BrewDog Solid Gold Beer Can Mostly Brass

(Courtesy BrewDog)

Scotland-headquartered global craft brewer, BrewDog has been feeling the heat of late. On June 9^th 70 former employees accused its founders, James Watt and Martin Dickie of creating a “culture of fear” and that number grew to more 250 in the following week.

On June 17^th, Watt took to Linkedin, where he took 100% of the blame for the situation but now the brewery is facing yet another complaint, this time about its Willie Wonka themed solid gold can giveaway.

Facsimiles of the gold cans were hidden in cases of BrewDog’s Punk IPA and if you found one of those the brewery would gift you a real gold can as well£10,000 ($13,100 US) worth of BrewDog investor shares and a VIP tour of its brewery in Scotland.

Turns out one man who won one of the gold Punk IPA cans which the brewery valued at £15,000 ($19,700 US)  discovered that the can wasn’t solid gold and that it was primarily brass.

Mark Craig who lives from Lisburn, Northern Ireland, told The Guardian that when gold traders revealed the cold hard truth about the Punk IPA can’s true composition he was disappointed, adding that it’s true value was appraised as being closer to £10,000 rather than the £15,000 that was advertised.

A certificate provided by BrewDog confirmed that the can was in fact only gold-plated, but stood by its £15,000 value based on “based on multiple factors,” including the “price we paid for its manufacture, the constituent metal and quality of the final product, the standard retail markup and the rarity and uniqueness of the cans.”

“A spokesperson for BrewDog said that social media posts containing ‘erroneous’ mentions of ‘solid gold’ cans had been removed as soon as the company became aware of the slip up,” according to the Drinks Business and that the company “could not guarantee the value of the cans on the open market.”