Premier Hospitality Scotland

Introducing DogTap

Dog Tap, Ellon
Written by Roma Publications

Dog Tap, Ellon

Brewdog punters can now enjoy the freshest BrewDog pint ever following the unveiling of DogTap, the chain’s newest site in Ellon, which backs onto the firm’s brewery.

The site boasts 10 taps of great BrewDog beer, brewed on site, as well an interactive visitor centre and a small BottleDog merchandise offering.

The site used to house BrewDog offices but since the construction of new office space and production facilities the space has been transformed to create BrewDog’s first interactive venue. Premier Hospitality caught up with Kerry Allison, Operations Manager for BrewDog’s Bar Division, who acted as the project manager during the DogTap project.

Kerry said the onsite team had a very tight time frame to work towards, with just four weeks to renovate the space and open the site; it was all teams go from the start of June 2014 to the beginning of July. Kerry added:

“This is one of the most exciting things that I have done in my four years at this company. I have opened multiple bars for them but this is the best and most exciting because of what it means for the company; we have finally got somewhere for people to come and experience what it means to be part of BrewDog.

Dog Tap, Ellon

“This is not a standard bar project in any way – it is much more than that as the site in Ellon is attached to our brewery. We have always wanted to have a brewery tap and visitor centre at the brewery but have never had the luxury of space to do it; so building second offices and new production facilities freed up the old offices, allowing us to install DogTap.”

Main contractors Francey and CM Design worked alongside BrewDog to make the new venue a reality. Although the firm did work alongside CM Design during the renovation works the design of the space was mainly established in house.

Although the venue is primarily a bar Dog Tap is also a visitor centre, tap room, shop and pilot brewing facility. The venue contains a 10 HL brewing system for recipe development and interactive brewing. The Tap Room has 10 beers on tap serving the freshest BrewDog beer anywhere in the world.

Dog Tap, Ellon

Upon walking through the front door guests find themselves in the customer area of the bar comprising booth seating situated in the windows and long communal style drinking tables, made from old scaffolding planks from Glasgow.

The main bar follows the traditional BrewDog style having being created from reclaimed house bricks and finished with a polished concrete top. The draught board is a custom made 1950’s style cinema board which has been backlit to highlight the varied beer choices.

The main customer area contains a glass wall leading to the merchandise shop; Bottle Dog which contains four tall double fridges full of BrewDog branded beers. The space is visually stunning and acts as a great showcase of how many beers the brand has handcrafted over the years.

At the end of DogTap the microbrew kit has been installed which is ideal for encouraging customers to get involved in the brewing process, by making small batches of beer. The onsite team retained the original structure of the office building and just removed some of the walls to free up more space. The reception desk has been cleverly converted into one of the venues tables and acts as a nice feature to show guests what the venue used to be and what it is today.

Dog Tap, Ellon

The 60 capacity, one storey venue lies at the front of BrewDog’s horseshoe shaped two storey office building, which also house extensive warehouse facilities. The onsite team worked throughout the day and night during the month long project in order to achieve the expected completion date.

 

 

 

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Roma Publications