Back in 2007, BrewDog was an ambitious small business which had launched just four beers.
Now, it’s hard to imagine such humble beginnings from a firm which currently operates four breweries and more than 100 bars worldwide.
As BrewDog’s in-person AGM returns to Aberdeen after two years online, we’ve taken a look back at The P&J’s first-ever interview with founders Martin Dickie and James Watt – who told us the fictional character he identified with most was Darth Vader.
Brewery venture is maturing nicely
Students are well known for their keen interest in beer, but few of them go on to make a career out of it. Martin Dickie did just that and recently teamed up with an old school pal, James Watt, to set up a brewery in the north-east.
The pair, who both attended Peterhead Academy and studied in Edinburgh before going their separate ways for a couple of years, have already launched four beers – all fermented and bottled at their BrewDog brewery at the Kessock Industrial Estate in Fraserburgh.
The venture could hardly have got off to a better start.
BrewDog’s beers have already attracted considerable interest from Japan, Denmark and North America and the firm’s Paradox ale, a dark, whisky-flavoured stout, won the fledgling company the top prize at the Grampian Food Forum Innovation Awards earlier this month.
High Hopes
Mr Dickie and Mr Watt, both 24, have high hopes for the beers taking off in a big way and have invested their life savings in getting their new business up and running.
But the pair took very different paths to becoming brewing entrepreneurs.
Mr Dickie is the one with the background in beer, having studied brewing and distilling at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, for four years.
He hails from Crimond, but has only just returned to the north-east after his studies and a two-year spell as head brewer for the award-winning Thornbridge Brewery in Derbyshire.
His interest in the whole fermentation process stems from early attempts at making his own home brew and a fascination with the large copper stills he saw during visits to various distilleries around the country.
When he got to university, he realised that brewing rather than distillation was definitely where he wanted to be.
Mr Dickie, now BrewDog’s head of brewing, said: “With distillation, you have to wait a very long time before you can actually sample the product. With brewing, you don’t have to wait so long.”
Hatching a plan
He joined Thornbridge soon after it was set up in October 2004 and contributed to a string of awards for the brewery, including a silver medal for strong ale at the Great British Beer Festival last August.
Throughout his spell at university and then in England, he kept in touch with Mr Watt and the pair of them soon hatched plans for a business of their own.
“We had been working on the idea for about a year and spent the last four or five months looking for suitable premises and equipment,” said Mr Dickie.
Mr Watt, BrewDog’s managing director, has just recently come into the brewing industry.
After leaving school he studied law and economics at Edinburgh University, but turned down the chance of working in the legal profession to join the crew of the Banff-registered Ocean Trust fishing vessel, skippered by his father, Jim Watt.
“I didn’t really fancy working in an office all day,” said James, who is originally from Gardenstown, near Banff.
Instead, he has spent the last couple of years catching herring and mackerel in the seas around Scotland.
Aiming to produce 7,000 pints of beer a week
Although the new beer venture is largely self-financed, the young entrepreneurs have had some financial assistance – loans totalling £22,000 from Aberdeenshire Council’s Support for Aberdeenshire Business scheme.
The first brew came off the production line just a few weeks ago and, with the help of Huntly-based whisky distributor and independent bottler Duncan Taylor and Co, samples were quickly sent overseas.
BrewDog is currently negotiating a deal with Sainsbury’s and the company will soon start on a hard-sell for its cask beers in hotels and pubs.
Paradox is the strongest of BrewDog’s beers at 10.5% proof. It comes in two varieties – a peaty-flavoured brew finished in Islay whisky casks and a citrus-flavoured beer which goes into Speyside whisky casks for the final stage of maturation. The three other beers are a 5% amber brew called The Physics, 6% ale Punk IPA, and 5.5% lager Hopp Rocker.
Mr Dickie and Mr Watt aim to produce more than 7,000 pints of beer a week in all, mostly in bottles and about 20% in casks. They hope to grow the business by promoting their beers as natural products.
