BrewDog Edinburgh Lothian Road
One of eleven BrewDog bars in the UK and Ireland that survived the company's administration in March 2026.
Why go
BrewDog PLC went into administration on 2 March 2026, and Tilray Brands bought it the same day for £33m.1 Tilray took the Ellon brewery, the Motherwell distribution center, the brands and eleven bars. Thirty-eight closed that afternoon and 484 people lost their jobs, and Equity for Punks investors got nothing back. Three Scottish units were kept, and this is one: Ellon's DogTap, DogHouse Edinburgh, and Lothian Road. The Cowgate bar is on the closure list.2
The room is the old Clydesdale Bank building on the north corner of Festival Square, taken over in January 2018 across two floors, and CAMRA's branch record calls it much larger than the Cowgate bar with a correspondingly wider range.3 The food is burgers and wings, and Wednesday is an unlimited wing night at £17.95, pre-booked.4
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever guest keg is on. The house range sits on supermarket shelves; the rotating lines are what this room has.
- Order: the wings on a Wednesday if you are going to eat here. Unlimited buttermilk wings or beer-battered cauliflower at £17.95, five sauces, and you have to book it.4
- Avoid: looking for a handpull.
There is NO REAL (CASK) ALE,
in the branch record's own capitals, and some keg and packaged beers may be unfiltered without being labeled as such.3
What locals & experts say
- CAMRA, Edinburgh & South East Scotland branch (February 2026): the plain description. It is a
BrewDog pub that opened in Jan 2018 in the old Clydesdale Bank building on Festival Square. With two floors it is much larger than its Cowgate counterpart, with a correspondingly wider choice of beers and food.
The same record warns thatAny information shown may not be well maintained.
3 - Irwin D Simon, Tilray, on buying the company (2026): the new owner will
refocus BrewDog on the craft beer excellence that made it beloved in the first place and strategically invest to return the operations to profitable growth.
2 - Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, on the same day:
BrewDog workers built this brand. They deserved respect. Instead, they were treated as disposable pawns.
2 - What nobody says: no critic has reviewed this bar. The Skinny's two Edinburgh drinking guides and The List's food pages cover every other beer room on this side of town and not this one, which is worth knowing before you plan an evening around it.
Good to know
- Ownership: Tilray Brands UK Ltd since 2 March 2026. Staff transferred under TUPE. Anything written about this bar before that date describes a different company.
- Getting there: on the corner of Festival Square, a couple of minutes from the Usher Hall and the Lyceum, and about ten minutes' walk from Princes Street. The operator sells the room on that pre-show trade.
- Booking: the bar takes tables online, and the Wednesday wing deal is pre-book only. Two floors absorb a group otherwise.4
- Hours: CAMRA records a noon opening. No closing time has been published since the change of ownership, so check.
- Hygiene: Food Hygiene Information Scheme Pass, inspected 16 June 2025, no re-inspection pending. Thirteen and a half months old and current.5
Verdict
listed — THE RUNG DID NOT MOVE from round 1, and the second pass did not put anything on the table that would move it. What arrived is a food line and one price, both off the operator's own bar page: stacked burgers and wings, with Wings Wednesday running unlimited buttermilk chicken wings or beer-battered cauliflower at £17.95 with a choice of five sauces, pre-book only. That is useful to a reader planning a Wednesday and it is not craft. What left the entry were two sentences nobody could source, a tap comparison against the Cowgate bar and a claim about which bar came second in the company's history, and losing them is right and costs the ranking nothing, because CAMRA's own comparison carries the size point with a citation behind it. The reason to know this address exists is still navigational. BrewDog PLC went into administration on 2 March 2026 and was sold the same day to Tilray Brands for £33m; thirty-eight bars closed with immediate effect, 484 people were made redundant, and eleven retail units survived. Lothian Road is one of the three Scottish survivors alongside Ellon's DogTap and DogHouse Edinburgh, and the Cowgate bar is on the closure list. Two independent mastheads carry the lists. A saved BrewDog pin in this city is now a coin flip and this is the address that answers. Weighed on craft, there is nothing to send anyone across town for. CAMRA's branch record states in its own capitals that there is no real cask ale on the premises, and warns on the same page that its information may not be well maintained. Nobody publishes the current tap list, prices or closing time under an owner five months into the job, so neither evolution nor depth can be shown, and the house range is a supermarket buy. No critic has ever reviewed this bar: The Skinny's two Edinburgh drinking guides and The List's food pages were checked and neither carries it. What the room offers is two floors of a converted Clydesdale Bank on Festival Square that absorb a group without notice, two minutes from the Usher Hall and the Lyceum, which makes it a competent pre-show pint. Real, competent, good to know which door still opens.