Interview: James Watt — the punk at the head of BrewDog brewery
BrewDog may be worth £1bn but its boss says he's not joined the Establishment
November 5 2017, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
James Watt at BrewDog's HQ in Aberdeenshire: the company opened its first overseas brewery this yearMURDO MACLEOD
James Watt raises his hand in warning. The boss of Scottish craft ale giant BrewDog tells me not to treat the beer I have just been offered like a beer. Instead, I am invited to absorb the flavours of rum, raisins and burnt sugar. The spicy vanilla woodiness should arrive as a pleasant aftertaste.
"You've got to drink it like you would a spirit," says Watt, 35, after taking an admiring sniff of the 12.5%-strength beverage — part of an hour-long tasting session. "If you drink it like a beer it's just going to knock you on your back."
Insisting that a beer is not a beer is typically contrarian of Watt, who has a carefully curated reputation as an extrovert outsider. He once rode…