James Watt BrewDog
BrewDog CEO
BrewDog, one of the world's most popular craft breweries, was co-founded by James Watt, an Aberdeenshire entrepreneur. James earned an honours degree in Law and Economics before starting on a hop-fueled quest that would permanently change the face of the beer industry. It didn't take him long to realize that the corporate suit-and-tie world of litigation and libel wasn't for him, so he quit his job as a lawyer after only a few weeks and returned to Northeast Scotland to join his father as a fully-qualified Deepsea Captain.
James changed his life when he was 24 years old. James teamed up with a buddy, Martin Dickie, and began brewing their own beers in Martin's mother's garage, inspired by the bold and adventurous beers being made by a new wave of brewers on the West Coast of the United States. Their preference for intensely hopped and brutally bitter brews set them apart in a world dominated by cask bitters and mass-produced lagers, especially in Fraserburgh. Unafraid of criticism, they pursued their passion via painstaking research, experimentation, and boundary-pushing concepts, determined to show that beer could be more than a bubbly yellow liquid produced by worldwide brewers.