The early years consisted of brewing on a nano-micro brewery, fashioned from old kegs, and assembled at Jo’s dads workshop.  Decision then taken to leave corporate life in 2003, we started Stewart Brewing in the early part of 2004, however it took until November 2004 by the time we had found the location, built our own brewery and brewed the first beers, the recipes having been developed at our good friends Bruce and Scott Williams’ gaff when they owned Strathaven Brewery.  From the start, the mission at Stewart Brewing has been a simple one.  That is, to produce the best beers we can, offer the best service, and have fun.  In essence it’s about making a business out of a love of brewing and drinking good beer. 

 We had very little money! The brewery was built on a shoestring, but we made sure that the kit was designed well, our processes were second to none, and that we used the finest ingredients we could source.  We started supplying to only a handful of pubs across Edinburgh, such as the Halfway House, Cask & Barrel, Guildford Arms and the Blue Blazer, but steadily, with a consistent dedication to making our beers as good as we could, we were able to gain a foothold, in what was a dominated, limited and restricted market.  Our beer range was small, (Pentland IPA, Copper Cascade, Edinburgh No 3), but we kept it simple and good and we managed to make some progress gaining new accounts.  After that came the awards, with beers like Edinburgh Gold and Hollyrood scooping some major titles, which showed that even on our budget, home made equipment, we were able to compete with some of the bigger and more established breweries and produce some of the finest Scottish beers. Overall we have won some 30 awards for our beers.

 This led to an increase in sales.  So much so, that our challenge right after we started, and every year since, has been about how to produce more beer out of the small brewery.  We’ve installed more tanks, stretched existing ones, built mezzanines and constructed high level offices, commandeered our car park, worked nightshift and procured half a dozen shipping containers, hired new units, and filled every spare corner of the local industrial estate with our stock, all in the name of squeezing more out of the brewery.  We have progressed from supplying 150 barrels in our first year, to now producing over 3000.  But still essentially on the same brew plant that was built from old Irn Bru tanks and wrapped in loft insulation and B&Q wood cladding.

 The handful of pubs that we started with has also now grown to over 500 and includes over 200 independent bottle stores and restaurants, while the business employs 16 full time staff and a host of Part-timers, (sourced from the nearby Heriot Watt Brewing School!).  Every inch of our 2000 sq ft unit is crammed, while we work 7 day weeks and 24hrs a day.  There is so little space we have 2 or 3 people to a desk!

 Over the years we have carefully added to our range, with  new beers like Doppelbock, 8, black IPA, Radical Road, Hefeweizen, each time, challenging ourselves as brewers to make the best type of beer that we can in a particular style. As well as progressing initiatives like Battle of the Brewers, Natural Selection Brewing, and the “Hopinator” (to be reborn this year!).  And we have maintained our commitment to our original brands, which although being less “radical”, are still of highest quality and selling more and more each year.

 All this and we have still only scratched the surface of what we would like to do and where we would like to go with beer.  All along we have been working towards, and waiting for some more space, where we can stretch out and continue to expand our range of quality, locally produced beers in cask, keg, growler, bottle, can, mini-keg, bag in box or whatever!

 We get the keys to our new brewery this week.  It’s taken 3 years to source the land, sort the planning, finance the build and complete the construction, and there are too many people to thank here who have been helpful and supportive in getting to this stage, (over 100 at last count!).  In addition we are grateful to, our customers and staff who have stuck with us, as we have endured all the constraints of the last few years, knowing that better things lie ahead.  It’s a big project for us and over a £1.2M investment.

At the heart of our new building will be a brand new, state of the art 45 HL Bavarian Brew house. Energy use will be maximised by solar thermal heat collection from our south facing sloping courtyard roof, and spare heat from the kettle exhaust will be captured and re-used to heat the underfloor of the brewery shop and offices.  We will collect our rainwater and re-use for washing casks and tanks, (not for brewing!), and our efficient building construction will result in some 60% less energy use per barrel brewed.  We will install a Hop infusion “torpedo” enabling us to maximise the big, bold, late hop flavours that characterise our Radical Road and Black IPA, but we will not forget how important our core range of beers are.  After a bit of TLC and maintenance, we will be keeping our 10Bl plant, using for special one offs, and smaller volume runs.  A helpful piece of equipment for the brewing students from Heriot Watt to continue the progress of Natural Selection Brewing company building on the success of their Finch and Anorak beers from the previous 2 years.

