Expecting to receive first prize, BrewDog employees attended the awards on Sunday 6 May and were seated with the judges.
When the announcement was made and they realised they had not won, one of the judges was mortified, saying; “this simply cannot be, the independent judging panel voted for BrewDog as clear winners of the award”.
When the people were given the award refused to accept it, as it clearly had ‘BrewDog’ engraved on the trophy as winners.
A Diageo spokesman responded: “There was a serious misjudgement by Diageo staff at the awards dinner on Sunday evening in relation to the Bar Operator of the Year Award, which does not reflect in anyway Diageo’s corporate values and behaviour.
“We would like to apologise unreservedly to BrewDog and to the British Institute of Innkeeping for this error of judgement and we will be contacting both organisations imminently to express our regret for this unfortunate incident.”
James Watt, cofounder at BrewDog, said: “Diageo’s actions are shameless, misguided and embarrassing. This is clear evidence of the dirty tricks used by global corporations to derail young competitors they fear.
“We are often criticised for suggesting big businesses do not play fair in this industry, yet this is another clear indication that some organisations feel they are big enough to be kingmakers, controllers of everyone else’s fate.
“As a sponsor, Diageo had no right to interfere with the independent judging process, but they abused their position to make a small and stupid statement like this one.”
Source: BrewDog
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