The business debacle that is Brewdog continues to cause issues.
When the US outfit Tilray bought the brewery and brand on March 2nd it might have been assumed that they had also bought the pubs. 11 stayed open and 38 were shut with workers sacked on the spot- almost certainly unfairly.
It now transpires that Tilray did not buy all the pubs. In fact 38 remain with the administrator Alix Partners.
Tilray have previously said they were not able to fully assess what they had bought due to the short timescales involved (effectively Brewdog were bankrupt). Having done so they now propose to acquire and re-open a further five or six bars.
Two of these appear to be Aberdeen and the BBC have reported that sacked Brewdog workers have been approached by Tilray to see if they want their jobs back. Terms and conditions are not revealed.
Unite the Union which represents Brewdog workers but remains unrecognised by the employer have stated that Tilray’s actions amount to fire and rehire. That is workers are sacked but then re-engaged on new contracts without consultation on terms.
The practice will become illegal under the Employment Relations Act 2025 from January 2027.
Despite Tilray claiming they want to move on from the James Watt era it appears they are stuck with the same reputational damage mindset that characterised his tenure at the brewer.
The New World’s Allister Heath (Editor, Sunday Telegraph) random headline generator sometimes produces headlines that make more sense that Heath himself…
This one captures the Tories Great Moving Right Show as Kemi Badenoch continues to defend the Islamophobic views of Tory Shadow Minister Nick Timothy, views which Farage has publicly backed
Engels lived in Regents Park Rd close to Hampstead Heath
….We are expecting Burns here today and thus, for the first time in history, three Socialist members of parliament from Germany, France and England will come together. That such a meeting should be possible, a meeting of the three deputies of the three leading parliaments of Europe—three Socialist Party leaders representing the three dominant nations of Europe—is in itself proof of what enormous advances we have made. I only wish that Marx were alive to witness it.
Well, now it is also time to remind you of your promise to visit us here in the summer and take me back with you to Germany. True, August is afraid that a possible dissolution of the Reichstag might upset everything, but that is something I cannot see, for if there is in fact a dissolution, it will happen this month, i.e. in April (which will be upon us tomorrow), while the elections will be held in June at the latest, in which case a holiday will be more necessary than ever—for August as well as for yourself—and if you were to see the fine weather we have here and all the greenness of spring which also brings with it a mass of flowers that lasts until the end of June, you would assuredly come, dissolutions and fresh elections or not. So, as always, I shall count on your keeping your word and shall also accompany you to Berlin, for since last autumn our respective trips have been indissolubly linked.
Engels to Julie Bebel March 31st 1893
John Burns, (1858-1943) was a socialist, then Liberal MP for Battersea
Paul Lafargue (1842-1911) was a French socialist MP, the first to be elected
August Bebel (1840-1913) was a German socialist MP
The phrase about breaking things, often used to refer to shops that display pottery items, was delivered by Colin Powell to George W Bush about the Iraq War.
Bone spurs Trump has been calling NATO cowards today but his aim on starting a war with Iran was not clear. Its clear now. His actions caused the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with a devastating economic impact, now he wants other to re-open it for him.
Gideon Rachman noted in the Financial Times on 18th March
A conflict with Iran that started with vague war aims now has one clear and overriding objective: reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Ironically and infuriatingly, the only reason the strait is closed is because the US and Israel went to war in the first place
Meanwhile we are not spectators. There is a Stop Bombing Iran demonstration on Saturday 21st March, assemble, noon, Russell Square, London, WC1
Histories of the Present. Friday March 20th 2020. Boris Johnson orders pubs to shut. The long hangover
On Monday March 16th 2020 as cases of COVID spiralled, particularly in London, Boris Johnson suggested that people should swerve pubs, restaurants etc.
On Friday March 20th 2020, exactly six years ago, he was back this time with Sunak and Deputy CMO Jenny Harries, and Johnson, or at least Government policy, went further and ordered pubs to shut.
They did not re-open until July 2020. Furlough was available for at least some in hospitality and COVID loans were offered to reflect the financial difficulties the decision clearly caused.
As an inveterate pub goer I was of course not happy but I’d already decided not to go to the pub. My last beer until July in a pub had been in the Cock Tavern Hackney on the 15th March 2020.
