Why I wont be at the Brewdog Collabfest this year
Brewdog’s annual Collabfest is this weekend and ordinarily I’d be there. I won’t be this year.
I’m not sure Brewdog will either notice or care, and the impact on them will be of no consequence. The politics of individual boycotts don’t tend to lead anywhere much.
So why an apparently pointless gesture?
The beers featuring in the Collabfest are brewed between local bar teams and participating brewers not dictated by Brewdog HQ (as for example the list for the Wetherspoons real ale festival, also currently underway, is). However as Punks With Purpose tweeted any positive publicity and benefit from the Collabfest will go to Brewdog itself.
Brewdog has faced a lot of criticism for its workplace culture from ex-employees this year. Brewdog and James Watt have had several attempts to grapple with the matter. However as his pronouncement earlier this week that Brewdog has a ‘high performance culture’, hence by definition that malcontents are not high performers, underlines nothing has really changed. The company continues to resist invitations from Unite to recognise a trade union to allow employees independent representation when issues occur.
I’ve had quite a bit to say on this, not least on union recognition. One thing I don’t like after a lifetime on the left, is those who shout loudly about a particular issue or principle, and then personally ignore it when it suits them.
No doubt I would have enjoyed some of the Collabfest beers, but this year they’d leave an unwanted sour taste. Maybe by 2022 things will have changed.
I think that’s spot-on, Keith. As the maintainer of my own ‘entirely pointless’ individual boycott of a major multinational, now for decades, the need to make a stand against things that are abhorrent is entirely recognised. As Mikkeller (and more local breweries) found out, things that start as individual statements can quickly snowball given a bit of publicity.