Fraoch – ‘Scotland’s original craft beer’ – is 25 years old

Back in February, I ventured across the ever-tightening central belt of the country, and pitched up in a rain-lashed Glasgow to attend the opening of a new brewery; in a gallery. That project became Drygate, the seemingly instantly successful collaborative brewery involving the C&C Group and Williams Bros. Brewing Co. On the evening itself, as people wandered around squinting at prospective bottle labels hung on canvas, Scott Williams, brotherly co-founder, stood on the bottom step of a twisting flight and talked about how important art can be to the beer industry, if only looked at the right way. “Their work [the shortlisted artists] will influence the beer we make. The art will create the project,” he said.

At the time, I thought that was a fascinating point, but one that was quite difficult to quantify. How would it work? Would the Williamsii take to wandering the halls of Kelvingrove, looking for inspiration? See a Belgian-style pineapple wit in ‘An Allegory of the Senses’ by Gerard de Lairesse? Maybe not. But a couple of weeks ago, further evidence of the experiential nature of Williams Bros. came to light, as they revealed a fairly unusual way of marking a very special anniversary. This year the ‘brotherhood’ are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first commercial release of Fraoch Heather Ale – and as part of this, they have commissioned a graphic novel of the story that inspired it.

Of course, over the intervening quarter-century since the first batches of ‘Leann Fraoch’ were sold to a handful of bars, a ‘second’ story has developed and pretty much superceded the historical; the semi-legend of how the recipe was revealed to the Williams’, as they sat in their family-owned homebrew shop, feeding 10p’s into a battered arcade coin-op and drinking cans of Tab. The benevolent crone, entering just on the stroke of midnight and revealing the recipe for ‘the heather ale’ has entered modern Scottish brewing folklore; as has the detail – lightning playing across her face, locusts descending on the Byres Road, and Scott signing off an all-time high score on Double Dragon with ‘A.S.S.’

However, writing in the back cover of the graphic novel, Bruce Williams downplays all this as being simple over-exaggeration by the (boo!) media;

We often had homebrewers visiting from the Highlands and Islands, many of whom made local brews using heather flowers, the recipes for which has been in their families for generations. I used one particular recipe as a basis for my experimental brewing that was given to me by a lady from the Hebrides (I think she was from Benbecula) – this is where the story of the ‘crone’ originated but was given artistic licence by the press. The actual recipe she gave me was only one of at least a dozen that I experimented with before designing my own recipe and techniques.

Anyway, this experimentation and foresight seems to have taken hold at Williams Bros, many years before they were even so-named. The popularity of Fraoch, leading the push of Heather Ales Ltd, really must have come as a surprise to the brothers – and, I assume, the mystery old lady who helped in the beer’s development.* Mind you, given that they had, by then, even worked out precisely the correct time of year to pick the heather flowers (mid-August, when early of bloom, heavy of nectar), maybe not. Perhaps all those foraging trips to the wind-scored moorlands sharpened their appreciation for artistic beauty at the same time; who knows?

* Although when Bruce and Scott followed her behind a rock to let her know, she had disappeared.

I think it’s a fitting tribute to Fraoch – and the story of its modern Glaswegian reboot – that a comic book be created to detail the original story of the heather ale. It’s (and apologies for writing this) a beer heavy with romantic notion; the way it relies on harvesting of ingredients, careful guarding of recipes, and owing such a huge debt to history – the kind verified and yet still embellished by fiction. The celebratory graphic novel relays the ballad of ‘Heather Ale’, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1890, depicting the circumstances of how the secret Pictish recipe was lost forever. It looks fantastic, having been turned into print by Black Hearted Press, and created by Jack Lothian (script) and Alan Brown (artwork).

It may have happened before, of course, I don’t know – but celebrating beer in an art form such as this is a brilliant idea, I think. That said, you can’t help flicking through the comic without the other c-word scratching at the back of your mind; yes, it’s a very ‘craft’ thing to do; very on-point. But then, Williams describe Fraoch as ‘the original craft beer’, heather ales having been produced since 2,000 B.C. – a time when cask v keg debates were settled with flint axes, and cans had to be transported by ponies, due to them being made of bronze (although history is not my strong point). So maybe, the fact that an extra 25 years has been tacked on is grounds for an even bigger celebration. Double Fraoch, anyone?

Look out for other occurrences relating to the anniversary – in particular this author is hoping for a barrel-aged Fraoch 25, to match the 22 produced a few years ago…