I posted at the time that I thought it was probably a sensible decision (one of the few Johnson made or had made for him). It was not really known at this point how COVID was transmitted and no vaccine was available until early 2021.
Of course, and this is a comparatively little explored aspect of the decision, temperance campaigners seized on the matter. Claims that pubs were places where everyone got drunk and indulged in all kinds of excess, thereby spreading COVID, were to be seen quite frequently. They often seemed to be made by people that never went to pubs, regarding them as places proletarians were to be found.
Suffice to say that being primarily airborne COVID could spread wherever people gathered- transport, shops etc and not just pubs.
Six Years On, numbers of pubs and smaller breweries still feel the impact of COVID. In some cases trade never really recovered, and, related to that, paying back COVID loans became problematic.
It’s a history of the present that is widely ignored, just the rise in those on ill health benefits, which primarily starts from 2020 (though it had risen in 2019) is at least in part likely to be due to the impact of Long COVID, a far from perfectly understood condition or sets of conditions.
In short histories of the present are important. We have a 24/7 media focused on NOW, and not too much concerned with history, even recent history.
We are collectively telling, telling cafes, pubs, bars, restaurants to close tonight as soon as they reasonably can, and not to open tomorrow.
Though to be clear, they can continue to provide take-out services.
We’re also telling nightclubs, theatres, cinemas, gyms and leisure centres to close on the same timescale.
Now, these are places where people come together, and indeed the whole purpose of these businesses is to bring people together. But the sad things is that today for now, at least physically, we need to keep people apart.
And I want to stress that we will review the situation each month, to see if we can relax any of these measures.
And listening to what I have just said, some people may of course be tempted to go out tonight. But please don’t.
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has launched a petition to demand that Tory MP Nick Timothy shaves his beard off.
He is bringing the hirsute into disrepute by a continuing campaign of Islamophobia. He claimed that an Iftar in Trafalgar Square was somehow an attempt to dominate British society. Despite Keir Starmer calling this out and demanding that Kemi Badenoch sack Timothy as a Shadow Minister, he doubled down on his remarks in an article in the Telegraph on 19th March.
The BLF believes that Nick Timothy is bringing the hirsute into disrepute. If you agree sign and share the petition
The future of Brewdog- become more like Wetherspoons?
The CEO of Tilray Dwight Simon, which has bought most of Brewdog’s global operations has been doing a media round.
To his credit, he has nailed one of the major issues with Brewdog as was. In the public eye it was more about James Watt than it was about the beer.
His other reported comments raise issues about where he is positioning Brewdog.
He told the FT that Brewdog brew ‘way too many variations’. It might be argued that its a raison d’etre of craft beer. To experiment with different hops and recipes. Simon however clearly wants a brand.
When it comes to pubs, and Brewdog don’t have many now (though he has repeated a statement that he plans to re-open five closed bars) he thinks the beer needs to be cheaper and that they should sell Guinness and Carlsberg.
Given that Wetherspoons is the main on-trade purveyor of Brewdog now it begs the question of why not just franchise the bars to Tim Martin (assuming he’d want them of course…)
What’s important here is really to have a good team behind BrewDog,” Simon says. “It became the founders, the private equity, what was happening with it, transition with the leadership team, who was running this, etc… There [were] more messages out there to the public about the founders and what’s happening than the product itself. That’s what we can’t have.”
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social
HIRSUTE WELCOME RETURN OF GNOME POWER AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
The Beard Liberation Front, the network of beard wearers that campaigns against beardism, has welcomed the news that the Royal Horticultural Society, the organisers of the Chelsea Flower Show, has again lifted its long running ban on gnomes for 2026.
Gnomes were banned for 100 years to 2013 when they made an appearance before again being vetoed.
In 2026 gnomes, mostly with beards, will be on display again at Chelsea.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said Gnomes and beards go together. They are often organised and militant and it is excellent news that after a thirteen year gap Gnome Power will be at the Chelsea Flower Show again in 2026
Guardian Report
Another potentially controversial change to the show is an end to the ban on garden gnomes. The RHS is inviting celebrities to decorate gnomes to feature at Chelsea, which will then be auctioned off to raise funds for the next generation of gardeners. It last lifted the gnome ban to celebrate the centenary of Chelsea in 2013. The gnomes have long been banned as they are deemed tacky and not in keeping with the event.
Kmflett's Blog 