Time to put the dog down?

The rise and fall of craft beer in Britain has been an interesting, and at times irritating, thing to watch. The same could be said about Brewdog, the company that made the most noise, and money, out of it. 

They seem to be circling the drain now though. A recently spate of bad news started with the (rather belated) report that they'd lost 2000 on trade accounts. Losing out to Heineken's Beavertown I suspect, as Heineken also own thousands of pubs. And speaking of pubs Brewdog have also closed a lot of theirs recently. 

The still shift a lot of beer in supermarkets, but they're not getting premium prices for their beers there. In fact, they're cheaper than the other multinational corporations offerings. I recently saw Guinness' premium product at £8.75 for a four pack...

... compared to Brewdog's stout at £4.50.

Price per litre was £3.92 for the Guinness and £2.56 for Brewdog. There was a less premium version of Guinness there too, which like the Brewdog stout was going for a sale price, but even that was £3.41.

There's a similar big gap when Brewdog undercut Molson Coors' Doom Bar, the original at £5.30 a litre...

... whereas Brewdog's coastal 4.3% ABV amber ale is £3.55 a litre. The craft beer revolution was all about making a knock off version of Doom Bar, right?

And even when Brewdog aren't undercutting the companies they claim to despise they're still the budget option in the craft section, their beers being the discounted ones:

Now it is possible I've just looked when it's Brewdog's turn in the discount cycle, but I still can't see any way this is good for them. They're still making losses and have stagnant sales. Brewdog are by far the most successful of the British craft breweries but they're still small compared to the really big breweries. Competing with them for the tiny margins of supermarket discounting is not going to solve their problems any time soon.