News brewed on 08/03/17
MAKE BEER NOT WALLS:BrewDog to build a craft beer bar across the US-Mexico border
Craft brewer aims to ‘cement its expansion in the US’ with a bar designed to promote collaboration and inclusivity.
August 3rd, 2017, Ohio, USA – BrewDog has today announced plans to open a new craft beer bar that ‘straddles’ the border between the USA and Mexico. The remote location of the new bar, dubbed ‘The Bar on the Edge,’ reflects the Scottish brewery’s intention to expand to the ‘farthest reaches’ of the United States, while its controversial positioning makes a physical statement about collaboration and inclusivity, which have always been a cornerstone of the craft brewer’s identity.The announcement will be celebrated with a Tex-Mex craft beer event at the brewery’s DogTap taproom in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. This Tex-Mex Tap Takeover will feature beers from Texan breweries Alamo Beer Company, Brash Brewing, No Label Brewing, 512 Brewing, Copperhead Brewing and Buffalo Bayou, alongside craft beer cocktails with Mexican Mezcal and Tequila.
World’s first cross-border bar
James Watt, co-founder at BrewDog commented:
“’The Bar on the Edge’ will beset upin the furthest outskirts of the United States, reflecting our ambition to reach every corner of the country as we begin to brew our beers on US soil. Beer has always been a unifying factor between cultures – and our business was born from collaboration and an inclusive approach – so we thought it would be fun to place the bar a few feet further to actually cross the US-Mexico border too.”
“We will request official permission from the local authorities to put it there and adhere to any red tape stuff, but I guess it would make it more difficult to build a wall if there’s a BrewDog bar in the way. We’re planning on putting the bar there anyway until someone tells us to move it.”
With specific locations still ‘top secret’, BrewDog has only revealedthat half will be in Texas and the other half in Chihuahua,Mexico. The geographical border will be represented by a dotted line across the center of the bar and along the venue’s outdoor seating area.
Built from old shipping containers, the construction would officially be defined as a temporary mobile building and will serve Mexicobeers on the US side, and US beers on the Mexico side, as well as BrewDog’s range of craft beers, brewed in Columbus Ohio.
Make Beer not Walls
Although the bar will be nowhere near any regular footfall, the founders hope it will become a magnetic pole for craft beer fans on both sides of the border to come together.
“Beer is a universal language and has a heritage and legacy that far outdates the creation of most nation states,” added Watt. “So we want to celebrate its capacity to bring cultures together with this ‘Bar on the Edge’. Craft beer has always been a collaborative and inclusive industry – we certainly couldn’t exist without being welcomed to the fold by many of the US breweries that inspired us – so we want to reinforce its social impact and capacity to bring people together.”
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom”
In Europe, the brewer has become renowned for making a statement with its beer, having unveiled the world’s first protest beer, ‘Hello my Name is Vladimir’ as a sarcastic attack on Putin’s ‘homophobic’ legislation prior to the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.The founders have also driven a tank to The Bank of England and dropped taxidermy fat cats onto London’s financial district. The ‘Bar on the Edge’ suggests that far from taming its approach for a more conservative US market, the brewery intends tocontinue its anti-establishment approach as it grows in the United States.
James Watt added:
“It was JFK that said, ‘conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth’. We love the US, and we already have an amazing army of fans over here, but we do not intend to bring BrewDog ‘lite’ to the US. The‘Bar on the Edge’ is our line in the sand, quite literally.”
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What is BrewDog?
Since 2007, BrewDog has been on a mission to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as they are. From the Headliner series, which includes bold, uncompromising pack leaders like the flagship Punk IPA, to the Amplified range (beer, but turned up to 11), BrewDog creates beer that blows people’s minds and has kick-started a revolution.
Cofounders James Watt and Martin Dickie shook up the business world in 2009 with the launch of pioneering crowdfunding initiative Equity for Punks, an initiative that has seen the company raise £40m since 2009, taking more money through crowdfunding than any other on record. The funds, and the army of punk shareholders (55,000) enabled the Scottish craft brewery to scale up without selling out.
With almost 50 global bar launches, export into 60 countries, and a brand new brewery in Ohio opening in 2017, BrewDog continues to take the craft beer revolution stratospheric, whilst continuing to push the boundaries, invest in people, put the beer first, and champion other small breweries in its venues.