Ex BrewDog CEO follows Elon Musk lead as he shares UK Doge plan

[T_i_B]

James Watt came to prominence with Brewdog thanks to his well known penchant for silly publicity stunts. From a 55% beer inside a taxidermy squirrel to projecting pictures of himself and his business partner on the House of Commons.

Over time, Brewdog became less "punk" and increasingly corporate, with Watt having to leave his position as CEO over questions about the workplace culture in their bars and Watt's behaviour towards female staff. And now he's jumped on the right wing grifter bandwagon, aping the behaviour of dodgy Tufton Street think tanks.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24932280.brewdogs-james-watt-follows-elon-musk-lead-shares-uk-doge-plan/

BrewDog founder James Watt has shared his vision to ‘save out country’ and become Britain’s version of Elon Musk.

Watt outlined his plans on social media when he announced the creation of ‘Shadow Doge’, the UK version of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in the United States. He wants to follow the South African-born businessman’s example and believes he can find ways to improve Britain’s spending.

He plans on using Freedom of Information requests to highlight where tax money is ‘carelessly’ being spent and has also created an anonymous hotline for public sector workers to report areas where they think waste is being created with funding.

Some of his other plans include publishing a monthly report on where the government can be more efficient with spending, taking an ‘entrepreneurial approach’ to the public sector to highlight where it could make billions of pounds of cuts and publishing a league table with public bodies that are ‘worst offending’ at wasting money.

[Clouds Passing]

1. What evil alien race are these weirdos channeling?

[Emrys]

2. He already has a reputation as being a publicity-hungry arsehole, so what a surprise

I guess we should be glad he's moved on from peddling undrinkable beer and terrorizing and sexually harrassing his staff.

[T_i_B]

3. The beer used to be a lot better

There's a number of old Brewdog beers that were hugely important in the evolution of the UK beer scene. But even when they were at their best in terms of brewing beer, Watt's penchant for publicity stunts always managed to sour things.

These days I have to admit that I haven't been in a Brewdog bar since 2021. It was their Tower Hill branch in the City of London and it was an incredibly corporate experience that was about as far removed from their old "punk" ethos as it's possible to get!

[Emrys]

4. I've never been to one of their bars

I've always found their gimmicky marketing revolting and I'm not a fan of cloying over-strength beers, which has seemed to be their main schtick.

The only beer of theirs I've found at all drinkable was their Punk IPA, and I can happily live without it.

[T_i_B]

5. Haven't drunk any of their stronger offerings in ages

Beers such as Hardcore IPA were spectacular back in the day, but these days I seem to only ever come across the lower strength stuff in supermarkets. Of course it doesn't help that I don't drink that much these days and therefore don't go in their bars, which is probably the only place you'll find their strong stuff.

But a big part of their marketing for a while was James Watt essentially running a personality cult.

And often Brewdog would play fast and loose with the facts. Such as claiming that the two guys who started it were "just a couple of home brewers" when in fact Watt's business partner Martin Dickie is a Herriot Watt trained brewer who had previously been production manager at the equally influential Thornbridge brewery in Derbyshire!