In matters of fermented grain drinks, Scotland is a misunderstood land. To the extent Americans are familiar with Scottish ales at all, it is usually through an American misinterpretation called “Scotch ale,” thick with the peat of distiller’s malt—unlike any beers made in Scotland for centuries. Or perhaps they have encountered the lyrically paradoxical “wee heavy” and spent a moment considering poet and lyricist Robert Burns and haggis, wondering what it was.
The true tradition of Scottish brewing, however, is at once more grand and celebrated, if lost to those an ocean away.
A Tradition of Strong Ale
Brewing extends back millennia in Scotland, but we can move directly to the late 1700s to find the taproot of the strong-ale tradition. In this era, two cities dominated Scottish brewing, Edinburgh and Alloa. Both were port towns along the Firth of Forth, which positioned them to capture the export trade when it began booming in the nineteenth century.