BrewDog in their own words…

Once upon a time I ventured out of my flat and crossed the Holloway Road to watch the Jesus & Mary Chain play a gig at North London Poly. Interviews had been conducted, records had been reviewed, hype hyped — I’m on the guest list was always a sweet thing to say, especially if there was some cute Goth babe on the door. A mini riot broke out during the gig — after about 30 minutes or so — and they trashed their equipment on stage; predictability was attached to their name that night I felt. This is what the audience expected, this was what they had come for — rock’n’roll was as cosy and comfortable as The Archers, you knew what was going to happen. Previous generations had been led up a similar garden path by Jimi Hendrix pouring lighter fuel on his Strat and set it alight night after night, while others waiting with bated breath for Pete Townsend and Keith Moon to conduct a double demolition derby.

I was reminded of this Mary Chain gig when reading about BrewDog’s travails with the Portman Group — was this not to be expected? Hip young gunslingers on the brewing scene, calling out the cask alers, flash-mobbing the morality police, sticking a two fingered salute of barley sheaves in the direction of all and sundry. With a rare fit of Mary Whitehousism I felt that calling a beer Speedball, which was brewed in a town known for its desperate love of pharmaceuticals, was something akin to taking a holiday in other people’s misery. Yes, it was two hop-stained fingers up to the Portman Group and all its misplaced Victorian cosseting pity, but it also seemed to be  making light of the undeniable problems that people in Fraserburgh suffer from. Unless, of course, the brewery was made up of ex smack addicts and junkies who were proud to use the language of their addiction, eager to slap the faces of the censorious. I wasn’t sure of their lager — diacetyl hell I wrote somewhere.

After a while, I had another beer…
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