BrewDog Loses ‘Pink IPA’ Sex Discrimination Suit

A UK man who was denied a discount on BrewDog’s Pink IPA because he wasn’t a woman took the brewery to court and won!

A very strange story…

In March 2018 Dr. Thomas Bower went to BrewDog Cardiff and tried to order a pint of “Pink IPA” at the advertised price of £4 that was discounted as part of the punk brewer’s national campaign to highlight the gender pay gap.

BrewDog Pink IPA, complete with its pink labelling and tongue-in-cheek tagline “beers for girls,” was a playful take on the brewery’s Punk IPA. And that promotion came with a 20% one-day discount for women at its UK bars on March 8^th.

But what was intended to serve as a “clarion call to close the gender pay gap in the UK and around the world and to expose sexist marketing to women, particularly within the beer industry,” led to a sex discrimination case by Dr. Bower when he was denied that special pricing at BrewDog’s Cardiff bar because he was a man.

Bower told the WalesOnline  that he was initially refused the discount because of his gender…

“After a bit of back and forth, I felt forced to identify as female and was then able to get the drink for £4. I complained to the company about this and they said it wasn’t discrimination because the price difference was part of a national campaign to raise awareness about the gender pay gap.”

Bower, who clearly wasn’t satisfied with the company’s response to his complaint took his beef to court claiming that he was “humiliated” and “forced to lie” to partake in the promotion…

And the UK’s District Judge Phillips sided with Dr. Bower ruling that “it is clear in this case the claimant has been directly discriminated against by the defendant because of his sex.”

The recent court ruling was but the latest fallout from the BrewDog campaign that has already generated all kinds of criticism…

There’s no doubt that when BrewDog dubbed this release “Beer for Girls” (satirically or not) they were already in tricky waters. And when they dressed the IPA in pink (good cause be damned) they might have overplayed an already muddied hand.

In so many ways BrewDog’s renegade marketing instincts are borderline genius…

But given the latest court ruling on top of other complaints, no amount of spin on BrewDog’s part will convince us that this isn’t a marketing play that the Scottish punk brewers wouldn’t like to take back.

All image credits: BrewDog