Beer has been produced in Scotland for approximately 5,000 years.[1] The Celtic tradition of using bittering herbs remained in Scotland longer than the rest of Europe. The two main cities of Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh, are where, historically, the main breweries developed; and Edinburgh, in particular, became a noted centre for the export of beer around the world. By the end of the 20th century, small breweries had sprung up all over Scotland.
Despite a widespread belief that beers in Scotland used fewer hops than in England, all the available evidence shows that the Scots imported hops from around the world and used them extensively.[2]
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Brewing in Scotland goes back 5,000 years; archaeologist Merryn Dineley has suggested that ale could have been made from barley at Skara Brae and at other sites dated to the Neolithic. The ale would have been flavoured with meadowsweet in the manner of a Kvass or Gruit made by various North European tribes including the Celts and the Picts. By studying the analyses of organic remains found inside Grooved ware pots and by working with her husband, Graham, who is a craft brewer of some twenty years' experience, it was possible to reconstruct this ancient ale. They named it Meadowsweet Ale.[1][3] The ancient Greek Pytheas remarked in 325 BC that the inhabitants of Caledonia were skilled in the art of brewing a potent beverage.[4][5]
The use of bittering herbs to flavour and preserve beer continued longer in remote parts of Scotland than it did in the rest of the British Isles. Thomas Pennant wrote in A Tour in Scotland in 1769 that on the island of Islay "ale is frequently made of the young tops of heath, mixing two thirds of that plant with one of malt, sometimes adding hops".[6] Though, as in the rest of Britain, hops had replaced herbs in Scotland by the end of the 19th century, this Celtic tradition of using bittering herbs was revived in Brittany, France by Brasserie Lancelot in 1990,[7] and in Scotland by the Williams Brothers two years later.[8]
Even though ancient brewing techniques and ingredients remained longer in Scotland than the rest of Britain, the general pattern of development was the same, with brewing mainly in the hands of "broustaris", or alewives, and monasteries, just as it was throughout Europe; though, as with brewing ingredients, the trend was for developments to move more slowly. The Leges Quatuor Burgorum, a code of burgh laws, showed that in 1509 Aberdeen had over 150 brewers – all women; and this compares with figures for London which shows that of 290 brewers, around 40% were men. After the Reformation in the 1560s commercial brewing started to become more organised, as shown by the formation in 1598 of the Edinburgh Society of Brewers – though London had formed its Brewers' Guild over 250 years earlier in 1342.
However, after the Acts of Union 1707, new commercial opportunities became available that proved a substantial stimulus to Scottish brewers. Tax on beer was held at a lower amount than the rest of the United Kingdom, and there was no tax on malt in Scotland – this gave Scottish brewers a financial advantage. During the 18th century some of the most famous names in Scottish brewing established themselves, such as William Younger in Edinburgh, Robert & Hugh Tennent in Glasgow, and George Younger in Alloa. In Dunbar in 1719, for example, Dudgeon & Company's Belhaven Brewery was founded. Scottish brewers, especially those in Edinburgh, were about to rival the biggest brewers in the world.
While it has long been assumed for various reasons that Scottish brewers didn’t make much use of hops, the available information from brewing and trade records show that brewers in Edinburgh used as much hops as English brewers,[9] and that the strong, hoppy ale that Hodgeson was exporting to India and which became known as IPA, was copied and brewed in Edinburgh in 1821, a year before Allsopp is believed to have first brewed it in Burton. Robert Disher’s brewery in the Canongate area of Edinburgh had such a success with his hoppy Edinburgh Pale Ale that the other Edinburgh brewers followed, exporting strong, hoppy Scottish beer throughout the British Empire, and into Russia and America. The beer historians Charles McMaster and Martyn Cornell have both shown that the sales figures of Edinburgh’s breweries rivalled that of Dublin and Burton upon Trent.
Charles McMaster, the "leading historian of the Scottish brewing industry" according to Roger Protz,[10] believes that the hard water of Edinburgh was particularly suitable for the brewing of Pale Ale - especially the water from the wells on the "charmed circle" of Holyrood through Canongate, Cowgate, Grassmarket and Fountainbridge; and that due to the quality of this water brewer Robert Disher was able to launch a hoppy Edinburgh Pale Ale in 1821.[11] While Martyn Cornell in Beer: The Story of The Pint, shows that when the brewers of Burton in the late 19th century were exporting their hoppy Burton Ales in the form of India Pale Ale, so were the William McEwan and William Younger breweries. When the Burton brewers exported strong malty Burton Ales, so did the Edinburgh brewers, under the name Scotch Ale. The Edinburgh brewers had a very large and well respected export trade throughout the British colonies rivalling that of the Burton brewers. By the mid-19th century Edinburgh had forty breweries and was "acknowledged as one of the foremost brewing centres in the world"[1].
Some writers, such as Pete Brown in Man Walks into a Pub, believe that beer brewed in Scotland developed significantly different from beer brewed south of the border. The belief is that hops were used sparingly, and that the shilling designation was uniquely Scottish. However, Dr John Harrison in Old British Beers gave a recipe for the English brewery Brakspear's 1865 50/- Pale Ale in which 1.8 oz of hops are used per imperial gallon, along with the Scottish brewery W. Younger's 1896 Ale No 3 (Pale) which also uses 1.8 oz of hops per imperial gallon.[12] These both indicate that there was no difference in use of hops, even for the everyday domestic beers, and that the shilling designation was used in other parts of the British Isles.
Although the market for strong ales started to decline toward the end of the 19th century, the Belgian importer John Martin in the 1920s encouraged both English and Scottish brewers to make strong beers for his Belgium customers. John Martin used the names Bulldog Ale, Christmas Ale and Scotch Ale. Although John Martin's Scotch Ales are now brewed in Belgium, the assumption has grown that Scotch Ale is a style of strong ale unique to Scotland.[13]
While beers made in Scotland are sometimes labelled "Scottish ale" by the brewery in the same way that beers from Cornwall may be labelled "Cornish ale" and beers from Kent may be labelled "Kentish ale", there is no evidence that these beers are any different from those made in other parts of the British Isles.
However, brewers in the United States tend to apply the term "Scottish ale" to pale ales with low hop levels and a malty sweetness.
The shilling categories were based on price charged per hogshead (54 Imperial gallons) during the 19th century. The stronger or better quality beers cost more. The same shilling designation was used for beer of totally different types. Usher's, for example, in 1914 brewed both a 60/- Mild and a 60/- Pale Ale.[14] In 1909 Maclay brewed a 54/- Pale Ale and a 54/- Stout.[15] In 1954 Steel Coulson were still producing both a 60/– Edinburgh Ale and 60/– Brown Ale on draught, both with a gravity of 1030; the third draught beer was 70/– P.X.A. at 1034.[16] Customers would ask for a strength of beer by names such as "heavy" and "export". The terms export and heavy are still widely used in Scotland. Even though the practice of classifying beers by the shilling price was not specific to Scotland, during the cask ale revival in the 1970s Scottish brewers resurrected the shilling names to differentiate between keg and cask versions of the same beers. This differentiation has now been lost.
While the shilling names were never pinned down to exact strength ranges, and Scottish brewers today produce beers under the shilling names in a variety of strengths, it was largely understood that:-
Wellpark Brewery is the oldest surviving brewery in Scotland, having been founded in 1556 in Glasgow.[17][18] It is currently owned by Tennent Caledonian Breweries which is a subsidiary of InBev. Caledonian Brewery was founded in 1869 in the Shandon area of Edinburgh. The Caley, as it is known locally, is the only survivor of over 40 breweries that operated in Edinburgh during the 19th century.
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