BrewDog cofounder James Watt accused Diageo of using their position as sponsor of the event to influence event organisers the BII (British Institute of Innkeeping) into not giving the title of Bar Operator of the Year 2012 to BrewDog. Watt claimed that the trophy had his company name engraved on it.
A Diageo spokesperson said: “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.”
BrewDog has used the opportunity to create a storm on social networking site Twitter and the hashtag #andthewinnerisnot was trending on the site.
