West Ham United has launched Boleyn Brew, a beer co-created with supporters and BrewDog.
Insider Sport got the thoughts of David Chaplin, Director of Commercial Strategy at West Ham United, to find out how a fan consultation group and a supporter vote influenced the final product and what the process means for the club’s approach to commercial partnerships.
Chaplin also discusses how West Ham balances local and international fan engagement and whether supporters are becoming more critical of commercial activations following the Hammers’ relegation from the Premier League last season.
Read the full interview below.
Who, where and how did West Ham and BrewDog come up with the idea to create a fan-made beer, and what was the thinking behind it?
After the success of our first club-branded can with BrewDog last season, Claret & Brew, which sold out extremely quickly, both the club and BrewDog wanted to take things a step further and create something which had West Ham United fans at its heart. Our supporters are what make matchdays special, and aligned with BrewDog, we wanted to give our supporters the opportunity to create a beer that is their own.
Since launching our partnership in 2025, we have continuously delivered supporter-first activations with BrewDog. In addition to the launch of Claret & Brew last season, BrewDog provided full kits for several grassroots teams in and around East London and Essex, showcasing their passion for giving back to our supporters and the local community. Launching a beer which involved supporters in the creation of a beer, something rarely seen in club football, felt like a natural next step in putting our fans at the heart of the partnership.
Why was bringing supporters into the brewing process the best way to activate this partnership over running a standard marketing push?
As a club, we believe it is vital that our supporters are engaged with our commercial partners. Giving our partners the opportunity to authentically engage with our fans is a win-win for everyone.
Having launched a branded can, we wanted to go above and beyond to create something that truly embodied our supporters, so we asked them what they’d truly want to see from a club-branded beer. This takes the partnership beyond simply putting our badge on a product and puts BrewDog’s target market at the centre of its creation. It means supporters can feel a sense of pride that they are drinking something that truly reflects our DNA and world-renowned, passionate fan base.
The project also gave BrewDog an opportunity to engage with our supporters, learn what they like, what matters to them and explore how they could continue to build a positive connection with our fans.
The success of last season’s club-branded cans demonstrated the appetite for this type of product, so it made perfect sense to give supporters the opportunity to create a beer of their own. We always want to push the boundaries of fan engagement with our partners, so we’ve teamed up with BrewDog for the creation of a fan beer, with every stage of development informed by supporter consultation.
Fan engagement is mentioned a lot in sports business. What did actual, hands-on co-creation look like in practice and what key decisions did the supporters make?
As mentioned, the creation of Boleyn Brew had fan involvement or consultation at each part of the process. We launched a register of interest to our supporters to be involved in the creation of a fan-made drink and the response was overwhelming in numbers. We asked each supporter to explain why they wanted to be involved, which led to some emotional and well-thought-out responses, the best responses were then selected to join a consultation group with BrewDog.
The 12 selected fans then met with BrewDog’s brewing and marketing teams at their iconic Waterloo bar for a focus group. These supporters helped with the shaping of the flavour, the taste profile of the beer and storytelling. BrewDog took this feedback away to ensure that the finished product reflected the character of the loyalty and passion of our fanbase.
The naming was also put to a vote, with four names selected based on the feedback from fans in the consultation. Then a vote of supporters, including season ticket holders and members, ultimately decided to name the fan-created beer ‘Boleyn Brew’, in a nod to West Ham United’s proud heritage and the emotions, people and memories the Boleyn Ground represents to generations of supporters.
The fans from the consultation then came back to Waterloo to star in the creation of the launch video alongside club legend Carlton Cole. The fans will officially launch the beer on the BrewDog deck at London Stadium ahead of Boleyn Brew’s debut at our match vs Southampton, as well as the cans going on sale to fans worldwide.
Unlike most sponsorship activations that have a short campaign lifecycle, this is a physical product that will be poured at London Stadium. How much did long-term viability factor into your initial strategy?
The launch will be a limited stock of both the draft pints at London Stadium and cans of Boleyn Brew, but there is always a longer-term lens at these activations and products, creating longer term engagement for our partners. Shorter range product launches build excitement, create demand and also allow the club and BrewDog to see how the product performs. If it performs well, then we can look to create further stock and we will continue to take fan feedback on board to help shape future collaborations on West Ham United branded BrewDog products.
More broadly, how do you balance making sure both local and overseas supporters feel included in West Ham’s commercial projects and is this becoming a greater priority in more recent years?
Finding a balance between our localised fan base, as well as our passionate international supporters, is a key priority in our commercial strategy. In recent years, the club’s international fanbase has had an accelerated period of growth, with us now boasting 130+ official supporters’ clubs globally, spanning 48 countries and 6 continents. Ultimately, it’s about which audience our partners want to reach in terms of their own objectives, and we tailor our activations to meet those.
For example, in previous years, to support Lyca Mobile’s international growth, they sponsored our back of shirt for TST (The Soccer Tournament), the now globally acclaimed 7-a-side tournament, which helped them reach our fans in the USA and India in particular, delivering record levels of engagement during what for most clubs is their quietest period of the year.
Equally, the launch of Boleyn Brew as a multi-faceted approach serves the 60,000+ supporters who attend matchdays, as well as our fans around the country who can purchase the canned version, this in turn, helps BrewDog build positive engagement and sentiment with our passionate domestic fan base.
How will you measure whether this has been a successful activation for both West Ham and BrewDog, and what would success look like?
Initially, we will track how Boleyn Brew performs both at London Stadium and how quickly the cans sell. We’re confident Boleyn Brew will be another huge success and resonate with our supporters. More widely, we want to continue for our fans to feel engaged with the partnership and continue to enjoy the value in BrewDog’s commitment to putting our fans first.
The entire concept of the ideation around a fan-created beer came off the back of supporter feedback and the club, alongside all our commercial partners, are keen to ensure partnerships deliver activations our fans want to see or engage with.
Do you feel fans are becoming more critical of commercial partnerships, especially during challenging periods on or off the pitch, and does that scrutiny change how you approach them?
I think supporters are increasingly taking interest in the partnerships the club enters, and rightly so. Our fans are incredibly passionate about the club’s endeavours both on and off the pitch, so they want to see commercial partnerships that show clear understanding of what the club means, embrace our DNA and deliver something meaningful for them. That is something we take as a key priority in developing our commercial strategy and I think our body of work with BrewDog today shows just that.
For us, it is about moving beyond a traditional sponsorship model and ensuring our partners have a genuine role in adding value to the supporter experience, whether that be on matchdays, community initiatives, co-branded products or wider activations. The club ensures our partnerships feel authentic and relevant to our fan base. Boleyn Brew is a great example of that approach in action, because the idea came from a desire to give something back to our supporters and allow them to shape a product that represents their club and plays a direct part in the matchday experience.
Now that the blueprint exists, has this project sparked ideas for similar co-creation initiatives across other areas of the club’s commercial portfolio?
Absolutely, Boleyn Brew has demonstrated the value of giving our supporters a meaningful role in shaping partner activations, and we are always looking at how we can build on successful initiatives such as this. The response from the supporters involved has been fantastic throughout the process, reinforcing the appetite for opportunities that allow them to feel more connected to the club and our partners.
We are fortunate to have an incredibly passionate and diverse fan base, both locally and internationally, and understanding what matters to those supporters creates opportunities for more meaningful collaborations. Similarly, we have a fantastic set of club Partners and a partnerships management team that are relentlessly working on the next projects we hope to deliver.
Boleyn Brew provides a strong example of what can be achieved when the club, a commercial partner and our fans work together from the outset. The Challenge for our teams and our partners is to continue to elevate our fan engagement and experiences.
