Scots breweries

● Numbers double to 115 since 2010 ● Drinkers seek craft beers

A dramatic rise in the number of breweries across Scotland in recent years has been put down a growing demand among Scots drinkers for better quality craft beers on nights out.

There are currently about 115 breweries in Scotland, a figure which has more than doubled since 2010, as the success of North-east craft specialist Brewdog inspired a new generation of start-ups.

“Tap rooms” are springing up in cities around the country with the Great Scottish Beer Celebration poised to take place in Glasgow next weekend, underlining the growing public appetite to the niche approach.

Official Scottish Parliament figures also show that in 2016, 950 workers were employed in Scotland’s breweries – a 64 per cent increase since 2011.

Edinburgh and the Highlands are the country’s hotspots with more than a third of Scotand’s breweries between them.

Kate Forbes, the Nationalist MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, said: “Scotland’s breweries are providing a wealth of job opportunities in my constituency, with three distilleries and a brewery on Skye alone, and increasing our offering of home-grown products for the rising tourist numbers.

“Over the past seven years, food and drink start-ups in Scotland have had a higher survival rate and have grown at a faster rate than in the

0 Kirsty Dunsmore of the Edinburgh Beer Factory and Andrew Barnet rest of the UK as well as contributing £1.2 billion worth of exports to the Scottish economy in the first three months of 2017.”

Distilleries have also enjoyed a similar renaissance in recent years with 190 based in Scotland last year, a rise of 50 on just five years previously.

The rise in brewery numbers follow the global success of Aberdeenshire-based Brewdog from its humble roots in Fraserburgh a decade ago.

Among the new pretenders are Glasgow-based Out Of Town Brewing, established last year by Richard O’brien, Owen Sheerins and Great British Bake Off finalist James Morton. In Edinburgh, Campervan has been thriving, with founder Paul Gibson having recently opened a new tap room in Leith.

Rachel Athey, of the Brewers’ Association of Scotland (TBAS), said: “We are far more aware about where our food and drink comes from, consumers are bored of generic tasteless lager and are looking for quality beer with a story they can believe in and new Scottish breweries are delivering this.

“Our breweries have been over indexing in the national beer awards for the last few years, bringing home more titles than other home nations and research has shown that Scotland is spending more than double on craft beer than the UK average.”