That is not all!  We are installing a new “Craft Beer Kitchen”.  An array of brewing and mashing Kettles, where anyone can come to brew any beer they like.  Fancy trying your hand at a Strawberry and Cream Porter, honey infused oak aged IPA, Chai spiced Saison?  Or maybe just a great quality late hopped American Ale, Bohemian Pilsner or a powerfully malty Scottish 90/-, then you will be able to do that all in the new beer kitchen.  I can see a few more local “battle of the brewers” coming up…

 Attached to our kitchen is our brewery tap, furnished with 20 taps, where all our regulars, specials, one offs, and guest beers from some other great Scottish Brewers will be available for you to buy in refillable “growler” format, as well as kegs and casks for the “larger” party…

 Its all going to take place over the next few months, and we look forward to hosting as many of our customers, old and new to the new place.  In the meantime – just keep drinking great beer!

 Cheers

Steve Stewart, m.d.

Check out our Ka Pai video on youtube!

Kia ora! So as we eventually approach spring the pace of activity at Stewart Brewing is somewhat frantic!  The six nations has turned out to be a great tournament with that fantastic home win, which I am sure will be remembered for years to come and the SRA has been pouring to celebrate!   The new Brewery build is now picking up pace and we hope to start the re-location the first week in April.  New tanks will arrive and be filled with beer and the new brewhouse will be installed in June.  So it’s all finally happening,  there is still tonnes more work ahead of us but exciting times none the less. 

Anyhow, what I wanted to tell you about is our very latest release, Ka Pai a 5.2% South Pacific IPA.  It’s an ultra pale ale with a full body.  Passion fruit, mango and cinnamon aroma, initially sweet but beautifully balanced with long lasting citrus bitterness.  I really hope it will be well received on the bars of Edinburgh from the 20^th March and you never know it may well turn up in a bottled edition in the near future too.  And the name…well we wanted something New Zealand so after much debate we settled on Ka Pai which is Maori for good, great, choice!  I hope you seek a pint out soon and enjoy.

There is a pladge of drunk wasps in the brewery today. That’s the collective noun, you can look it up. You also get a shiver of sharks and a wisdom of wombats just, not in this brewery. What’s the collective noun for brewer’s? A confusion? I watched 3 of them try and change a lightbulb the other day and had to take over

Another celebration on the calendar is our 8th Birthday which just passed, we will be doing something very nice to mark the occasion. More news on this in the next month.

We have 3 new full timers starting with us in the next month all from various sections of the industry. I’m looking forward to seeing what they bring to Stewart Brewing, it’s always nice to get a fresh perspective from new blood. They’ll arrive just in time to witness the breaking of ground at our new brewery site which at loooooooooooooong last is happening. How little they will realise how long we have all waited for this moment!

Right, that sounds like a malt delivery just arrived, better dash.

>Gone< 

Embra’s New Award:

For a change from the regular Head brewer’s blog I am taking control this time.  We are deep into the busy (crazy) season and are all working as hard as ever on the production side of things. 

Over the last couple of months I have been providing some production support to the Heriot-Watt students who did a fantastic job on their summer wheat beer Anorak.  The launch at the Stockbridge Tap was a great success and it was great to be a part of that project.  I am looking forward to meeting some new students next year and seeing what next exciting product they will create.

I also took charge of the brewery again as Iain the Head brewer had a well-deserved Holiday.  I can happily report that all went well and I enjoyed the experience albeit a little stressful at times!!!

And so we arrive at the present time almost half way through August and the Festival is in full swing.  Our Edinburgh Festival beer returns and is tasting great.  Hoppy and Thirst quenching perfect for the Sunny weather that has appeared from nowhere.

Hope you all get to enjoy some Sun and enjoy a Great Beer!!

