BrewDog co-founder and CEO James Watt is facing accusations of inappropriate behavior toward female employees and guests following his visits to the Scottish craft beer maker’s U.S. brewery and taprooms, according to a BBC expose that aired Monday.
Watt’s behavior was well known among staff, who created whisper networks to inform co-workers, several former employees told the BBC.
“We would make it a point to warn new girls and warn the hosts,” Katelynn Ising, a former BrewDog USA worker, told BBC reporter Mark Daly. “Hey, just so you know, James Watt’s coming to town. Just kind of leave after your shifts. Don’t really hang around. Don’t always do your hair and makeup that day. Don’t catch his attention.”
Dani Campbell, a former taproom manager at BrewDog’s Indianapolis outpost, said she was cautioned by a fellow manager not to be alone with Watt during a managers’ meeting to discuss the CEO’s upcoming visit.
“He said ‘Also, you’re James’ type, so if he walks into a room, you should leave the room. Don’t be in a room alone with him,’” she said, quoting a former co-worker.
Dylan Gray, a former manager of BrewDog’s taproom in the Franklinton neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, said he based his staff’s schedule around Watt’s presence to minimize contact between the CEO and women who worked behind the bar.
“I would schedule a lot more men at nights when he was there,” Gray told Daly. “I would sit at the bar, behind the bar with female staff, so they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. They had another male presence there, so it wasn’t just James.”
Watt responded to the BBC report with a threat of legal action, in a tweet to which replies have been disabled.
The BBC published claims which are totally false & they published them despite the extensive evidence we provided to demonstrate that they were false.
Reluctantly, I am now forced to take legal action against the BBC to protect my reputation.
— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) January 24, 2022
Several former employees described Watt bringing female guests and one worker to the rooftops of BrewDog taprooms or on after-hours tours of facilities, allegedly with romantic intentions. In a post on the company’s forum for its public shareholders, Watt wrote that being accused of “inappropriate behaviour” was “the most upsetting and damaging” “of all the false claims made in the programme.”
“Firstly, I sometimes date when I am in America and I fully accept I have taken friends, colleagues and yes, dates, on tours of the brewery. I do not consider this inappropriate,” he wrote. “Secondly, and more importantly, I hugely regret anyone feeling in anyway uncomfortable around me, as the programme set out. This is absolutely the last thing I want and something I will learn from immediately. I truly apologise to anyone who felt this way. This was never my intention.”
Other allegations the BBC reported include:
- Brewdog workers were under pressure to get beer from the Ellon, Scotland-based brewery to the U.S. quickly and provided falsified information to import partners for the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB);
- BrewDog applied for a government grant to pay for trees to repopulate a forest in Scotland after implying the purchase of their Lost Lager would trigger the purchase of a tree;
- Watt owns approximately £500,000 in Heineken stock, after years of taking aim at the Dutch beer maker and banning the products of its subsidiaries from BrewDog bars.
In a Twitter reply, Watt wrote that he briefly owned the Heineken shares “as a show of good faith when we were trying to do a distribution deal with them”and sold them when the deal didn’t materialize.
Before the BBC documentary aired, Manchester, England-based Cloudwater Brew Co. announced it has “begun the process of winding down” the production contract it entered with BrewDog to produce beer for Tesco grocery stores.
“At the very start of last year, we entered into a contract with BrewDog to supply Tesco stores,” the brewery wrote on its blog. “When the contract was produced, the opportunities, outlook and the context for this agreement looked very different.”
Flimwell, England-based Ascension Cider announced it has asked its distributor partners not to sell its products to BrewDog bars.
We have respectfully asked that our cider immediately cease being sold to Hawkes taproom, or any Brewdog owned bars.
Our love goes out to the teams, and the members of the company who are in no way part of this culture, but JW will never profit from our products again.— Ascension Cider (@AscensionCider) January 24, 2022
The BBC documentary comes after a tumultuous period for BrewDog, beginning in March 2021 when three women and one non-binary employee – all of whom were members of the LGBTQ community – were fired from its Indianapolis bar. The terminated employees said they were told their ouster was due to a new manager’s desire for “a change in culture at BrewDog.” BrewDog apologized to those former employees and conducted an internal investigation that revealed “no evidence of discrimination” but “inconsistencies in the processing of their dismissals.”
In June 2021, a group of former BrewDog employees calling themselves “Punks With Purpose” published an open letter alleging the company fostered a toxic work environment and that “it is with [Watt] that the responsibility for this rotten culture lies.” Today, the group called on other BrewDog leaders to “examine their role in the culture, and ask if they’re ready to change the way they think and act.”
“James might be in the spotlight, but we can categorically state that there are other people who share some of his methods,” the group wrote on Twitter.
BrewDog declined to answer specific questions from Brewbound, but provided the following statement from chairman Allan Leighton:
“Since the publication of the open letter in 2021, we have overseen a major independent review into our culture, which included reaching out to all signatories and all leavers over the past 12 months, and we have implemented a wide-ranging action plan to address the issues raised. To those former crew members for whom BrewDog failed to meet their expectations, we are sorry. To those who felt strongly enough about their experience to participate in the programme, we urge them to get in touch with our HR team or use our independent ethics hotline so we can listen and act. Their feedback is hugely valuable. Any allegations of impropriety are taken extremely seriously. James has provided full assurance that the BBC’s claims are not accurate and are based on rumour and misinformation. Where a complaint was raised in the U.S., these were fully investigated by an external third party and found to be without substance.
“James has committed to making improvements to his management style and he will continue that development under my mentorship. He has expressed considerable regret if his manner has in any way made crew feel uncomfortable – that is clearly not his intention and goes specifically against the collaborative culture we want to build. Under James’s leadership, BrewDog has grown from a 2 part-time employee start-up to a global brewer with over 100 bars, 5 hotels, 2,400 employees, with plans for considerable growth in 2022, and the creation of over 1,000 new jobs this year. In addition, BrewDog has taken a true leadership position in terms of sustainability. We have an incredible future, but our overriding priority is making sure we are the best employer we can be and that our people feel safe, valued and fulfilled. We will continue to provide updates on our journey.”