Deeside Brewery's new home

From http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/

I went to see the new location of the brewery yesterday - Aulton Farm, Auchattie - owner Mike Bain's home. Mike's got a huge area of land there, with lots of outbuildings and more than adequate room to run the brewery from.

The brewery itself is located in this one old steading building:

Brewer Tim hard at work:

New fermenter in the middle:

One of the outhouses used for cask storage:

The other side of the brewery building and the courtyard, on the other side of which is Mike's main residence:

Obviously not open to the general public, but Mike would like to find a suitable time to have some of the local members out.

Deeside Brewery and other news

From http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/

Deeside Brewery has moved - to new owner Mike Bain's home at Auchattie, just outside Banchory. I never thought that they would have a long-term relationship with their former landlords at Deeside Activity Park - particularly as no lease had been signed - and so it has proved.

Mike has plenty of land and some unused steading buildings, where the brewery is now located. I've arranged to go out and view the new setting next week.

It's also no surprise, that, like Brewdog and a number of others, Deeside Brewery is focussing its future growth on keg production. They will still be doing Macbeth in cask (as well as keg), but LAF will only be available in bottles in future. Abhainn – which is apparently doing very well – will be cask only, but Talorcan will be cask, mixed gas keg and bottles. The recently launched 1057 IPA (which I’ve never tasted yet) has had only limited success, partly due to its strength, so there may be a less potent variant of this brewed soon, with Nelson Sauvin hops.

Some of the old brand names – such as Brude, Broichan etc – have been mothballed for the time being. The names may be used for future brews, but probably not the recipes. Nechtan fits into this category too, but this may be on the agenda a bit sooner.

Bottling is being done at Williams Bros – none of it bottle conditioned, however – and they have signed a distribution deal with Forth Wines for the Edinburgh/Glasgow area. They also have a contract with Belhaven which will supply additional volume.

Going down the keg route has opened up a number of new outlets, including the more up-market ones like the Marcliffe, Malmaison, Raemoir House etc, and, potentially, the Tor-na-Coille. Other new “real ale” outlets such as Adam Lounge and Inn at the Park will be opening up too.

Deeside have brewed a new, as yet un-named, lager, which they have high hopes for growth and greater profits from.

The Deeside Beer Festival is still going ahead at Potarch, but there has been no publicity yet, as the original proposed date of 13/14 July may be put back to August. Much depends on the availability of suitable comedy acts – apparently no longer including Phil Kay – and the ability to pre-sell 10 tables will determine exactly when it will take place. August fits in better with a Macbeth anniversary apparently.


On other matters, the relatively recent discovery of the Macbeth Arms, Lumphanan serving Cairngorm beer, "contaminated" with CO2, directly from handpumps, has led me to have a prolonged discussion with a few of our committee who understand the intricacies of these matters far better than I do. I believe this to be a clear case of "misleading dispense" (although to be fair to the publican, it was he who owned up immediately), and I rather suspect that the Tor-na-Coille is currently also doing this with the same supplier. Certainly, that is what Deeside are planning to give them, should they take over the business there. At least Deeside are being upfront about it, but I'm not sure if Cairngorm - and perhaps some other brewers? - have been as open. A difficult issue to manage - but a trend to watch out for.


A quick visit to Grantown the weekend before last saw us paying a couple of visits to the Ben Mhor. This is definitely Cairngorm country and it was no surprise that they, like the nearby Grant Arms, had Trade Winds on, although the former also had Wildcat. Nearer home, Macbeth in the Burnett Arms last Friday again went down well, as did Houston's APA on Saturday night, watching the Champions League Final on another weekend away at their "home" at the Fox and Hounds (http://www.houston-brewing.co.uk/) - a cracking pub.

May update/North Sea Ales

From http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/

It's exactly a month since I last posted and we're well into Mild Month now, but I certainly haven't seen any out our way. The best pint I've had in the last month was Macbeth at the Burnett Arms, Banchory last weekend - the usual slight haziness, but excellent taste. When out delivering North Sea Ales round the Deeside pubs, I also had a pint of Macbeth at the Boat Inn, Aboyne and it just wasn't anywhere near the same quality as the Burnett's pint.

It seems to me that the Boat Inn has gone backwards a bit in the last year or so. Only 2 handpumps in operation nowadays and I can't remember the last time I had a really good pint in there. The other beer on Monday was Ossian and it was apparently so-so as well - although I didn't try it myself.

The Learney Arms, Torphins had Cairngorm's Mountain Blue on last night, and the Potarch was Deuchar's. The latter still has 2 handpumps on the bar - the second usually for a Deeside ale, but there was none of that when I was there. I also took the opportunity to try again at the Feughside Inn. Dave was there, sitting on the customer side of the bar, but the handpump was once again dry. I think that's at least the last 4 visits that there's been no ale on there. I can understand that they would struggle with ale over the winter, but I would have thought that it would be back on by now if there was any demand at all. I had a brief word with Dave and asked him if he was going to be doing ale again and he said he would be starting at the beginning of next month - but I got the distinct feeling I was being appeased. I left a pile of North Sea Ales anyway.

Delivered to the Elizabethan and Cheers in Fraserburgh yesterday as well. Bumped in to Raymond and Bill from Inverurie (sorry, Bill - forgot your surname) in there, and Bill kindly took some spare copies of North Sea Ale back to Inverurie.

That's all my outlets delivered to now - bar one - the Tor-na-Coille Hotel. I've tried a couple of times to have a quiet discussion with somebody in there who knows something about the beers. Usually, it's so quiet and nobody working knows anything about it, but last night it was incredibly busy and all the staff were run off their feet. I'd been tipped off by a well-known local trade expert that perhaps, just like the recent revelation from the Macbeth Arms in Lumphanan, there may be a case of misleading dispense going on here. I've asked for clarification/confirmation from the Tor-na-Coille Hotel and, at the time of writing, I await their response.

I'm waiting for updates from Deeside Brewery to complete my quarterly BLO report, which is overdue now. Incidentally, I noticed that our local Aberdeen CAMRA web site has a list of contacts, which includes the various BLO's and there's an e-mail address attached to each name, including my own - but it's an address I've never heard of and when I tried to send an e-mail to it, it just bounced back. I noticed also that the brewery is still named as Hillside and that Old Foreigner is still listed there as well?