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Headline: Bar Will Straddle Border Between Mexico and USA

Caption: BrewDog has announced plans to open a new craft beer bar that ‘straddles’ the border between the USA and Mexico. The remote location of the new bar, dubbed ‘The Bar on the Edge,’ reflects the Scottish brewery’s intention to expand to the ‘farthest reaches’ of the United States, while its controversial positioning makes a physical statement about collaboration and inclusivity, which have always been a cornerstone of the craft brewer’s identity. The announcement will be celebrated with a Tex-Mex craft beer event at the brewery’s DogTap taproom in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. This Tex-Mex Tap Takeover will feature beers from Texan breweries Alamo Beer Company, Brash Brewing, No Label Brewing, 512 Brewing, Copperhead Brewing and Buffalo Bayou, alongside craft beer cocktails with Mexican Mezcal and Tequila. World’s first cross-border bar James Watt, co-founder at BrewDog commented: “’The Bar on the Edge’ will be set up in the furthest outskirts of the United States, reflecting our ambition to reach every corner of the country as we begin to brew our beers on US soil. Beer has always been a unifying factor between cultures – and our business was born from collaboration and an inclusive approach – so we thought it would be fun to place the bar a few feet further to actually cross the US-Mexico border too.” “We will request official permission from the local authorities to put it there and adhere to any red tape stuff, but I guess it would make it more difficult to build a wall if there’s a BrewDog bar in the way. We’re planning on putting the bar there anyway until someone tells us to move it.” With specific locations still ‘top secret’, BrewDog has only revealed that half will be in Texas and the other half in Chihuahua, Mexico. The geographical border will be represented by a dotted line across the center of the bar and along the venue’s outdoor seating area. Built from old shipping containers, the construction would officially be defined as a temporary mobile building and will serve Mexico beers on the US side, and US beers on the Mexico side, as well as BrewDog’s range of craft beers, brewed in Columbus Ohio. Make Beer not Walls Although the bar will be nowhere near any regular footfall, the founders hope it will become a magnetic pole for craft beer fans on both sides of the border to come together. “Beer is a universal language and has a heritage and legacy that far outdates the creation of most nation states,” added Watt. “So we want to celebrate its capacity to bring cultures together with this ‘Bar on the Edge’. Craft beer has always been a collaborative and inclusive industry – we certainly couldn’t exist without being welcomed to the fold by many of the US breweries that inspired us – so we want to reinforce its social impact and capacity to bring people together.” “Conformity is the jailer of freedom” In Europe, the brewer has become renowned for making a statement with its beer, having unveiled the world’s first protest beer, ‘Hello my Name is Vladimir’ as a sarcastic attack on Putin’s ‘homophobic’ legislation prior to the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. The founders have also driven a tank to The Bank of England and dropped taxidermy fat cats onto London’s financial district. The ‘Bar on the Edge’ suggests that far from taming its approach for a more conservative US market, the brewery intends to continue its anti-establishment approach as it grows in the United States. James Watt added: “It was JFK that said, ‘conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth’. We love the US, and we already have an amazing army of fans over here, but we do not intend to bring BrewDog ‘lite’ to the US. The ‘Bar on the Edge’ is our line in the sand, quite literally.”

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