1. Chairman’s Statement

Welcome to the Spring edition newsletter, although the weather feels like it is still winter.

Many of you will have heard the news that Brewdog and Innis & Gunn went into administration recently, following financial losses, which have resulted in job losses. Brewdog was acquired by the American company Tilray, and Innis & Gunn was purchased by Tennent’s owner C&C. In both cases, pubs were closed, including the Inveralmond Brewery in Perth, owned by Innis & Gunn. The Tennent’s Wellpark Brewery will continue to brew the Innis & Gunn beers.

In February, I was invited to attend the Caledonian Brewery tour by the site development owners, Artisan Real Estate. This was the last opportunity to visit the brewhouse before the site development of modern housing begins later this year.

I was grateful to Graeme Cruickshank, who also attended the tour and wrote a short article on this, which you can read later in this newsletter. I have added a footnote and a video of the tour.

In the last newsletter, I invited members to write in with any interesting stories of beers, past or present, with the idea of creating a series of articles on beers for forthcoming newsletters.

To continue with this series, I have included the story of Fraoch, which hopefully may encourage members to prepare other beer story articles. It can be either just a couple of paragraphs or something longer, depending on the information available. I look forward to hearing from you.

The Beehive pub, the venue of our AGM and committee meetings for many years, has invested £1m of refurbishment, with the first floor now their dining area. Unfortunately, the Beehive is now charging £500 for the use of this room, and as a result, we are now looking for a new venue to hold our AGM. If you have any ideas for a possible venue for our AGM, please get in touch.

As this is the beginning of the year, your committee has agreed on the events we plan to hold, which were outlined in our AGM held in November last year. For details, please read Last Runnings.

Once again, thank you to everyone who has submitted articles for the Newsletter and the Journal, please keep it going. A final point, we would like to hear from anyone who would be willing to be the editor of this year’s SBAA journal.

2. Cooking the Books – The Edinburgh United Breweries Scandal

In the SBAA January Newsletter, a talk titled, The Great Edinburgh Beer Duty Fraud was mentioned and was presented by SBAA member Andy Arthur. Although I was aware of this fascinating story, I decided to attend the talk and pleased I did so. Andy started the talk and immediately captured the attention of the audience with his opening line.

“It was 3 am on Christmas morning 1933 when – after a long and cold stakeout – not Santa but three agents of His Majesty’s Customs & Excise entered the renowned Bell’s Brewery on the Pleasance and caught the brewers in the act of working illicitly.”

An illustration of the Bell’s Brewery later shown in the EUB court case. The dotted line, highlighted red, shows the route the Excisemen took during their sting operation that ended on Christmas Day. After facsimile copy from John R. Pink, 2005, The Edinburgh Beer Duty Fraud: The Full Story

Perhaps just a coincidence, but the venue of Andy’s talk was a mere 300 yards or so from the Bell’s Brewery and the infamous fraud that took place over several years.

You can read the full story at the following link:
threadinburgh.scot – The Great Edinburgh Beer Duty Fraud

Andy does include a brief history of other Edinburgh breweries on his Threadinburgh website, along with many other interesting articles of historical Edinburgh.

John Martin

3. Fraoch – A Heather Ale

Fraoch is a 5% ABV gluten-free ale brewed by the William Brothers in Alloa. Fraoch is a Gaelic word, meaning heather. As mentioned on the beer bottle label, it has been brewed in Scotland for 4,000 years and is the oldest style of ale still made in the world. Brewed to a 16th-century recipe with malted barley, sweet gale, and heather flowers. Fraoch has a floral, peaty aroma, full malt body, and spicy herbal flavour, and is packaged in a 500ml bottle.

The Caledonian Brewery on Slateford Road, around a mile to the west of Edinburgh’s West End, was the city’s last major brewery, out of 40 or so in the second half of the 19th century. Founded in 1869 by George Lorimer and Robert Clark, it was to thrive there for 153 years, eventually closing in 2022. It fell victim to a series of take-overs, first by Vaux of Sunderland in 1939, then by Scottish & Newcastle in 2004, and finally by Heineken in 2008. When the latter company announced that the Caledonian Brewery was to close because of ‘significant inefficiencies’ in 2022, it claimed that the Victorian brewery was so outdated that it would be too costly to renovate, despite making 4½ billion Euros in profits that year.

The brewery was acquired by Artisan Real Estate in 2023, based in Edinburgh, a company well versed in developing old industrial buildings into modern housing with a sympathetic understanding of their historical worth. As a final farewell to the Brewery before the work begins, they engaged Streets-UK, a social-value consultancy for the built environment based in Glasgow, to organise an Open Day. That was arranged for 21st February 2026, and proved so popular that the planned number of guided tours had to be increased, with over 100 people showing up.

Our guide was Phil Karsgaard of Addyman Archaeology, at Simpson & Brown’s architectural practice just off Leith Walk, and he began by reminding us that the collection of buildings we were about to walk through had been not just a brewery, but also a maltings, a cooperage, and a rope works. Phil proved to be an excellent guide, knowledgeable about both the nature of the various structures and also the processes that went on within them. The accompanying photographs, taken on the day, show some of the highlights of the tour, including the mash tuns and coppers; the Calley had been for some years the last brewery in Britain to use the direct-fired coppers in this way.

