Brewer in the House

From http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/

I attended the Belhaven Brewer in the House evening at the Boat Inn, Aboyne last night, accompanied by Keith Gray from Banchory, and we had arranged to meet up with fellow CAMRA member Peter Cook from Dinnet, who was there with his next door neighbour. Steve and Kirsty Ross, proprietors of the Douglas Arms, Banchory had also been invited along. This six apart, there was only a small handful of locals.

Belhaven, meanwhile, arrived mob-handed - Brewery Director George Howell, Brewer Alan McLaren and Sales Rep Steve ? were all present.

Their presentation was done in the newly refurbished public bar at the back of the Boat Inn, which is looking nice and homely now. There were other punters and diners in the bar at the same time and George Howell sometimes struggled to make himself heard over the chatter. There were plenty of free samples, however - St. Andrews Ale, which was on tap that night anyway, plus Belhaven's IPA, Burns and Black.

They talked about their experiences since Greene King took them over in 2005. They had feared the worst, and whilst there was a number of casualties initially as most things were centralised in Bury St. Edmonds, they have managed to grow the brewing substantially. It's all tankered down to GK's HQ for casking, kegging or bottling, with canning being done at Coors in Burton.

The brewery now employs just 35 people but it has its own well and a yeast propagation plant on site. They recently had a visit from CAMRA's Edinburgh branch and anticipated the usual handful turning out, but, amazingly, there were 52 CAMRA members attending.

Cask ale has been very strong for Belhaven but, like all brewers, GK are looking at the Craft Beer market and are about to launch a range of them, a number of them brewed at Belhaven:

I took the opportunity to ask about distribution, particularly in relation to other small, local brewers and whether they could deliver to Belhaven's Aberdeen depot for onward distribution, but I was told that the Aberdeen set-up was very small and that all bought in beers would have to be delivered south.