Great Scot
The Caledonian Brewery is the last brewery in Edinburgh and after some tough times it is in fine form.
Dominic Roskrow visited it
They’re a modest bunch at the Caledonian Brewery in the heart of Edinburgh.
Ask them how they have managed to succeed as a brewery when so many others failed, and how they have survived against the odds and outlived 40 other beer makers in the city and you’d think they would take a bit of credit for their business acumen, perceptive trading and insightful marketing. Not a bit of it.
“We consider ourselves to have been incredibly lucky,” says marketing manager Marie Moser. “We’ve definitely had more than our fair share of luck. The brewery was founded in 1869 at a time when there were 40 other brewers. If you had to pick one that would survive you most certainly wouldn’t have gone with this one.
“It wasn’t the biggest or the most successful. It does back on to a railway line which is good, but it was built on a slope.”
C a l e d o n i a n came into being almost as a young man’s folly, a rich man’s hobby horse at a time when beer production in the city was thriving.
“Back then the only means of transport was horse and cart and so breweries didn’t serve their beer very far away, probably to half a dozen pubs or so,” says Marie. “Beer volumes were substantially higher so there was a demand for so many breweries. And that was because people didn’t trust the water back then and preferred to drink beer. There would have been a lot of low strength 2% ABV beer.
“With all those breweries and a few distilleries as well, imagine the smell in the city. I know Edinburgh wasn’t calle.....
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By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Brewery Focus
Page number : 16
