Raise a glass to Alloa brewery

Hamish Hutchinson • Published 28 Oct 2009 12:29 0 Comments

AN ALLOA brewery raised a glass to its continued success when it received a plethora of awards at the International Beer Challenge in The Strand in London.

William Bros brewery has already bagged numerous awards for its ales but this is the first time that the company has received international recognition beating off competition from multi-national breweries such as Carlsberg and Stella.

The brewery received a gold award for its Midnight Sun ale in the Porter and Stout category, silver for its Alba beer and bronze for its whisky cask aged anniversary Fraoch (Heather Ale). And they were also commended for their 80/- & Joker IPA.

Bruce Guthrie, one of the founders of the brewery, told the Advertiser, "We are all delighted to have done so well and the awards ceremony was a really good night.

"This is the first international awards we have received as all the rest we have won have been UK based ones.

"So this, along with The World Beer Cup in America is quite an achievement for a small brewery like ourselves."

The company started life in 1988 with Bruce brewing its flagship beer Heather Ale, in a tiny brewery in Taynult, where he was producing no more than five barrels per batch, just enough to supply five pubs across Scotland.

As demand grew the project expanded and a bigger brewery was needed to brew the larger quantities required so the recipe was taken to the old Maclay's brewery in Alloa.

Along with Heather Ale, four other historic Scottish ales were developed using natural Scottish produce such as elderberries, the shoots of

Scots pine, seaweed and gooseberries.

In 1998 the Heather Ale brewery moved its production of cask ales to Craigmill where it remained for six years before taking over the New Alloa Brewery at Kelliebank in 2004, where it is the last remaining brewery in the old Scottish brew capital.

Bruce went on, "Any brewery that is appearing on domestic sales statistics gets invited to send in beers to The International Beer Challenge.

"We sent in five different beers and three of them got medals.

"We are especially pleased about the gold award because that is the one people recognise and is the one we really want to shout about.

"Receiving the award means that we are mixing with major breweries and people who might not have heard of us, we will now appear on their radar, and it also gives us greater credibility in the industry.

"Alloa has a massive brewing history and was once one of the biggest brewing towns in the North of Britain.

"There are now only ourselves and Harviestoun left and we have struggled to keep it going so this is a massive achievement."

Bruce added, "I think our success is down to the fact we are always striving to develop new products, always trying to be on the edge and brave enough to try different ingredients.

"People can be scared to try products from a small brewery because they don't know what it will taste like, but once you win a few awards people recognise your products and are keener to buy them which is what we want because we are keen to keep jobs and production in Alloa."

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