BrewDog cheers one million stout milestone and looks to topple Guinness from supermarket shelves

Bosses at the Ellon-based brewer, which was founded in 2007, said its stout had “significantly disrupted” Guinness’ 100-year-strong grip on the market, growing to 12.6 per cent of Guinness sales in pubs and bars in just 12 months. More than 300 independent pubs across the UK are now pouring BrewDog’s new stout.

Market Town Taverns, which operates some 20 sites and pubs across the UK, has reported a significant increase in demand for Black Heart, seeing 11 per cent growth on the BrewDog offering versus Diageo-owned Guinness over St Patrick’s Day and the same weekend last year. In supermarkets, off-licences and other shops, Black Heart delivered £4 million worth of sales in the last four weeks of 2023, according to Nielsen Scantrack grocery sales data.

Across BrewDog’s own bars, the firm sold more than 300,000 pints of Black Heart while the new stout has also been the best-selling four-pack on BrewDog.com.

Chief executive James Watt said: “In just a year we have completely shattered the status quo and disrupted Guinness’ iron grip on the stout market. Black Heart is very quickly becoming the nation’s new favourite stout and our aim is for it to be the number one stout in supermarkets by 2027. It’s not so black and white anymore.”

The brewer exports its products to more than 60 countries and operates some 100 bars and venues worldwide.