boom occurred.

The story of the firm would certainly make for interesting reading, as it infamously had trouble getting loans as a small start-up, and had to lie to the bank HSBC in order to secure a £150,000 loan to improve its brewing equipment. Watt said about the loan: “We said that our bank had offered us an amazing deal, but that if you can match it we’ll switch, and they went for it… You have got to do what you have to do.”

Funding

It was even turned down by investors on the hit BBC show Dragon’s Den. But it has since gone on to become a global brewing powerhouse with breweries in the US, mainly thanks to private equity funding, and multiple years of crowdfunding from supporters through its Equity for Punks scheme. There have been hopes of the firm undertaking an IPO in 2024, with Watt has previously stating an intention to publicly list the company.

On a blog post about setting up the brewery, Watt wrote: “We decided over a game of pool in late 2006 that we should open our own brewery and the first BrewDog batch was brewed 2 weeks later on a 50 litre pilot plant in Martin’s garage. Ever since we were flatmates at university (Martin studied Brewing and Distilling, James Law and Economics) we had dreamed of one day running our own brewery.

“Our brewing teeth were cut by home brewing in our student flat and getting all out friends round to, quite willingly, drink the results. Then in late 2006, 2 years after finishing university, we decided that we had enough experience, and more importantly just about enough funds to invest to give ourselves a chance of succeeding and that now was the time to take the biggest risk we ever had.”