A major breakthrough in the Japanese market would see them reinforce Fraserburgh’s links with the Far East country – in the late 19th century the Broch’s most famous son, Thomas Blake Glover, launched a brewery in Japan which later became the Kirin Brewery Company.
A Q&A with James Watt
What car do you drive?
It’s red and quite fast, where the law permits of course.
What gadget would you never leave home without?
Are sandwiches gadgets?
What’s your favourite restaurant?
Cafe 52 in Aberdeen.
Have you ever broken the law?
I am the law.
What or who makes you laugh?
Ricky Gervais; or Martin Dickie playing badminton in what could only be described as pretentious 1950s pyjamas.
What’s your most interesting habit?
I always get out of bed before 9.30am.
What’s your favourite book?
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, by John Locke.
What’s your favourite film?
Good Will Hunting or Anchorman.
What’s your favourite singer/band?
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
Always believe 100% in yourself and your ideas. If you don’t, no one else will. You need a level of almost unrealistic confidence in yourself and your own ability.
Worst business advice?
a) Have a mission statement. Mission statements are for companies who don’t know what they are doing.
b) To use an excessively manufactured acronym for a business name.
With which historical or fictional character do you most identify?
Darth Vader from Star Wars.
What do you drink?
I prefer a flan 60% of the time. Hopp Rocker is apparently pretty good too.
How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?
Skeletor (from He-man and the Masters of the Universe). I spent a week on my dad’s fishing boat when I was seven for this most extravagant of remunerations. I could have happily retired that very day.
What’s your ideal job, other than this one?
A circus boy.
What’s your biggest extravagance?
It’s all about moderation. Everything in moderation, including moderation itself. What logically follows is that you must, from time to time have excess.
How do you keep fit?
By smoking and eating as many cheeseburgers as I can. I try to go to the gym three times a week, but unfortunately I have missed the last 317 times.
How would you like to be remembered?
As the prime minister who rid the country of the red tape plague and restored the vaguest hint of reason and morality to the justice system. I could solve the world’s problems if I had a bit more free time.
A Q&A with Martin Dickie
What car do you drive?
A 2002 Vectra 1.8 Club, metallic dark blue.
Have you ever broken the law?
Not guilty.
What’s your favourite book?
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, A Story by Richard Bach. Nice and short with a picture on every other page, but it has an aspiring moral to it.
What’s the best piece of business advice you have received?
Put in the work and the rewards are obvious.
What’s your ideal job, other than this one?
A professional downhill skier. I’m convinced that had I been given professional instruction from the age of six in Austria I would have won the gold medal in Salt Lake City in 2002, beating Fritz Strobl by a full 1.25 seconds.
What or who makes you laugh?
My friends, family and Jimmy Carr.
What’s your favourite film?
The World’s Fastest Indian.
What gadget would you never leave home without?
I would like to leave without my phone and then I could get more work done.
What do you drink?
Beer – Punk IPA. Whisky. Also coffee.
What’s your favourite singer/band?
Currently The Sounds.
What’s your favourite restaurant?
My mum’s house. Great food and free. Otherwise the Den Engel in Leek, Staffordshire, where a different beer is suggested for each course.
How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?
£10 for a day’s strawberry picking at Middleton of Potterton. I think my uncle gave me a preferential rate as I ate half of them and probably threw the rest at my brother and cousins. If you gave me a strawberry, I bet I could tell you the variety.
Worst business advice?
People in an organisation don’t need specific roles. Just give them basic roles and the born leaders will take charge. I left shortly after.
How do you keep fit?
Work in a brewery, which beats a desk job. Actually, I have to do the desk job part too.
What’s your most interesting habit?
Give me a bag of barley malt and I’ll turn it into beer.
What’s your biggest extravagance?
My girlfriend.
With which historical or fictional character do you most identify?
Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna.
How would you like to be remembered?
Just a gravestone (Peterhead granite) and a few yellow chrysanthemums or carnations. To be honest I won’t be around to care.
Brewdog’s James Watt: I can’t wait to showcase Aberdeen to 10,000 from around the planet
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