Scottish Beers & Breweries

Hey all,

My wife and I are traveling to Scotland in a few months and will be spending about 2 weeks hopping around the country, including a few of the islands. Obviously we'll hit up a distillery or two, but does anyone have any recommendations for beers to try or breweries to visit?

Thanks,
John

Belhaven is always good and widely available, they also took over Maclays not sure if they still brew those beers separately or whether they've been taken into their line , always thought Maclays was pretty good.
http://www.belhaven.co.uk/row/index.php

If you're in the borders region check out Traquair house
http://www.traquair.co.uk/traquair-house-brewery

If you're going to Skye check out Talisker distillery and walk down to the beach very dramatic

Order anything with an 80 on it. Actually, order two.

Brew Dog would be interesting. They're always coming up with weird beers. The brewery would have to be just as interesting.

2nd Traquair House.

Cromarty, Tempest, Six Degrees North, Fyne Ales, Alechemy, Black Isle, Top Out, Stewart Brewing, St. Andrews Brewing Company, and Brewdog of course.

All good, all craft. I haven't touched a Bellhaven brew in years.

Also, if you are in Edinburgh, check out the following pubs: The Hanging Bat, Hollyrood 9a, and The Bow Bar.

Focus your visit on the fastastic distilleries in Scotland. Each are different and have their own unique history and story.

The Orkney Brewery

Innis & Gunn in Edinburgh, they specialize in oak aged beers, I've been impressed with each one I've tried. I wish I was going to Scotland. Alba gu brath!

Thanks for all the suggestions! I've been away from my computer but I will definitely look into all of these as soon as I can.

Thanks again!

John


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I will be going to Scotland also at the end of June. Glad you asked this question as I was going to but hadn't gotten around to it. I will be looking up several of these pub and breweries.

Innis & gunn are just a contract brewer, they brew at the massive Wellpark brewery in Glasgow. I think they might do tours, but it's just a megabrewery. On the same site will be the Drygate brewery that will open soon, it's a partnership between Williams Bros and Tennents, might be interesting if you are in the area, but I don't know when it's open, maybe this summer.

There is also WEST brewery in Glasgow in an old carpet factory on the green, it's ok and does German beers. They'll do a tour if you ask in advance. The only other brewpub within glasgow is Clockwork (owned by Maclays but they are mainly a pub company now RIP their good beer), near the national stadium on the southside. They aren't anything special . There's a few good pubs in glasgow, not as many as Edinburgh which gets all the toursits.

I'd recommend visiting Fyne Ales on Loch Fyne who have a small tap room, they do excellent easy drinking hop forward ales. There's also an excellent whisky shop round the loch a bit in Inverary . They also run FyneFest in mid june, a small beer/music festival
http://www.fynefest.com/


Once you get outside the major cities it can be a hard task to get good beer as we are sadly mainly a crappy lager drinking country but there are a few excellent places like the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe


this is quite a good site with links to most of the scottish breweries, not all of them though as a few more have sprung up recently

http://www.scottishbrewing.com/index.php

Damn, I spent about 3 h at that inn once drinking an 80\- (I think) that was awesome. That is a great place.

Wrinkletusk said:

Cromarty, Tempest, Six Degrees North, Fyne Ales, Alechemy, Black Isle, Top Out, Stewart Brewing, St. Andrews Brewing Company, and Brewdog of course.

All good, all craft. I haven't touched a Bellhaven brew in years.

Also, if you are in Edinburgh, check out the following pubs: The Hanging Bat, Hollyrood 9a, and The Bow Bar.

Click to expand...

Completely agree. Great pubs for interesting beers. Also, Brewdog Edinburgh has a "hop cannon". A bit hit or miss but makes some weird and wonderful concoctions.

I've been on the a Black Isle Brewery tour. They're an organic brewery based just north of Inverness. Really nice people.

I'm in Edinburgh two or three times a year - the pubs mentioned in other replies are right on.

Here's some of the craft breweries I am fond of:
K
- Harviestoun
- Stewart
- Broughton Brewery
- Tryst
- Inveralmond ales
- Highland Brewery
- Isle of Arran Brewery
- Fyne Ales
- Cairngorm

Cheers!
Steve da sleeve

Thanks again, everyone. So many pubs, so many distilleries, so little time...

