The Little History of Scottish Brewing

INTRODUCTION

Brewing developed throughout the British Isles over a long period of time by practical and empirical processes, from simple cottage, farm and tavern brewing to eventual commercial brewing. Brewing was like baking, a local industry and commerce that was limited to how far a horse could travel in one day. In Scotland, the Browster-wives were the mainstay of domestic brewing scene and were numerous in every town and locality, and excess production was sold to the community. The Luckies brewed in the ale houses and were the forerunners of large-scale commercial brewing.

Most of the early beers, brewed with groot in Scotland, were sorry stuff, and it was only in the early 1700s that things started to change with the introduction of the hop, which had a huge impact on Scottish brewing, alongside improvements in agriculture that took place during the Industrial Revolution, plus the growth of the wage economy that saw a brewing industry develop in Scotland that was second to none.

There is nothing nationalistic about my history; it is just that I believe Scotland has a story to be told and no claim is made that we did it alone as, historically, brewers throughout Europe in some way exchanged information on their ingredients and methods. The creation of London Porter in the early 1700s also had a huge influence on fortunes of Scottish brewing, as did the introduction of India Pale Ale, which created a significant impetus for home and foreign markets.

Throughout the pages of this book the reader will come across many examples of the contributions made by Scottish inventors, brewers and people in agriculture, which influenced the brewing processes and technical innovations that had a positive impact on Scottish brewing, an industry that developed quite independently, and despite our diminutive population we punched well above our weight.

The process of brewing varied throughout Europe, with the Continentals adopting various methods of decoction mashing whilst the British stuck with infusion mashing. In the UK, brewing is the same south and north of the border but both countries developed the practice in separate ways. For example, the Scots tended to mash and sparge at a higher temperature and ferment at a much cooler temperature, which gave Scotch Ales their unique fullness of character. The English preferred to double mash and ferment at higher temperatures, with the consequence that both styles of beer had different characteristics.

As for hops, both countries used enormous amounts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which was not so much for flavour but more as a preservative, and it was only during the latter half of the twentieth century that the Scots reduced the hopping rates to a level much lower than that used in English brewing. Also, it was during the late nineteenth century that Scottish mashing and sparging heats and fermentation temperatures, in general, came into line with English practice to increase output in order to compete with English exports to India, Australasia and the wider Empire.

Today, the modern approach to brewing in Scotland is little different from English brewing, and this has been brought about by the new generation of aromatic hoppy beers that are impregnated with floral hops late in the boiling. Consequently, traditional twentieth-century beer styles are a rarity.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

‘Beer is a very ancient drink – how ancient, nobody can tell, for the time of its origin was before the dawn of history.’

C.L. Duddington, Plains Man’s Guide to Beer, 1975

Just when and how the natives of the country we now call Scotland started to brew is lost in the mists of antiquity. However, one of the earliest references to brewing in Scotland is in the fourth century BC, when Pytheas of Massalia surveyed the Iberian Peninsula and eventually the coast of Britain as far north as the Orkney and Shetland Islands. He is also said to have visited Thule, which historians consider is either Shetland or Iceland, but the ancients considered Shetland to be the Ultima Thule, being the furthest northern part of the world. Pytheas noted that the inhabitants, the Picts, were accomplished in the art of brewing strong drink and he also gives us an early reference to oaten porridge and the use of oats, heather and honey in brewing.

The ‘Picts’ is a name given to indigenous Scottish tribes by the Romans and comes from the Latin ‘Picti’, meaning painted ones. The Picts were a thriving and energetic people who left their legacy on their exquisitely carved standing stones, which are scattered throughout the land, and their symbols are now thought to be connected to astronomy.

Much of the archaeological evidence is found in Skara Brae at Orkney, which is the best-preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe and is older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. Other sites, such as Balfrag in Fife, The Howe on Orkney, at Kinloch Bay on the Isle of Rhum and on the Isle of Arran, tell us that brewing has been carried out in Scotland since Neolithic times. Much of the evidence comes from the residue of both barley and oats that have been detected in shards of broken pottery at The Howe, plus traces of meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), heather (Ling, Calluna vulgaris), and black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) that were used to flavour the brew. Smidgens of cereal pollen were also found, suggesting the making of mead or ale.29

Roasted barley was also found at The Howe and some historians suggest that it was used in brewing, but according to Edmund Burt,14 and probably prior to cooking, the Highlanders in the 1700s set their barley on fire to get rid of the awn and chaff and so some charring of the grains must have taken place. Presumably the Picts did likewise and so we cannot say for certain that the roasted grains found at The Howe were necessarily used for brewing.

