Portman Rules Against BrewDog Tokyo*

A number of websites, including the Morning Advertiser and BBC, carry the breaking news that The Portman Group has ruled that BrewDog's 18.2% Tokyo* breached the Group's code of practice on responsible marketing. This is in response to complaints from Alcohol Concern Scotland, and, as reported extensively in the blogosphere, BrewDog themselves.

Portman are issuing a Retailer Alert asking that the beer should not be sold until the marketing is compliant with the code of practice. With typical BrewDog punk attitude, the brewer has offered to provide Portman with the names and addresses of the small list of outlets which sells the beer.

All of the coverage mentions the subsequent launch of Tactical Nuclear Penguin, the brewers' 32% "uber-imperial stout", which interestingly, attracted relatively subdued coverage from the press, including a quite good piece in the Guardian online. Interestingly, that article mentions that BrewDog had withdrawn Tokyo* as Portman had "banned" it, which jumped the gun on this ruling by about a week, though proved prescient.

I wonder if this could be the end for Tokyo*, though. At a recent 'Meet the Brewer' event at Melissa Cole's LoveBeer@Borough, James Watt said that they were looking at casking some of the beer and selling it alongside the keg version. Time (and a change in the marketing?) will tell.