Most home brewing starts indoors, before moving out to a shed or a garage where the equipment can gurgle away in peace or occasionally explode if things go wrong.
This was not true, though, of Traquair House in the Borders, which had its own brewhouse to provide for the estate until the early 1800s, when it fell into disuse.
That sounds strange, even in a stately pile like Traquair. Having a brewery at home is the sort of the thing people remember, but according to lady laird Catherine Maxwell Stuart it was "just used as a family junk room and was full of old champagne bottles". Luckily the junk hid the copper fermenting vessel, preventing it from being melted down for the war effort, and in 1965 her father Peter began brewing again.
He died in 1990 but some charming footage from the 1970s survives. "When the wort is bubbling merrily in the 250-year-old copper," trills the voiceover in clipped BBC tones, "the 20th laird adds the hops, which are probably the only difference between Traquair ale as brewed today and that sampled by Bonnie Prince Charlie." (The Jacobite leader popped in for a pint in 1744.)
"I remember the excitement of staying up to help cool the beer with slotted paddles, and the Customs men coming out at 11 at night to check the original gravity," says Catherine. Seeing her father on film, clad in tweeds and labelling each bottle by hand, it's clear to me that this was Scotland's original pioneering microbrewery.
Catherine, who took over in 1990, was following a strong tradition: brewing has female roots if you think of the brewsters and alewives of old.
This was the theme of last month's Slow Food event at Ardtornish in Argyll which featured Traquair and two other breweries.
The story of Fyne Ales began in 2001 when Tuggy Delap and her husband Jonny, then 54 and suffering from Parkinson's disease, ignored medical advice to avoid stress and opened a brewery in an old milking parlour on their farm at Cairndow, at the head of Loch Fyne. The stress came from employing people more than brewing beer, but that was all was part of why Fyne Ales exists – to build a community business that keeps the roof on the farm and provides jobs. "When I was a kid," says Tuggy, "there were 17 shepherds there. Now there's just one."
By the time Jonny died in 2010, Fyne Ales had 14 full-time staff and a stash of well-deserved awards. In my view it is one of the most innovative microbreweries in Scotland. The issue is not quality or the ever stiffer competition, so much as the dearth of good outlets. There needs to be a new generation of independent landlords to reverse the slow death of the pub and help absorb the growing loch of craft beer.
Completing the trio of brewsters was Petra Wetzel of West brewery in Glasgow. Fizzing with energy, this Bavarian bombshell appears unstoppable as she prepares to open a new £9 million brewery at Port Dundas next spring. Watch this space.
DRINK CHOICES
Holly Daze
£2.70 (5%; 500ml) from Quel Vin, The Good Spirits Co and Oddbins
An extremely drinkable seasonal brew from Fyne Ales, this has an amber colour with a creamy off-white head, along with a caramelised, slightly spicy nose. The taste is relatively robust and fruity, with the bitterness balanced by the sweetness of the roasted malt.
Jacobite Ale
£3 (8%; 330ml) from Cornelius, Peter Green & Co, The Cave and good independents
With its dense brown colour, Jacobite Ale has a rich, chocolatey, dried fruit character, freshened up with some spicy coriander. If Bonnie Prince Charlie was given something half as good, it's a wonder he ever managed to leave Traquair.
Vega di Castilla Verdejo 2011
£6.99 (13%) from Morrisons
This verdejo comes from the grape's homeland of Rueda, north-west of Madrid. As a variety it could be a country cousin of sauvignon with the same green notes and crunchy acididity. It tastes more rustic, though, with greater texture and a similar dry, herbal finish.
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