STIRLINGSHIRE-BASED Traditional Scottish Ales (TSA) has re-launched as Black Wolf Brewery.

Brewery owner VC Brands decided to rebrand TSA, which has been operating for seven years from its site at Throsk, following the expansion of its management team with the arrival of director and investor, Andrew Richardson.

Mr Richardson, who previously worked at Courage, McVitie's and Diageo and latterly as managing director of Johnston Press Scotland, joined fellow directors Carlo Valente and Graham Coull at the end of 2013.

Mr Richardson said: "We chose Black Wolf Brewery because we wanted a name that reflected the brewery's Stirlingshire roots." In local legend, a black wolf saved Stirling from ninth century Viking invaders by howling a warning to alert its defenders.

The company has invested heavily in the relaunch, which includes a new range of craft beers in bottle, keg and cask in addition to a full rebrand of its current packaging and websites by award-winning design agency Tayburn.

The new range includes Tundra, an elderflower-flavoured wheat beer, Florida Black and Big Red. The company is also launching Coulls, a premium lager, in bottle and keg. It reports considerable interest in the new range from overseas customers and from the on- and off-trades in the UK.

The brewery's existing heritage brands, Lomond Gold, Glencoe, Ben Nevis and William Wallace, and the premium brands, 1488 and Double Espresso, will begin to appear on shelf in their new Black Wolf guise over the coming months.

Mr Valente said: "We're confident that the decisions to invest in order to produce a new range of beers and to rebrand the brewery are the right ones. We now have a very strong range of beers which we will be taking to new and existing customers, and we expect to see our market share grow in Scotland and to create more export opportunities further afield."