The great majority of the Victorian buildings, constructed of red brick with cream-coloured brick quoining, are to be saved, but not so the late 20th century additions made after the major fire of 1994; instead, they are to be replaced by newbuild which will harmonise with the character of the Listed buildings. Happily, the old approximately 130-foot-high chimney stack, so often a victim of demolition these days, will also be saved. That’s not all − the Calley’s paperwork has gone to the Scottish Brewing Archive at Glasgow University, a number of large objects are with Edinburgh City Museums, and Historic Environment Scotland has meticulously recorded all of the old structures.

The Caledonian Brewery will not be forgotten, and Artisan’s plans to respect, preserve, and enhance the rich history of the Caledonian Brewery bode well for the future of the site.

Graeme Cruickshank

Footnote: One of the three coppers will be retained and will feature as a sitting area/sculpture in the new site development, while still maintaining its original form.

Please click on the Caledonian Brewery tour video: YouTube – Caledonian Brewery Tour

You can read more about the site development, which appeared in previous newsletters, No 58 and 59.

5. Brewing Recipes:

The SBAA received an enquiry from a student studying horticulture, and part of her course was a project on the historical, current, and future of native botanicals in the Scottish alcohol industry.

During the student’s research, she came across an initiative in 1996 by the Scottish Brewing Archive to document 18th-century beer recipes. This appeared in the book, Flora Celtica – Plants and People in Scotland, by William Millekin and Sam Bridgewater.

I contacted the archive to find out if such an exercise took place. I received a reply to say they had located a document titled, Compilation of recipes for ales and beers from 18th and 19th century brewing textbooks. There are too many recipes to list them all in this article, but to give you a flavour, so to speak, the following are a few examples:

• Cowslip Ale
• Elderberry Beer
• Butt Beer called Porter
• Spruce Beer

It also includes information on Malt and Hops and how they are best used.

The process of brewing Porter, Burton Ale, Welch Ale, Table Beer, and Scotch Ale, and others are included in some detail.

You can read the full document by contacting the archive.

John Martin

6. Beer Memorabilia

The SBAA has been contacted to ask if anyone is interested in a Lorimer’s beer mug and a limited-edition print of St Leonards Brewery. If interested, please get in touch.

7. Burton Unions Saved:

In the January newsletter we reported concern regarding the future of a set of “Burton Unions” that were under threat of being scrapped following the closure of the Epochal Brewery in Glasgow. Pleased to report SBAA member Ed Mather has confirmed that they have been saved and will be recommissioned at Springbanks Brewery in Wolverhampton.

This is the Springbanks website poster — obviously the Black Country brewery is capitalising on the success of the BBC drama Peaky Blinders. Nice one!

8. Angus at 80.

Congratulations to SBAA member Angus Meldrum who recently celebrated his 80th birthday with friends and family at the appropriate venue ‘The Trade House of Glasgow’ where the Tennent’s brewing family can trace their heritage back to 1556 through the Incorporation of Maltmen in the city.

Angus is a well-known figure in the Scottish brewing industry, particularly for his period as Sales and Marketing Director for Tennent Caledonian Breweries Ltd.

In recent years Angus has been instrumental in preserving Tennent’s Brewing history, here seen salvaging Hansen Yeast propagators from a 200-year-old cellar below Wellpark Brewery. The propagators contributed to the early success of Tennent’s Lager when they were installed in the late 1890s. They are now on display at The Tennent’s Story visitor centre at the Brewery.

9. Last Runnings

SBAA Event – Dundee Brewery Visit

The SBAA members have the opportunity to visit the 71 Degree Brewery in Dundee on Saturday 18th July at a discounted cost of £15 per head payable on the day.

“Experience the craft of brewing first hand with a tour of 71 Brewing, Dundee’s award-winning craft brewery. Located in a historic red brick industrial building at the bottom of Blackness Road, this tour takes you behind the scenes of the brewing process, from raw ingredients to the final pour. After the tour, enjoy a 30-minute guided tasting session with one of our experts, where you’ll sample four to five of our finest beers, discovering a deeper appreciation for the flavours, techniques, and stories behind each brew.” The option to purchase food will be available.

If we have sufficient interest, we will run a bus from central Edinburgh courtesy of the SBAA, however we would require your commitment by 3rd May.

If you would like to attend, please inform the Secretary, indicating if you would utilise the courtesy bus, by 3rd May:
secretary@scottishbrewingarchive.co.uk

Editor Required

With Robbie Pickering stepping down from his role as Journal Editor we would like to hear from anyone who would like to take on the task of proof reading and finalising the content of the articles for this year’s SBAA journal.

158 Years’ Service to the Brewery

Recent visitors to The Tennent’s Story at Wellpark Brewery were members of the Angus family. They supplied press clippings and a story of how the family had 158 years continuous service mainly as coopers at Wellpark Brewery ending in 1994.

Most remarkable was 74 years old James Angus who retired as a “fireman cooper” in 1955 after 61 years employment where he had never had a day off work or had been ill during his entire service. Current generations should note!

SBAA Journal On Line ?

Thanks to the members who responded to the question raised in our last newsletter regarding the possibility of moving the Annual SBAA journal from a paper copy, posted to each member, to an on-line copy only on our website. Following the response and the requirement to retain a paper copy for National archives, your committee agreed that the paper copy of the Journal will continue.

Correspondence to the SBAA Secretary secretary@scottishbrewingarchive.co.uk
SBAA Newsletter No. 67 – April 2026