Just how the Picts brewed is open to speculation, and their methods are, like their standing stones, a mystery. However, it was most likely that, like primitive peoples worldwide, they were simply trying to make grain more palatable and digestible and that alcohol was a happy consequence of their experiments. In its raw state grain is hard to chew and digest and so it was soaked in water to soften it, which would initiate germination and the enzymes necessary to convert the starch into sugars. Slow drying by the heat of the cooking fire in clay pots would create crude but palatable malt. To further increase the digestibility and tastiness of the grain, a simple method of mashing, by making gruel in an earthenware ‘mash tun’, would be essential, and if the pot was sat on the heat of the peat fire sufficient warmth would create a successful mashing and saccharification of the crushed oats or barley, producing sweet porridge. It is most likely that honey, fruits and berries were added to the porridge to add to the nutrient value and to enhance the taste.

However, a common theory is that if all this gruel was not consumed immediately and the remainder of the mash was left overnight by the warmth of the cooking fire, the malt sugars and honey would quickly be fermented by the yeast from the fruit and berries, which was the only source of yeast available to the early Picts, not that they would have a clue as to why this ferment occurred in the first place. Some authors suggest that the gruel was left outside the dwelling to become infected with wild yeast, but the question here is why? Why leave food outside the dwelling where it would be consumed by foraging nocturnal wildlife? Eventually they would separate the stimulating liquid by straining the mash through a perforated animal skin bag held over a shallow clay vessel, and possibly rinsing with hot water.

Some writers have suggested that the gruel left aside for a short period would turn rancid, and this is probably true. However, what might have tasted ghastly to modern man might not have tasted terribly foul to primitive people, and as noted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in 25 BC, the Gauls used liquor made from barley rotted in water, which was disgusting both in smell and taste.29

A boiling vessel would not necessarily be required, as the strained wort would not require boiling prior to spontaneous fermentation by wild and fruit yeast. In this case, flavourings from plants, flowers and wild fruits could simply have been included in the mashing pot, where their flavour and aroma would be diffused into the mash. The use of meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) not only flavoured the brew but provided antiseptics to keep it palatable in the short term. Other plants such as belladonna (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and hemlock (Conium maculatum) were also used and induced hallucinations, and their use is thought to be connected with religious practices such as shamanism in placating the spirits.

Should boiling have taken place, it would most likely have been by the ancient method of adding red-hot stones (pot boilers) from the cooking fires, a practice that is still used in Bavaria to produce Steinbier (Stone beer), and this practice would create caramelisation that would contribute to the flavour. A peat fire smoulders and whilst they were fine for cooking, they would not give off sufficient heat to bring a pot to boiling, although it is unlikely that boiling was conducted indoors due to the uncomfortable heat and choking smoke that would fill the low-ceilinged, windowless underground dwellings.

There is also evidence that the Picts waterproofed their vessels internally with bee’s wax, and this has been claimed to prevent the seepage of alcohol by evaporation. This is possible but is open to doubt, as it is unlikely that the brew would be stored for long periods as it would quickly go sour. Also, if we take the practice of peoples living in hot countries, they did not glaze their water storage pots so that the slow seepage through the clay evaporated and caused cooling and so the water remained fresh. Skara Brae exempted, the early Picts lived in hill forts, and although there is evidence that they dug shallow wells to collect rainfall, domestic water would have been stored in earthenware pots. Therefore, in the cold northern climate they would be unlikely to require vessels that sweated, causing the loss of such a valuable supply of water, and the waterproofing was necessary to conserve supplies. During times of drought, water would be acquired from the lower slopes and stored in pots.

The Picts eventually became an organised race indulging in pasturage, and so the art of brewing would have also been well developed. It is claimed that primitive sites of Pictish breweries have survived in Galloway. They are pear-shaped, about 5 metres by 2.5 metres with a side wall of about 1 metre in height, and were built on southern slopes close to running water.43 Sunken stone troughs were also discovered close to running water and are thought to be cooking (or brewing?) places for game and fish by adding pot boilers. Interestingly, it has also been suggested that the troughs might have been used to steam up primitive saunas.

Knowledge of Pictish brewing can be found on a tenth-century standing stone found at Bullion at Invergowrie in Perth and Kinross, and is now in the safekeeping of Historic Scotland. The stone depicts a warrior drinking from a horn that is adorned with an eagle’s head. The eagle’s head symbolises power and so the fighter depicted would have been a chief or noble warrior. One wonders, was the warrior drinking an oaten brew flavoured with the corn weed, darnel, or perhaps the fabled Heather Ale?

There are many myths about Heather Ale that have been passed on by oral tradition. One of the most enduring tales is that about AD 375, Niall of the Nine Hostages, the 126th High King of Ireland (died AD 403), crossed the Irish Sea from Antrim to Galloway with a view of exterminating the native Picts and acquire the secret of brewing Heather Ale.

