Great Scot beer!
The Scottish beer revolution is well and truly underway in Malaysia.
WHEN it comes to Scottish alcoholic beverages, whisky is, and always will be, king.
But there really is more to Scotland’s drinks than just Scotch. Its beer, in particular, has been making great waves not just in Britain, but globally as well.
At the forefront of the Scottish beer revolution is BrewDog, currently one of the most recognisable craft beer brands in the world. It has grown from a tiny two-man operation back in 2007 to a billiondollar company that just opened a new brewery in the United States earlier this year, to complement the existing one in Ellon, Scotland.
During the recent Better Beer Festival at Publika KL, we met Kerry Allison of BrewDog for a chat, together with Graeme Martin of Tempest Brewery, whose beers are also currently available in Malaysia.
While much smaller in scale compared to BrewDog, Tempest was founded in 2010 and is considered one of Scotland’s most progressive breweries, with a reputation for beers with big flavour and in a variety of styles.
According to Martin, Scottish beers used to have a very bad reputation for a very long time within Britain.
“Traditional Scottish beer generally had no hops in it, and were very malty and very sweet, quite dark. It’s a style I quite like, but not something people tend to go for,” he said, adding that Scottish beers used to be referred to by what is known as the “shilling system”.
“There were 60 shilling, 70 shilling , 80 shilling, and shilling. This was based on how much tax you would pay per barrel of beer, and were basically just the different grades of beer,” he explained.
“The focus was on how strong the beer was, and not what style is was. The 60 shillings was the low- est alcohol beers, and 90 shillings would have the highest alcohol.”
Scottish beers also tended to be referred to “Light” or “Heavy” – Light would have maybe only 3-4% ABV, while the Heavy would have 4-5%.
According to Martin, brewers in Scotland are lucky to have access to good produce needed to make beer. “The only thing we don’t have is hops, but we can get that from elsewhere. Other than that, we’ve got good water and barley. Where Tempest is at, there are barley fields around us so we use all local produce that is fresh and good quality,” he said.
While Martin agrees that the rise of BrewDog was instrumental in the rise of Scottish craft beers, he also thinks there was much more to the story than that.
“Something was already stirring in Scotland before BrewDog came along, but BrewDog’s marketing was what really got a lot of attention,” he said.
“They made people start ques- BrewDog’s latest entry in the Paradox series of barrel-aged beers, this imperial stout is aged in Compass Box great King Street barrels for 221 days before bottling, making for a full bodied, malty beer with a rich chocolate character. tioning what beer is. For a long time, people thought beer was just either lager or ale or stouts. But BrewDog helped change that mind set, and so did a lot of the other breweries that popped up around the same time.”
Allison concurred, adding that while BrewDog is probably the most well-known and successful Scottish craft brewery, there are also so many Scottish craft breweries that are doing amazing things as well.
“The world has gotten crazy for us the last nine years since we started,” she said. “The beer landscape in Scotland and Britain has changed so much, and it’s been so exciting to see it happening.”
Allison, who has been with the brewery for seven years and is currently in charge of the brand’s global operations, says that the company has evolved and matured a lot since they started.
“When BrewDog started, no one knew who we were, so we had to shout to get people to notice us,” Take Harviestoun’s regular Old Engine Oil porter, strengthened to 10.5%, and then aged it up to six months in casks that used to hold Highland Park whisky that were aged for 12-, 16-, 18and 21-year-old whiskies. The result? A beer that is rich, silky, and with the malty goodness of both porter and malt whisky. she said. “But we have matured as a company, and don’t do most of the wacky zany stuff we did in the early days.”
Some of the “wacky zany stuff ” she referred to includes making a beer with the highest alcohol content in the world, and packaging it inside a stuffed squirrel (The End Of History, 55% ABV).
“We still have fun, and we’re still all about stirring things up, but we do things a bit differently now,” Allison mused.
“Without all that, people may not have known who BrewDog were, but that’s not what we’re all about.
“We’re all about the beer. What has changed most for me today is the quality of the beers has improved. We can trust that a Punk IPA is going to taste just right, whether in Malaysia, in Scotland, or in the US.”
Curious about Scottish beer? Well, here are five beers that you should try, all of which are currently available at craft beer specialists Taps Beer Bar. A session IPA that is part of Tempest’s core range, it’s a light and easy beer that has nice orange citrus, and tropical fruit notes, and is perfect for a lazy evening of casual drinking.