BrewDog's new owner says people must 'overcome stigma' of founder James Watt

BrewDog’s new owner has weighed in on his latest acquisition, alleging franchise interest while also detailing whether brand co-founder James Watt would come back into the fold.

US firm Tilray Brands completed a £33 million rescue deal earlier this month (2 March) to successfully purchase BrewDog’s brewery and 11 of the craft brew titan’s brick-and-mortar establishments.

The takeover initially saw 38 pubs closing across the Britain, with 484 staff being made redundant.

However, various ex-staff members have been allowed to reapply for their old jobs as Tilray’s Irwin Simon reportedly plans to reopen more BrewDog bars.

Prior to the company’s bailout, Watt, 43, attempted to pour £10 million of his own money into saving the company he founded with friend Martin Dickie in 2007.

The liferaft came almost two years after he stepped down from the CEO role to make time for travel, friends, and family.

Prior to his departure, Watt had been accused of inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power by former employees, as per the BBC series, The Truth about BrewDog.

The business itself had also come under scrutiny, more recently for delivering ‘problematic’ advertisements that fell foul of ASA standards, and insinuating that changing its iconic Punk IPA recipe without adjusting its price was ‘commerical suicide’.

Tilray Brands owner on James Watts Brewdog ‘stigma’

Speaking to The Telegraph, Simon, 67, said that Watt was a ‘stigma’ that Tilray Brands must ‘overcome’, vowing not to repeat the media stunts associated with the brand’s rise to notoriety.

The CEO also confirmed that the former co-founder and ‘captain’ would not be returning to the brand in the near future.

“I haven’t spoken to James Watt,” Simon stated. “We don’t need James Watt, because if James Watt were ever to come back here – and I’m being very clear, he’s not – what happens is this becomes about James Watt’s second and third act.

“I’ve heard multiple stories [about Watt],” he continued.

“But it’s not us. It’s not my DNA, it’s not our doing. It’s a stigma that’s attached to it, but it’s a stigma we have to overcome.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the Canadian confessed he would begin stocking the remaining BrewDog pubs with competitor products, such as Guinness and Carlsberg.

His reason was that ‘if a consumer wants that product and I want the business in this brew-pub, I want to get bums on seats’.

“If they’re not going to buy our beer, they’ll buy our food,” the tycoon reasoned, claiming the calls he’d had so far on franchising were ‘tremendous’.

James Watts takeover response

Watt has responded to Simon and The Telegraph in an Instagram post that he claimed he had no ‘intention to share’.

“But after the @telegraph asked me to respond to statements from Irwin Simon attacking me personally, I shared this quote with them:

“Recently, Irwin Simon and I talked at length about the importance of the BrewDog community and he gave a clear indication that if he bought the business he would ensure that Equity Punks retained their equity stake,” he wrote.

“I am really disappointed that did not happen, and consequently our Equity Punks were left with nothing. That is something I would never have done.”

He went on to say that there would be no ‘BrewDog fightback without taking the community’ with the brand and ‘without ensuring all team shares are honoured and without reinstating the real living wage’.

“And let’s see, maybe the Equity Punk story is not quite finished yet,” the businessman added.