“Cash only,” declares the angsty sign at BrewDog Edinburgh, a recent addition to the indified cluster of bars and clubs on the Cowgate’s East End, “because the world is against us.”

Welcome to the world of BrewDog – press-baiting marketing triumph, anti-corporate supplier to Tesco, messianic cult and, on occasion, producer of “Beer for Punks.”

It was the beers that drew us in. This article has been on the cards since February 2010, when BrewDog dropped their second great depth-charge in the bid for global recognition, a 41% ABV quadruple IPA called ‘Sink the Bismarck’. That brew hit back at the German brewers who had stolen the crown from the Fraserburgh firm’s previous world-beater, the 32-percent Tactical Nuclear Penguin. With Bismarck, needless to say, BrewDog once more became kings of this rather dubious castle.

BrewDog began to rack up accusations of irresponsible marketing back in 2009 for their release of Tokyo*, which, clocking in at a now mild-seeming 18%, set tongues wagging about the cultivation of binge-drinking. The company cropped up again soon after for christening a beer “Speedball”, the name of the noxious heroin-cocaine blend that killed actors John Belushi and River Phoenix. Scotland’s anti-alcohol campaigners went predictably apoplectic.

From these auspicious beginnings, controversy was inevitable – and invited – each time BrewDog added to their portfolio, right up to their two most recent offerings: a viagra-laced lager in celebration of the Royal Wedding and an extremely limited edition 55 percenter, presented in the hollowed out torso of a mummified squirrel and titled “The End of History”. It therefore behoved us as responsible journalists to dig a little deeper into this unique and pressing social phenomenon. That meant we had to do more than just read about BrewDog, we had to taste it.

There’s one big problem: a 330ml bottle of Sink the Bismarck will skin you £40, with Tactical Nuclear Penguin ringing in at a not-altogether-more-justifiable £35. Bang goes the argument about BrewDog’s wares promoting unhealthy attitudes to drinking: if these beers are an aid to binge-drinking, then so is the entire Scotch whisky industry. Partly as a result of these rarified prices, but mainly as a result of the press coverage – no publicity is bad publicity – BrewDog created a deeply curious market which their bars were then able to satisfy by offering both of their super-strength creations at the more negotiable rate of five quid a snifter. These reporters were by no means aloof to this appeal. In fact, we were so giddy about the prospect of finally getting our hands on this rare treasure that we forgot to bring notepaper and pens, and had to ask behind the bar (they were wonderfully obliging).

This is all just a part of BrewDog’s master plan. Bruce Gray, head of the company’s bar division, says the firm is on a mission to democratise craft beer: “The bars are really a platform, a stage for the beer. We stand there and let folk know exactly what this stuff is.” He adds: “We’re not saying...that it has to be young people, but we’re trying to open the market to new people, a different market. Traditionally, younger people are pushed towards cooler brands, which generally means”, he pauses for effect, “crap.”

Underlying all the pranks, then, is a stolid intention to turn the young and impressionable over to good beer: “There’s a real culture there among everyone who’s involved with it”, Gray remarks. “It’s about putting good-quality, boundary-pushing beer out there. There’s professionalism there too, you can’t push the company forward unless your guys have that sense to do a really professional job.”

However, it’s genuinely difficult at times to see through the morass of hype and to judge how much better than the mainstream BrewDog’s beers actually are. They have created some quaffable IPAs, porters and lagers, as well as the enjoyable oddity that is 5am Saint (which tastes something like passionfruit Rubicon in evening wear). Tactical Nuclear Penguin, it turns out, is one to savour, despite looking like dirty turps complete with great jagged flakes of black sediment. It’s a smelly, smoky stout, each sip incredibly rich, strangely viscous and tactile.

Bismarck is a little less convincing. BrewDog are renowned for their aggressively hopped beers, but this is perhaps a step too far. “Honestly, I thought the Bismarck was awful”, confesses Matt Thomasson, the brains and palate behind Newington’s specialist off-license, Great Grog. “I couldn’t in all good conscience recommend it to a customer. I like hops, I like hoppy beers, but not at that concentration. It was like tincture.”

Thomasson is suspicious of Brewdog’s ascendancy. “I’d love to see their bill for hops,” he says, “as they must spend a fortune. Hops is a really expensive commodity now, it’s leapt up in price over the last few years partly due to the number of craft brewers. In qualitative terms, there’s a lot going into the brew. Whether it’s actually worth it, and whether it would be anything like as popular were you to remove the front and back labels – I doubt it.” He does, however, add that some of the criticism of BrewDog may well be the standard backlash against the new kid on the block, suddenly emerging out of nowhere to become a major player. “It’s precisely the same situation as Michael MacIntyre in comedy,” he quips.

The fact is that, since the beginning of the craft brewing revival in the 1980s, no other company has managed to find their niche quite like BrewDog. Unlike many of their peers, BrewDog do not aim for edifying – there is no sense of luddite utopianism to their product, no hippy wish for a green fields and village economies, no Scottishness with a capital Caledonia. Rather, their identity is one of urbane nihilism. Their beer is marketed – BrewDog calls them ‘borderline alcoholics with ‘commitment issues’’ – at those who are inured to conventional marketing.

Their branding is a lifestyle choice for those who recognise that since, in a hyper-commodified society, one must choose some lifestyle choice or other, one may at least choose well, choose to be a “Punk” – and there are t-shirts and glasses to confirm this allegiance to the BrewDog faith. They are – forgive the pretension – truly postmodern brewers, who recognise that since marketing now taints every field of our existence, one has little choice but to play the game, bitterly, and with as firm a shield of irony as one can possibly construct. We’re glad the Cowgate bar staff were able to kit us out with the writing equipment we had neglected to bring along: this booze speaks powerfully to our times.