James Bruce Watt MBE was born on May 18th 1982 in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. His father was a fisherman, and his mother was a teacher before he was born.

Watt attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied law and economics between 2000 and 2004. During this time, he shared a flat with his school friend Martin Dickie, who was studying distilling at Heriot-Watt University. The pair shared a passion for brewing and would go on to found BrewDog together.

Upon graduation, Watt secured a job as a trainee solicitor but left after two weeks. He then worked as a professional fisherman, following in his father’s footsteps, earning a captain’s qualification. In his free time, he would brew homemade beer.

Personal life

In 2013, he married Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford OBE. The couple met in 2006 and have two daughters. Basford divorced Watt in 2020. In 2022, Watt admitted to a “brief, amicable relationship with a team member” during a difficult period of his marriage.

In 2024, he became engaged to former Made In Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo, whom he had been in a relationship with since 2023. Watt faced backlash for announcing that he was considering delaying their marriage for up to three years to avoid paying tax on an investment in Toffolo’s business venture.

He was awarded an MBE alongside business partner Martin Dickie in 2016.

Watt states that his relationship with his parents wasn’t as easy as it could have been. While close to his father, Watt said he hadn’t spoken to his mother for 20 years. His parents married in 1977 and separated 25 years later followed by complex divorce proceedings over the division of assets.

Watt is autistic and has ADHD. His diagnosis came when seeking help after being described as “semi-autistic” by a journalist.

BrewDog

In 2007, at the age of just 24, Watt and Dickie founded BrewDog, a brewery and pub chain, in Fraserburgh, with Watt acting as CEO. Despite being brushed off by Dragon’s Den the following year (and again in later years as a Dragon), BrewDog grew to make itself a fairly rapid success.

Watt and Dickie opened their first bar in Aberdeen in 2009. The company raised further capital by offering crowdfunding shares in 2011, totalling £2 million.

The company’s products quickly started raking in the awards, including several at the top of the brewing tree…

• 2007: World’s Best Strong Pale Ale (Sub Category Winner) for The Physics by the World Beer Awards.
• 2007: World’s Best Imperial Stout (Style Trophy Winner) for Rip Tide by the World Beer Awards.
• 2008: Gold medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup in the Wood and Barrel-aged Strong Beer Category for Paradox Grain.
• 2010: Gold at the 2010 World Beer Cup in the Imperial IPA category for Hardcore IPA.

This represents an impressive haul for their first three years of brewing. And understandably so, their products are excellent. The list, of course, doesn’t include local, regional or even national awards. BrewDog is currently the seventh-largest beer brand in Britain, and claims to be the “No.1 Craft Brewer in Europe.”

For his part, Watt is believed to be worth over £250 million.

Accusations begin

In June 2021, a group of over 100 former BrewDog employees published an open letter criticising the firm’s business practices and the treatment of its employees. The letter cited a “culture of fear” and claimed the company was “built on a cult of personality”, with founder and CEO Watt singled out for particular criticism.

In May 2024, Watt stepped down as CEO after 17 years, following a string of accusations of promoting a climate of fear and inappropriate behaviour – claims made by several members of company staff. Many of these allegations were made in a BBC documentary, broadcast in 2022, about working life at BrewDog.

It led Watt to make a complaint to Ofcom regarding what he considered unfair treatment by the BBC. Ofcom, in reply, stated Brewdog and Mr Watt had been given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond to the allegations made in the programme, and that their response was fairly reflected in the broadcast. “Mr Watt’s legitimate expectation of privacy did not, on balance, outweigh the broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression and the public interest in obtaining and including the material in the programme.”

He was replaced by Chief Operating Officer James Arrow. BrewDog’s losses had doubled to £59 million in Watt’s final year. Watt retained his shares in the company, and moved to the newly-created position of ‘captain and co-founder.’

