Brewdog – Equity for Punks IV – A New Hope!

Ok, so you’ve a passing interest in Craft Beer, and happen to have been living in an Afghani cave for the last couple of weeks, you’ll have missed the announcement by that upstart Brewdog that they were launching the fourth incarnation of their pioneering crowdfunding scheme, Equity for Punks. I’m not going to rehash that here, you can pop across to their site and take it in yourself. The link is https://www.brewdog.com/equityforpunks

Image courtesy of http://www.brewdog.com

As always these things divide opinion greatly, some for, some against, where’d we be without all of these debates. There are some great articles and things that other’s before me have written. One such article is here http://themissingdrink.com/investing-in-brewdog/ which while I agree with a lot of the points here, but I think to be fair, I don’t think your average Joe Soap punter who buys shares are buying as an investment, more wanting to be part of it. 

Full disclosure, I was flown with a group of UK & Ireland bloggers to the Brewdog Brewery in Ellon last August, at the time I had viewed Brewdog with a little bit of cynicism. Sometimes some of their fan boys annoyed me. But it was a real eye opener to actually get to visit them, and to talk to lots of people who are involved in what is a company that has experienced exponential growth over the last number of years. What struck me despite all the brashness of their early marketing days, was there was a humility, in terms of the newer mature branding for their range of beers, but also a realisation of how important to the craft beer revolution in the UK, and Europe Brewdog can be. Listening to their staff the enthusiasm and passion was infectious and you couldn’t help but think, this must be an amazing place to work.

The Bottling line in the brewery in Ello

I’d imagine work behind the scenes has been ongoing for months as this is one of if not the largest crowdfunding objective i’ve ever seen. £25m is a hell of a lot of money. Its a hell of a lot of money but also it matches the levels of ambition of the management team and company who clearly see themselves going on to be the dominant player in the European Craft Beer Market. This is an empire that is being constructed. 

Courtesy of Giphy.com

I have personally decided to invest in Brewdog, I am an Equity Punk, and I personally am not viewing this as an investment. Its more a community of like minded passionate Beer Fans, and to me that is as important as anything. Yes the discounts are nice, and the first options on new beers also. But as Niall points out in the article above, it’s more like a membership than an investment. I’m ok with that, and i’d imagine thousands of others are too.

If you decide you want to invest in Equity Punks, please use my referral code R237208