BrewDog Doubles U.K. Sales Team After Losing Nearly 2,000 Pub Accounts

BrewDog has doubled its field sales team in the United Kingdom as it tries to win back pub and bar accounts after disappearing from nearly 2,000 outlets before Tilray’s acquisition of parts of the business earlier this year, according to The Sunday Times, which cited the brewer’s commercial director.

The report said Tilray has expanded BrewDog’s sales presence on the ground since buying certain assets of the company in March. The brewer is also offering up to 1,000 free barrels to venues as it tries to rebuild its position in the hospitality trade, a key route to market for beer brands that depend on taps and bar listings as much as retail shelf space.

The scale of the loss gives a measure of the challenge facing BrewDog in pubs. Nearly 2,000 lost outlets represents a sharp drop in distribution for a brand that built much of its identity in bars and the broader craft beer scene. The new sales push appears aimed at reversing that decline by giving the brand more direct contact with pub operators and a promotional incentive to put BrewDog back on tap.

Tilray disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it bought certain BrewDog assets for £33 million in March. That figure was already public before the latest report and does not reflect a new transaction this month. The new information in the Sunday Times report was the doubling of the field sales team and the reference to the nearly 2,000 pubs the brand had lost before the deal.

Neither Tilray nor BrewDog has publicly provided the current size of the sales force, how many pub accounts have been recovered, or how much beer has been placed through the campaign so far. Without those figures, it is not possible to calculate a recovery rate or measure how quickly BrewDog is rebuilding its on-trade distribution.

The offer of free barrels is a common tactic in a competitive pub market, where brewers often use discounts, trial volumes, or equipment support to persuade venues to add a new line or restore a former one. In BrewDog’s case, the promotion comes after a period in which the brand’s visibility in pubs had weakened sharply. The value of the offer was not disclosed, and no details were published on how the free barrels are being allocated among venues or over what period.

The effort comes at a time when brewers in Britain are competing for limited bar space in a difficult operating environment for pubs and hospitality businesses. Rising costs, pressure on consumer spending, and strong competition from both large brewers and smaller local producers have made tap placements more contested. For brands that lose a listing, returning can require both a stronger commercial presence and financial incentives for landlords and operators.

BrewDog remains one of the better-known names in British craft beer, but the loss of nearly 2,000 pub accounts shows how quickly distribution can erode when a company goes through financial distress and ownership change. Rebuilding those relationships usually takes time because pub groups, independent landlords, and wholesalers tend to review brands on sales performance, reliability of supply, and margin as much as name recognition.

The Sunday Times report did not include updated sales, production, or volume figures for BrewDog after Tilray’s purchase. It also did not say how many of the lost pubs were free houses, managed sites, or part of larger chains, a distinction that matters because winning back a national pub group can restore many outlets at once, while recovering independent venues tends to happen one account at a time.

What is clear from the company’s latest move is that BrewDog’s new owner is putting more people into the field and using free stock to accelerate the brand’s return to the bar trade. For now, the size of the earlier distribution loss is easier to measure than the extent of the recovery.