BrewDog enters spirit market with WattDickie

BrewDog, Scotland’s largest independent brewery has lifted the curtain on its latest off-the-wall project– a “new style of spirit” called WattDickie.

The brewery’s first spirit is the result of “a radical brewing and ice-distillation process”, being held secret until its patent is approved. The 35%abv spirit, created using an IPA style beer, was launched on Friday at BrewDog’s speakeasy Underdog.

The initial batch of WattDickie will be available packaged in 6cl bottles at £2.99 each at BrewDog’s 12 craft beer bars and BrewDog.com/shop from the end of the month. Selected specialist retailers will also be able to make orders of the new style of spirit, with the brewer expecting demand to far outstrip the initial limited-production run.  The drink will be available in 70cl bottles later this year. 

James Watt, co-creator of WattDickie comments: “WattDickie is beyond innovation. This is alchemy and apothecary. There was no hypothesis here, no ‘grand plan’, just an innate need to see what was possible. We went to the limits of brewing and took a match to them. WattDickie shakes maniacally at the foundations of what’s expected of us and of everything around us. This is science fiction. It’s the dawn of a new era. Welcome to a strange new world.”

Following the success of high ABV beers from BrewDog, including Tactical Nuclear Penguin, Sink the Bismarck! and the 55% ABV The End of History – served from bottles made of dead squirrels – co-founder at BrewDog, Martin Dickie began plotting the creation of a new type of spirit created from beer. Following years of development, including bespoke distillation equipment, WattDickie is the first product from the brewery that the founders do not regard as ‘beer’.

Martin Dickie, alchemist-in-chief of WattDickie comments: “What we have here is not beer, but its alter-ego. This is Mr Hyde. This is the shiver down the spine of the grease-slick ad-man relying on people lapping up the ‘same-old, same-old’ from their sticky bottles of snake oil. This is a drink brewed by the misfits, for the misfits. It’s a beautiful, absurd experiment.”

The first batch of WattDickie will be available later this month from BrewDog’s 12 craft beer bars and on its online store at BrewDog.com,

WattDickie will remain separate from the BrewDog brand: a new spirit with its own unique brand identity featuring soldiers with shark and fox heads.

15 June 2013 - Felicity Murray