Boarded up and gone without notice was how I found the Brewdog bar in Brixton last March 2023, a place I occasionally frequented to sample their okay but massively overpriced beer. I suppose we pay for the silly creative names rather than the quality of the pint.
Looking for an explanation for the sudden disappearance, I turned to the local press expecting articles lamenting the loss of yet another drinking establishment in the area. Instead, the local press rightly lambasted Brewdog for the corporate frauds they really are, masquerading as anti-establishment and even progressive, while their executives harass and abuse female employees and generally treat their staff like dirt.
It comes as no surprise this company is now trying to diddle its workers out of earnings by cynically manipulating differences between the ‘real living wage’ as opposed to the ‘national minimum wage’.
Workers and trade unionists should of course support the Unite the union challenge to attacks on their members’ pay at Brewdog, and support the call for a £15-an-hour minimum wage (as a bare minimum to live on). But, until Brewdog pay its staff fairly and resolve this issue I am calling for an unofficial workers’ boycott of their beer and pubs!
Let them forsake Brixton for some trendy megapub hell in Waterloo. For the rest of us, Elvis has left the building!
Andy Tullis, Brixton
