Taking Boris to ‘cask’ over water (cannon) gate.

Irreverent craft brewer BrewDog this week announced its willingness to do taxpayers a favor and take London’s three ill-considered water cannons off mayor Sadiq Khan’s hands, free of charge.

Popular listings site Buzzfeed reported the total cost to the UK for housing the entirely ineffectual cannons as being £320,000. Described by London mayor Sadiq Kahn as “redundant machines”, the German-bought vehicles have been mothballed since 2014. Originally purchased by Boris Johnson in an ill-considered move for £85,000, the costs for transporting, storing and maintaining the never-used crowd-control measures has sky-rocketed over the past three years.

“BrewDog wants to take these instruments of enforced crowd control out of circulation for good, said BrewDog co-founder, James Watt, in a letter to Kahn. “Rather than flog these pressurised authority machines to a tin-pot dictator to quell an uprising, we feel we’d be much better suited to being the new owners of these barely-driven vehicles. We understand big tanks, high pressure and how best to deploy liquid to crowds on a busy night. Our goal would be to turn the cannon into a mobile brewery, with all money raised from sale of resultant beer to support social cohesion rather than mass division.”

What is BrewDog?

Since 2007 BrewDog has been on a mission to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as we are. From the Headliner series, which includes bold, uncompromising pack leaders like the flagship Punk IPA, to the Amplified range (beer, but turned up to 11), BrewDog creates beer that blows people’s minds and has kick-started a revolution. Cofounders James Watt and Martin Dickie shook up the business world in 2010 with the launch of pioneering crowdfunding scheme Equity for Punks, an initiative that has seen the company raise £26m over four rounds, taking more money through crowdfunding than any other on record. The funds, and the army of punk shareholders (46,000) enabled the Scottish craft brewery to scale up without selling out. With over 46 global bar launches, export into 55 countries, and a brand new brewery in Ohio opening in 2016/2017, BrewDog continues to take the craft beer revolution stratospheric, whilst continuing to push the boundaries, invest in people, put the beer first, and champion other small breweries in its venues.