Historic home brew

Traquair House is the oldest continuously inhabited home in Scotland, dating back more than 900 years. It has links to Bonnie Price Charlie and history galore, but it also has a very special microbrewery. Here is the stuff of legend, where an old-fashioned Scottish heavy ale is being produced. Food writer Cat Thomson goes along to uncover this liquid legend.

Catherine Maxwell Stuart, the 21st Lady of Traquair, enjoys a glass of beer, which has been made in her family’s historic brew house. She explains it was her father who rediscovered the abandoned brewery in 1965. “My dad had been poking around in all the old outhouses and came across the brew house dating from 1700s. Everyone had forgotten about it, as it had been used for centuries as the family junk room. It is extraordinary that it had not been dismantled.”

Old fashioned ale

Peter Maxwell Stuart began brewing in the year Catherine was born, and with the help of Sandy Hunter, the then-owner of Belhaven Brewery, the pair decided to recreate an authentic taste of history, by making a Traquair House Ale which is based on an old-fashioned recipe for Scottish heavy ale.

Catherine recalls her idyllic childhood growing up, surrounded by dogs and her beloved Welsh cross pony, named Western Gamestar. She says, “The best part was being allowed to stay up late to help dad brew beer. The brew day would start at seven o’clock in the morning, and the gardener or groundsman would be called in to do the mash-in. My dad would be running around in his boiler suit. It was really fun, and it smelled fantastic. The entire day was all about waiting for either the beer to boil before you added the hops or to cool before it could be transferred to the fermenting vessels.”

She explains, “In summer it took forever for it to cool.” They then had to wait for the customs man to arrive, sometimes around midnight, and take the original gravity measurement before it would be transferred into the fermenters, and he was often roped in as an extra pair of hands.

Catherine describes her father as being ahead of his time, “He was very down to earth, and people used to think he worked on the grounds here. He was clever but unassuming. A laird brewing in his own castle is just a fantastic story.”

The family had to apply for a domestic licence to brew, and in the early days only brewed a few times a year with beer produced sold in the gift shop. To counteract the risk of contamination they brewed extra strong beers which are then pasteurised, giving them an impressive ten-year shelf life.

As an early pioneer of micro-brewing the beer became more popular and won awards. This meant her dad needed to expand brew operations, and he employed Ian Cameron as head brewer, a position he held for 40 years. Catherine explains, “Our brewers have always started working in the grounds here, as opposed to being formally trained. The thing about brewing beer here is it really a craft. You must learn the idiosyncrasies of it.” The current long-time head brewer, Frank Smith, started work on a youth opportunity scheme in 1981 and is assisted by brewer, Peter Higgins.

Catherine’s father sadly died in 1990, and she took over the running of the estate. She says, “I was 25 and I had just come back home because my father wanted to retire, and I needed to learn the ropes for a couple of years. But he was diagnosed with cancer only three months after I got back. It all seemed to happen terribly quickly.”  

Her first task following her father’s death was to drastically increase beer exports to the US. She says, “In 1993, we doubled production from a four-barrel brew plant to an eight-barrel brewery plant.” Although Catherine is no longer hands-on in the brewery it holds a special place in her heart. She steadfastly believes that Traquair ales must be made in the historic oak tuns. “That is basically the secret to its flavour,” she says.

She also ensured the tradition of creating limited edition beers either to mark family milestones or significant brews was maintained. There was beer to celebrate Catherine’s 21st birthday and her parents’ 25th silver wedding anniversary and most recently to commemorate the 2000th brew.

Running a historic house has its challenges, but Catherine enjoys the diversity, “It is a fantastic privilege, so whatever is going wrong, I have always kept in mind that it is a really beautiful place, worth working for, preserving and keeping alive. My philosophy is that it is very much a living piece of history which can still have meaning in the 21st century.

The estate holds a variety of events including weddings. “Sometimes we have people being married in the chapel, which is directly on top of the brew house, and they end up being married surrounded by “heavenly” beer smells,” laughs Catherine.

She adds, “I always loved the brewery, I liked the fact that you are making a product. In the early days, I did a lot of promotion and went to dozens of trade shows and presentations all over the world telling the story. I go to the States regularly where they are obsessed with it. The US is our biggest market. We also export to parts of Europe, but Brexit has been an absolute nightmare. We have now got a distribution warehouse in Belgium, and we sell through there.”

Catherine says, “A lot of visitors come and try the beer here, and then they’re sold on it.” The house and brewery are open from Easter through to the end of October and visitors can buy beers online or directly from the shop. You can also book an in-depth brewery tour with a proper tasting. The beers are also available from independent beer shops and Waitrose stores in Scotland.

Catherine feels the whole of the South of Scotland is an extraordinarily overlooked area, but adds as a result, “The Scottish Borders are not crowded with people, and there are lovely rolling hills and wonderful heritage. It is an undiscovered gem and once you get people here, they always come back for more.”

Inspired to visit? Here are some more recommendations…