Words & Photo - Matthew Curtis

Sussex based brewery Burning Sky has revealed its decision to pull its beer from all of BrewDog’s 29 domestic and 17 international bars with immediate effect. Burning Sky founder and head brewer Mark Tranter has also revealed exclusively to Total Ales that his brewery will cease any other activity, such as meet the brewer events, with the Aberdeenshire based brewery.

In an email sent to BrewDog last week, Tranter outlined his reasons behind making this decision. In the note he argues that the Scottish brewer, which owns the trademark for the word punk in relation to beer, is behaving in a manner that runs against the very ideology upon which the punk movement was founded.

“Historically they have been derogative towards the UK brewing scene - which we find insulting,” Tranter said, speaking to Total Ales about his decision. “They are choosing to define what is and isn't craft to suit themselves.”

Tranter, a self-identifying punk, echoes an opinion shared by the rest of the punk community. His decision follows the threat of legal action by BrewDog over the proposed opening of a bar in Leeds that was to be named “Draft Punk.” This threat followed a previous legal wrangling with a Birmingham based pub previously called Lone Wolf, which shared its moniker with the Scottish brewers new range of spirits. The bar shortened its name to The Wolf and went on to produce a limited edition gin with Brewdog called Wolf Pack. The irony that this new gin shares its name with an existing brand of lager seems to have escaped the beer community at large.