Scottish Light Ale

Historical Development

Scottish beer sits at an interesting cross section in northern Europe's beer history. If you asked a beer judge to describe Scottish beer as a category, you'd likely hear that it's similar in many ways to English beer with more malt sweetness and less hop character. Of course that's an oversimplification, but it's also a somewhat ironic one.

As with most beer history, power and war play a crucial role in what we know today as Scottish beer. Early in the first millennium when Rome still had territorial control over northern Europe, the folks defending the front line from barbarians were hired Germanic soldiers, not native Italians. It's unlikely that the Germanic soldiers established a love for beer in Britain–the Gallic tribes that had slowly made their way into present-day England likely did that centuries earlier–but the Germanic love of beer certainly didn't hurt. (This time period, by the way, might be as good a candidate as any in the historical search for the origin of the societal concept that wine is more elegant than beer. When Romans wrote about these northern territories, they, used to Italian wine, found beer base and unfit.) When the Romans left England in the fifth century, English royalty hired those same Germanic soldiers to ward off the raiding that resulted on their eastern shores from the Picts (from modern-day Scotland) and the Scots (from modern-day Ireland). As the moniker indicates, the Anglo-Saxons stayed (against the wishes of the English), as did their beer culture.

In case you've had a few, here's the short version: the English had a small brewing culture to begin with, but when the Scots and Germans arrived, it became a foundational part of British culture. So although we often think of Scottish beer today by comparing it to British beer, it's the Scots that really got the ball rolling.

That was then, though, and beer has changed dramatically in the meantime. Scottish Light as we know it today was a response to the worldwide lager boom in the nineteenth century and the resulting decline in Scottish brewing. The two world wars hurt here just as much as in England, as did the temperance movement, even though that movement didn't have the stranglehold it did here in the states. At one point as late as the 1970s, Scotland was down to only eleven breweries. Of course Scotland has a fairly robust whisky industry that has something to do with this, but Scottish ales are unique and fantastic brews in their own right. Malty, sessionable, and caramelly sweet, but lacking the bitterness of most English styles, these are some of the most drinkable beers you'll find.

Modern Evolution