Scotland, comprising the northernmost region of the United Kingdom, is a country better known for whisky as its preferred restorative, but it has nevertheless given the world some of its most enduring beer styles. The nation has never been short of entrepreneurs, innovators, and free thinkers, and the Scottish family names of McEwan, Younger, Drybrough, and Tennent are forever associated with resourcefulness, ingenuity, and beer. The Edinburgh-based McEwan and Younger businesses came together in 1931 as Scottish Brewers Ltd, and then joined forces with Newcastle Breweries Ltd in 1960 to form Scottish & Newcastle, a powerful force that developed into one of Europe’s most progressive companies. The Tennent brewing business that originated in farming has produced lager for the domestic market since 1885 and continues to thrive in Glasgow. See scottish & newcastle brewery.

Farmers growing barley were closely linked to maltsters and whisky distillers and were instrumental in commercializing beer-making, which had, in pre-industrial times, been a cottage industry. See ale-wives. Historical documents indicate that the commercial brewing trade was developed by Benedictine monks in 12th-century Edinburgh and in neighboring Dunbar, where they took full advantage of fresh spring water sources and locally grown barley. Over the centuries, Scotland gained a reputation for ales of high quality. Belhaven, Scotland’s longest-established brewery, gained such a reputation that in 1827 Austrian Emperor Francis I chose its beers for his cellar, describing them as “the burgundy of Scotland.”

The ready market for beer consumption and the difficulties of bulk transport meant that brewing was concentrated in the larger towns and cities—Aberdeen, for example, could count 144 brewers in 1693. Glasgow and Edinburgh (with its “charmed circle” of pristine wells lapping below the city) developed the greatest concentration of breweries, yet little, rural Alloa in the Central Lowlands was regarded as second only to Burton-on-Trent as a British brewing center, due to its bountiful local supply of grain and coal and its harbor on the River Forth. For a time, Scotland vied with England for the trade in India pale ale, before Burton finally eclipsed all other sources.

Beer and whiskey share both raw materials and process procedures before they go their separate ways, only to return side by side on more social and convivial occasions. Just as brandy is distilled wine, whisky is essentially distilled beer. Traditional scotch ales are generally characterized by their dark color, their substantial malt flavors, and having little hop content, but a rich—and perceived to be nutritious—sweetness and smooth, rhythmic texture. See scotch ale. Some beer terminology is exclusively Scottish, such as the “shilling” system derived from the 19th-century cost of a hogshead of beer. “Light,” “heavy,” and “export” ales were variously known as 60/- (that is, 60 shillings), 70/-, and 80/-. Of course, it is the barley wine-like “wee heavy” beer style that lights the path from Scotland and many US brewers have taken it to heart, often developing it a stage further by using peated malt, despite the protests of actual Scots.

There is some written evidence—and a lot of folklore—to support the notion that bittering ingredients such as heather, myrtle, and broom were used in Scottish beer instead of hops, which are unsuitable for cultivation in harsher climates and were therefore expensive to transport from the south of England and continental Europe. Some contemporary Scottish brewers, such as the Heather Ale Company, have revisited these age-old ingredients to produce beer flavored with pine cones, gooseberries, and even seaweed with notable success.

In the 1950s an “amalgamation rush” had brought about the virtual disappearance of the Scottish independent brewers. Bass Charrington, Allied, Scottish & Newcastle, and Whitbread had taken a large stake in the Scottish trade, following smaller companies such as Vaux of Sunderland in the North of England and Allsopp of Burton-on-Trent which had already acquired a significant brewery-owning foothold in Scotland. Scotland was not exempt from the lager phenomenon that spiralled out of the 1960s with the demand for “younger” and “easier-to-drink beers” typified by dubiously Irish Harp Lager and Skol, a decidedly confused Scottish-Scandinavian synthesis.

The independent spirit has never been conquered, however, and Scottish brewers have always been at the forefront of innovation, being early adopters of bottling, canning, and exporting. Enterprising breweries such as Harviestoun, Fyne Ales, Orkney, Highland, and Black Isle have developed distinct styles and beer ranges. Harviestoun’s Ola Dubh, for instance, is produced in various “expressions” having been matured for different periods in former whisky casks. Among recent entries, Aberdeenshire-based BrewDog plays an age-old “bad boy” role, clambering for record amounts of alcohol in their beers and eliciting both delight and disgust by their general antics. These are all beers that exemplify Scotland: spirited and heavily influenced by time and place.

See also britain.