A Review of the BBC Disclosure BrewDog Documentary: Misogyny in Hospitality

                        Disclosure: The Truth about BrewDog

                                       

A Review of the 2022 BBC Documentary 

 

BrewDog is a company I am somewhat passive about. I like the beer and the vibe of the bars, I like the idea of the company ethos but think it’s sightly overpriced, even for Edinburgh. I probably drink there about once a month but can honestly say I’ve never given my relationship with the company more than a few minutes thought, if at all. However, I was intrigued when I heard talk of the BBC disclosure documentary. I was hearing people talk about how the documentary had displayed how horrendous the company and CEO was, how it has totally changed their mind on how they perceived the brand.  

 

On watching the documentary, I found myself frustrated with the statements being made. Not because I found anything being said to be untrue, but because these discoveries were being announced as shocking revelations.  

 

As someone who has worked in the hospitality industry for five years, and behind a bar for three of those, I was completely unaware that general public was so naive about the culture surrounding the industry; a culture which I am in absolutely no way defending but am acknowledging is extremely prevalent. I feel it was unfair for the BBC to highlight these issues as if they were born from BrewDog and its CEO James Watt and not the toxic environments that exist in all hospitality venues.  

 

I’ll refrain from discussing the business side explored in the documentary, including the crowd funded ‘Equity for Punks’ scheme, and the unsavoury tax dealings of the CEO James Watt. Simply because I feel extremely unqualified and therefore believe how I feel about it isn’t at all relevant. However, I will discuss the claims made about the work environment as I feel more able to offer a valuable and balanced view on that.  

 

One of the major issues addressed was the misogyny female employs encountered working in the bars and breweries. Although this is disgraceful and completely unacceptable, I can say it is somewhat universal, especially in bar and kitchen environments, as professional bars and kitchens are traditionally male dominated jobs whereas waiting tables is traditionally female. An issue also arises within management when you consider 65% of all jobs in hospitality are occupied by women but 52% of all management roles are filled by men. The statistics become more unbalanced the further up the management scale you go. The inconsistent balance does create an uncomfortable environment as a woman. I personally, as the female member of an otherwise entirely male bartending team for the best part of a year, have often felt a pressure to be ‘one of the boys.’ To tolerate their ‘banter’ however I felt about it for fear of being shunned from the team environment. I know from friends at other businesses, past and present, that it is pretty much a universally female experience in the industry. This is a massive issue and absolutely needs to be addressed.  

 

However, the point I’m making is this is not an exclusively BrewDog issue and to report it as such is undermining the fundamental issues within hospitality as a whole. I feel the thought process of blaming hundreds of years of generational misogyny and its subsequent consequences on the mission statement of an individual CEO is a massive oversimplification of the issue. That is why, although I don’t agree with the practices of BrewDog, I do believe the treatment they received in their BBC Disclosure documentary was unfair.