And the fable continues: after a bloody campaign, the only survivors were Trost of the Long Knife, plus his father, brother and the Archdruid Sionach, who had betrayed Trost and threw his lot in with Niall. The victorious Niall had a parley with Trost and offered to spare the lives of his father and brother for the secret of Heather Ale. Fearing that his father and brother might give out the secret under torture, Trost assured Niall that if his father and brother were put to death first, he would reveal the secret recipe. Having sacrificed his father and brother, Trost told the king that he could only reveal the secret recipe to a member of his own race and that he would pass it on the traitor Sionach, out of earshot of the Irish. The king agreed, and Trost led Sionach away along the cliffside. When they were at the steepest part, Trost quickly turned round and grabbed the startled Sionach, shouting, ‘The secret dies,’ and both men fell over the cliff to their deaths.62

It is a marvellous tale, and one wonders what was so important about Heather Ale? The Scots with their Celtic culture, who later inhabited Scotland after ousting the Picts in the ninth century, considered many plants to have magical powers and wore them in their bonnets as talismans to ward off evil spirits and protect them from harm. So, was Heather Ale considered to have magical protective powers and drunk as a libation before battle?

There are many references to brewing Heather Ale in Scotland, principally in the Highlands and Islands, well into the twentieth century. In 1826, James Logan travelled throughout Scotland collecting information of antiquarian interest, which he published in The Scottish Gael, 1831. He, too, mentions the brewing of Heather Ale but, interestingly, he also mentions the use of heather roots to flavour the brew, which he claims imparted a liquorice-like taste. It might be that the roots were actually used as a crude strainer in the bottom of the mash tub to filter the wort as it drained from the vessel. Also, Bickerdyke, writing in Curiosities of Ale and Beer, 1886, states that heather was used primarily as flavouring and suggests that the taste of the brew was akin to heather honey. Yet, Heather Ale is not exclusive to Scotland – the Irish also brewed Heather Ale, and in Plot’s Natural History, 1677, we are told that in the district around Shenton, Leicestershire, brewers frequently used Erica vulgaris (heather, heath or Ling), to preserve their brews.44

Today it is appreciated that heather does not contain any fermentable matter and all references to brewing with it without some form of additional fermentable extract are simply a myth. This fact was evidenced around the turn of the twentieth century, when Dr Maclagan enlisted the help of Andrew Melvin, the son of Alexander Melvin who acquired the Boroughloch Brewery, Buccleugh Street, Edinburgh, in 1850, to carry out a series of brewing trials using heather. Their conclusions were that a brew could not be made with heather alone, but that heather could be used to season a brew just like hops.29

The Vikings, too, were also great lovers of ale and controlled Orkney and Shetland, the Western Isles and the north of Scotland from 794 until the twelfth century, and whatever brewing methods they might have had must have survived for some time. They most likely brewed with wild oats or bear/big and flavoured the beer with heather, honey, juniper and rowanberries.

In the early eleventh century, the oldest home brewery in the UK was built at Traquair House, Innerleithen, by Peebles, which was originally a hunting lodge built to provide accommodation for Scottish monarchs and nobility. The beer, which would have been brewed with groot, would have been brewed by the ancient ‘cottage system’ whereby the cleansing of beer was achieved by simply allowing the casks to fob and overflow and the slops were collected in a vessel below.

It was during the twelfth century that Scotland is reputed to have adopted the German method of brewing, brought here by religious orders, but there is no evidence to tell us just what such methods might have been. It might be, of course, that they introduced the Bavarian practice of long cold storage, or lagering, that became a regular practice in the evolution of Scotch Ale. In 1231, the Blackfriars Monastery was established at Perth and later the site became the Perth Brewery in 1786.

Brewing was largely in the hands of the monks, who had brought the craft to a highly skilled art, and in the thirteenth century the monks of Arbroath Abbey are said to have used more chalders (8 quarters) of malt than all other cereals put together.43 Such practice would be quite common, as ale formed part of the daily diet and monks consumed up to a gallon of ale a day. Monasteries were also hospices and weary travellers and pilgrims were refreshed with food and ale. It is recorded in the Rental Book of Cupar Abbey, for example, that the monks brewed several ales such as ‘Convent Ale’, which tells us that the nuns also had their daily tipple! They also produced ‘drink of the masses’, which would have been their weakest small beer handed out to pilgrims and travellers. ‘Household Ale’ was brewed for their own use and ‘Ostler Ale’ for sale to local alehouses and taverns. The strong ‘Better Ale’ was drunk on special religious days and holidays and was important to sustain the monks during Lent.

The Banff Brewery is said to be the oldest public brewery in Scotland, and production started about 1450–52. During this time the Lowlands was Scotland’s main trading partner and much interchange of peoples and goods took place, including beer. Scottish mercenaries also fought for the Dutch, and traders and soldiers would have been well accustomed to hopped beer. It is also claimed that hopped beer was first introduced into Scotland in 1482 and originally brewed by the monks of Banff, followed by the Blackford Brewery in 1488.8

The name Blackford comes from the twelfth-century legend when the Norwegian King Magnus lost his wife, Helen, who drowned whilst attempting to cross the ford of the River Allan close by. She was buried at Deaf Knowe near the ford and hence the village became known as Blackford. The Tullibardine Distillery is built on the site of the ancient brewery.

In 1488, when James IV was returning from his coronation at Scone, he refreshed his entourage with the ale of Blackford at 12s a barrel, and there is a reference in the Treasurer’s Accounts that states, ‘quhen