In January 2024, BrewDog announced it would stop paying the ‘real living wage’ in an attempt to get back to profitability (the company had lost £24m the previous year) – a move which drew criticism and a staff backlash as employees claimed the company was “abandoning its principles.”

The company lost its B Corp certificate in 2024.

Punk attitudes

One person’s ‘outrage’ is another person’s humour. Embracing its punk ethos, BrewDog would often sail close to the wind regarding the provocative promotion of its products.

In 2008, the Portman Group – a trade group composed of alcoholic beverage producers and brewers in the UK advocating responsible drinking and behaviour amongst its members – accused them of aggressive marketing, though the company was ultimately cleared of any breaches. BrewDog denied these allegations and countered that Portman was impeding the development of smaller brewing companies. It’s about as punk as one can get – upsetting the ‘establishment’ without actually doing anything wrong or illegal.

In response, BrewDog launched a beer named Speedball, which was promptly banned and renamed Dogma. The brewery gained further attention for producing high-strength beers, including Tokyo* (18.2% ABV) and Tactical Nuclear Penguin (32% ABV). BrewDog’s marketing campaigns, including a 2015 crowdfunding advert and a “non-binary transgender beer,” sparked a backlash over perceived insensitivity.

While that may fall within the punk ideology, it did, at times, cross the line.

In 2014, Portman claimed BrewDog was in breach of Portman’s Code of Practice “for encouraging both anti-social behaviour and rapid drinking” through the labelling of the Dead Pony Club IPA, which it claimed placed “undue emphasis on the strength and intoxicating effect of the alcohol in the product”.

In September 2015, a petition was launched and signed by 8000 people in response to a BrewDog advert, stating: “They claim to be ethical. Yet in their new crowdsourcing video they mock homeless people, trans women and sex workers”. In November of the same year, the company went on to launch a “non-binary, transgender beer” and faced further criticism from the charity Stonewall.

In March 2018, BrewDog produced Pink IPA, a limited edition bottling of Punk IPA (by now, BrewDog has copyrighted the word ‘punk’ in relation to beer and brewing), brought out to coincide with International Women’s Day and intended to highlight the gender pay gap.

The launch of Pink IPA was met with criticism of the beer’s marketing campaign. Later that year, the Portman Group ruled that the labelling for Pink IPA breached Portman’s Code of Conduct, upholding complaints from members of the public that the phrase “Beer for Girls”, used on the packaging, was likely to appeal to under-18s.

Despite initially dismissing the Portman ruling, in 2020, BrewDog CEO Watt later placed Pink IPA at the top of a list of his ‘biggest Mistakes’ acknowledging that “Despite the good intentions, our execution was terrible. ... The backlash was justified.”

In 2021, BrewDog came under investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority concerning their claim that 24-carat solid gold beer cans had been hidden in cases of beer. Some winners had their cans independently valued, discovering the cans to be gold-plated brass valued at £500. Watt contacted 50 winners to offer a full cash amount, ultimately buying 40 of the cans out of his own pocket.

Away from beer

Watt appeared alongside Martin Dickie in 2013 on their reality TV show Brew Dogs on the American network Esquire, which lasted for three seasons. After Esquire shut down in 2017, they launched the BrewDog Network, priced at $4.99 monthly. The network’s initial PR campaign centred around the launch of beer.porn - a parody of a well-known pornography website - featuring content which drew criticism from industry observers and some shareholders.

In January 2025, Watt announced he was looking to start a new TV programme to offer a £2 million investment into a start-up company. Titled ‘House Of Unicorns’ (or ‘The Next Unicorn’ – as yet undecided), he is on the hunt for a startup company with promising potential to invest in.

Unicorn startups are highly desirable to investors because they have the potential to be extremely profitable, can disrupt markets and introduce new consumer trends. House Of Unicorns will see ten of these businesses go head-to-head over six weeks as they compete to win Watt’s largesse - the largest cash prize in UK TV history.

As to whether this next venture in Watt’s career takes off is yet to be seen, especially as £2 million is not exactly small beer.