John


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Just got back from my trip to Scotland, and while I tried way too many beers to list, I will share some and a couple of my favorites beers and places that we went. We finished our trip in Glasgow and went to West and absolutely loved it. It was a nice change from the cask ales I had been drinking, and the German food was my type of eating. We (my wife and I) also loved all the Skye ales; we tried the Red, Black, Otter Copper, and Golden something. We also liked something called Fraoch heather ale (brewed with heather) that we found around.

I had a few pints of the Stewart Brewing 80/-, Deuchars IPA, Caledonian Ale, and McEwans on cask...all pretty good. I did try one of the Fyne Ales and didn't love it, and we tried a couple from Williams Bros. Brewing, which were OK. I also tried the the Black Isle Red Kite, which was good, and the Black Isle Heather Honey, which was really sweet with honey flavor. Too sweet for me, but worth trying.

Finally, if you're in Inverness I would definitely recommend going to the Castle Tavern. Everything they had on cask was really good (we tried the An Teallach Ale, An Teallach Hector, Isle of Sky Flora Mac Donald - brewed just for the Tavern, Rudgate Brewery No. 7 - brewed in York, to name some) and the food and atmosphere are good too. Great place to spend a night.

There were more, but too many to list. This being my first trip to the UK, the biggest thing for me was drinking the cask ales (real ales, as they call them). So much different from the kegged beers in the US. Also, I noticed that they almost consider ales and lagers to be different drinks...every time I asked for a recommendation they asked if I liked ales or lagers, as if I had to chose. I guess it's a starting point, but I don't think I've ever been asked that in the US. It was also interesting how there were very few beers above 5%.

Great country, beautiful landscapes (especially on the islands), good beer, and really friendly people!

Glad you enjoyed yourself

Fyne are my favourite scottish brewery along with Tempest, I guess everyones taste is different or you got a bad pint which is not unusual with something from cask

You said you just got back, were you in Glasgow just now with the commonwealth games on? It's much quieter normally

I only tried one Fyne Ale at the Bow Bar in Edinburgh but don't remember seeing it more than a couple of times. It was the Highlander and didn't suit my taste at the time...I'd be willing to try another though

I was in Glasgow during the games, although it wasn't planned and we didn't go to any games. It was pretty busy and reminded us of NYC a bit. I wish we had more than just an afternoon to explore...seems like a cool city.

John

PS...Here's a pic of the Highlander...




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Nice one

Did you notice the Aitken tall fonts in the Bow Bar? They are quite rare now, they are a bit different from the english handpulls for dispensing cask beer.

Glad to find this thread. My wife and I are going to Scotland for a week in September. We'll be staying in Aviemore, so we're hitting the Cairngorm Brewery for sure. We're also making the drive through Glencoe, and I have the Clachaig Inn on my list already. I'll be happy for my Untappd app and free international roaming from T-Mobile, so I can check all the beers in, there's no way I'd be able to remember what I drink otherwise!

If you find yourself in Inverness be sure to check out the Anderson a couple of miles north, its run by a beer loving american and has a great selection

The wife wants to try to see the dolphins at Chanonry Point, so I'll make sure we swing by the Anderson on the way or as we're leaving.

You might enjoy this blog:

http://walkingandcrawling.blogspot.co.uk/

knelson13A said:

Glad to find this thread. My wife and I are going to Scotland for a week in September. We'll be staying in Aviemore, so we're hitting the Cairngorm Brewery for sure. We're also making the drive through Glencoe, and I have the Clachaig Inn on my list already. I'll be happy for my Untappd app and free international roaming from T-Mobile, so I can check all the beers in, there's no way I'd be able to remember what I drink otherwise!

Click to expand...

One of my best days ever was in Glencoe. A friend and I climbed the Pap, then headed over to that Inn for a late lunch. I don't know what the hell beer I had, but I had four of them, and should have had four more. I'm pretty sure it was an 80/- of some sort. It was reddish and amazing.

I'm not familiar with aitken tall fonts, but here a pic of the bar. Maybe you can tell from this...


I took pics whenever I could, otherwise I'd never remember what I tried.

John


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Yeah that's them

It's a different system to handpull beer engines, which pull the beer through by vacuum, whereas the casks with aitken fonts have to have top pressure to push the beer through.

Just a small difference but they are very rare now, I only know of the Bow Bar and Clockwork in glasgow who still use them, I presume a few other places do too though

Thanks! I'm guessing it was the Highlander. That tap-handle has me written all over it, lol.

Just over a month to go until my trip across the pond! That Walking and Crawling blog is pretty cool. Doesn't look like he has much on the Highlands, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.