I’ve discovered plenty of great beer coming out of Scotland recently. It looks though the innovation’s not yet finished: Brewdog are launching a new interesting beer this week which sounds really very good indeed. More on that later this week.

But tonight, I tried this – The Laird’s Liquor, a beer from Traquair House Brewery. Traquair is Scotland’s oldest inhabited house, apparently, and the brewery was originally made to brew beer for the house itself. It fell into disuse in 1800, and the brewing equipment gathered dust until it was “rediscovered” in 1965.

This 6% “Scottish Ale” (there’s actually no such type of ale) is, um, probably an acquired taste. A dark beer (seen above in my CAMRA 2006 glass), it smells as if they never bothered to take the dust out of the brewing vessels. It really does actually smell of dust. Really.

Ignoring the fusty smell, it tastes like a Belgian brune beer except with almost no sugar. The result is a beer that tastes rather like the type of salty liquorice you get in Scandinavia – there’s no sweetness in this beer at all, and the dark aniseed taste almost makes your mouth feel cooler rather than the expected warming effect of the alcohol. While, to my taste, beer from Scotland is less sweet than that from other places, this is not to my taste at all.

The label claims it’s ‘perfect for winter evenings and plotting rebellions’. I’d rather beg to differ.

Scotland, traquair house brewery Hide