George Harper

A very successful showing at the end of the Edinburgh Marathon saw our 2,500 pint Beer Wagon drunk dry. It had to be topped up with reinforcements!

A triple venue Battle of the Brewers saw us emerge victorious against Cairngorm brewery with our Ruby IPA which is now available throughout June as ‘Solas’ a lovely, well balanced summer ale. We just need to decide who to challenge next? Your suggestions are welcome. What about a triple threat match with three breweries?

Next up we’ll dust off the Beer Wagon for another showing at the Royal Highland Show. This year’s showing promises to be the biggest yet with around 6,000 pints available including some of our one-off ‘Tractor’ ale.

Later in the month we’ll have this year’s Heriot Watt graduates in to brew a double batch of their ‘Anorak’ beer. Early trials of the recipe were almost more hop than liquid! Though the final version promises to be a belter. This will be available in bottle and cask. I hear the bottles are already almost sold out, good effort guys.

We should be well represented at the Scottish Real Ale Festival with some of the aforementioned ‘Solas’ Ruby IPA joined by the crowd pleasing hoppy thirst quencher ‘Zymic’ as well as some other Stewart’s staples.

That lot should be enough for getting on with!

Keep drinking great beer, whoever brews it.

Iain Couper

Plans are gathering momentum for our new brewery. We’ve been in our current unit for almost 8 years now and have completely outgrown it. Our new place will be built from the ground up which should be better than trying to fit a brewery into an existing building. It’s exciting looking at the blueprints and deciding how it will all shape up in the year ahead. One immediate improvement should be a dedicated retail shop and sampling bar rather than the makeshift shelf-come-shop we currently work with. This will be much more enjoyable for customers and is just the tip of the iceberg in what we hope to offer visitors coming to the brewery in future.

We’ve got enough brewers together to start a five-a -side team. Our first game is Sunday night. Its just a friendly but I’m so unfit it’s going to be a hard shift on Monday morning! After much scratching of heads, we have a team name too. Unfortunately Real Ale Madrid was vetoed by a Barcelona supporting player so we’ve settled on  Hops of Midlothian, very droll  

With the rugby Six Nations upon us, we’ll be brewing the 2012 version of SRA (Stewart’s Rugby Ale) next week. It’s a tasty session ale packed with Nelson Sauvin, Chinook and Styrian Goldings so look out for it. 

I’m also working on a stronger, triple hopped, bottled pale ale for release around March/April. Still in the early stages…

Oh, and Coconut Porter in bottle is paradise!

A brew of Coconut Porter is currently in conditioning tank aging on hand toasted coconut, we’ll get that into 500ml bottles this weekend along with another batch of Cauld Reekie stout. 

Our long awaited fresh stocks of Amarillo and Chinook hops have arrived so we’ve brewed fresh batches of Hollyrood and Embra for bottle.

In a couple of days I should have a final recipe for our new Black IPA. We’ll be pitting this against Harviestoun Brewery’s version of the style at our second Battle of the Brewers night on Thurs 2nd February. I’ll not say too much though, don’t want to give the competition any advantage! Should be a good test of our respective brewing skills.

It looks a bit Magnum PI around the brewery this month with all of us real men (except George who’s wife won’t let him) growing moustaches for charity. The plan is to shave them on December 1st and weigh them to see who grew the most! I’m currently sporting a nice handlebar number.

Went to see former Head Brewer Oli’s band Homework on Friday night. They were launching their debut mini album at Sneaky Pete’s. Good gig, shame there was no decent beer on the bar! Had to resort to drinking Patron coffee tequila which was actually great.

Iain

We’re in the process of filling thousands of minikegs for our shop and farmers markets in Stirling, Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee. As it stands, nobody has beaten my record of filling 44 kegs in an hour.

We’ve got some exciting things lined up in the New Year and some great hops to use on new beers.

We’ll be having a second edition of  Battle of the Brewers in January after successfully beating Williams Bros this past June. We’ll confirm details of this  in the next few weeks.

Right, I’m off to do some quality sampling down my local.

Iain