Waiting for the Brewdog divorce settlement

The recent news about Brewdog isn't particularly encouraging. Even as a pessimist, it feels like an almost unfathomably bleak turn of events.

A little story: 

Brewdog were once, briefly, my favourite brewery. In their very early years, between 2008 and 2010, they put out some excellent beers, were at the forefront of a rise in high quality and experimntal brewing in the UK, and while they weren't exactly the pioneers they purported to be, they were major players, doing good things and I liked them a lot. 

That is why I put my money where my mouth was, and became one of the earliest 'Equity for Punks' investors. I spent, I think, £810 on three 'shares' back in, when was it? 2009? It was definitely the first wave of the EFP mania. 

And I regretted it almost immediately, because Brewdog - having taken my money - went in a very different direction to what I'd have liked.  Founder James Watt showed himself to be an absolutely massive bellend - no that's an understatement - a cuntishly borderline psychopath is probably closer to the mark.

Golden Pints: BV's best beers of 2025

Well, that's another year done and dusted. How was it for you? Did you drink some good beer? Excellent.

Personally, I was sat there all contendedly like, thinking that 2025 was probably fairly decent, ale-wise, but delving a tad more deeply into me records (for the purpose of this post) the past year actually appears far more underwhelming. Certainly less whelming. Quite disappointing, even, which is just what I needed at this time of year. Fuck you, you stupid year!

Unless the spreadsheets are telling lies, I managed 597 new cask beers during the year (about 100 down on 2024) and only five of them scored the 'effective maximum' of 8/9, which, I suppose, means they can all be detailed here without any need to shortlist them, so at least I won't have to remember which were slightly better than the others and perform tie-breakers in my head!

This takes my overall total up to 12,890 since I first starting keeping track, exactly 30 years ago. (Happy beer-ticking anniversary to me! Do I get a Pearl tankard or something?) 

I'll try and work out my absolute 'beer of the year' in a moment, but firstly, a few mentions of the - ahem - 'other' stuff...