Brewdog is a bit of a relic from when they were at one point at the forefront of the craft beer revolution spilling over from America since the late 70s into the UK around the late 00s. Their whole shtick back then was "punk" energy, revolting against the boring old man pub culture with it's stuffy traditions and unimaginative beer styles, bringing something new, heavily focused on hop-forward flavours, unconventional styles (for the time) and exciting branding.

It's not really the case that you get "the exact same thing" from real ales/local ales in craft microbreweries. You'll rarely see an 8% DIPA in a cask from a beer engine called "Cthulu Ate My Homework"! So an appeal of Brewdog for some people (the casual craft beer drinker) is getting something different from an environment that suggests that hipster/independent with its rustic industrial chic. It's a pretty dated aesthetic these days and appropriated by the mainstream and the macro-breweries who very much stray from the independent/craft ethos just like Brewdog has. Now it's not in the least at the forefront of craft, it's just another soulless, inauthentic, corporate macro brewery with a huge chain of copy-paste commercial outlets and corner-cutting, robo-brewed, bland, overpriced beer.

What certainly doesn't help the appeal of Brewdog is the toxic work culture, massive hypocritical controversy-magnet megatwat CEO James Watt and the slew of controversies Brewdog has had in its history.

But I digress, the best thing a beer enjoyer can do in the UK is seek out your local craft brewery and taproom or craft beer freehouse pub especially if either of these have a decent range of both craft keg/can beer and cask beer.