When Hot Rum Cow set out to create our own beer, there was a problem. Talented as we are at drinking beer, we had absolutely no idea how to make the stuff. We needed to collaborate with a professional brewery – one responsible for genuinely great beers, and one with affection for our beloved magazine.

The name of Stewart Brewing came up and it was a great match. We enjoy their locally popular brews like Edinburgh Gold and were intrigued by their enthusiasm for more experimental beers such as Radical Road and Ka Pai. Our Hot Rum Cow beer – a red rye ale flavoured with honey, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon – was soon born.

Stewart Brewing is one of Scotland’s leading breweries, combining tradition and craft with experimentation. Their story stretches back to when owner Steve Stewart was a 16-year-old growing up in North Berwick, a handsome seaside resort on Scotland’s East Lothian coast. He would try to sneak into the Nether Abbey Hotel with his pals and order a pint. The problem was, his two older brothers worked there and would issue sharp warnings: “Don’t serve that bunch – they’re under age.”

It’s clear that Stewart always thought a bit differently to the crowd though. In a game of cat and mouse, he would sometimes manage to get served. “My brothers always drank Tennents or McEwans so I would drink Younger’s No.3 just to be different,” he laughs. “But eventually we got nobbled, and I had to think of something else.”

The solution was to buy a homebrew kit. It might have been illegal for him to buy beer at that age but there was nothing illegal about making it. That’s when the magic took hold. “The first time someone drinks a pint of beer you’ve made, you find yourself watching them and it’s really exciting. It was that spark that ultimately started the business and we’ve never lost it.”

“The first time someone drinks a pint of beer you’ve made, you find yourself watching them and it’s really exciting.”

Stewart went straight from homebrewing to studying brewing at Heriot-Watt. It was there that he met his wife and business partner Jo, who fondly recalls his obsession with all things brewing, even then. “The inspiration and passion for brewing comes from Steve,” she laughs. “I would not be running a brewery if I hadn’t married Steve.”

After graduation, he was recruited by Bass in Northern Ireland, helping to launch Caffrey’s, and later landed a placement at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston. Jo joined him there for a holiday. They were thrilled by the culture and adventurous beers and thought: “We could do this!”

Back home, they got sucked back into corporate life – Steve at a brewery in Birmingham, Jo working for an accountancy group – but, when Steve’s brother was tragically diagnosed with terminal cancer, it reminded them of the importance of seizing the day. They were going to launch their own brewery.

They returned to Scotland so that Steve could spend time with his brother, and then got to work. Jo carried on the day job whilst Steve built the original brewery from scratch himself, launching in 2004. Once it was up and running, he was the only member of staff, doing everything. “We started with a bucket and when we sold the beer, we reinvested the money,” he says.

The company has flourished in the decade since, moving to a much larger site and winning numerous awards on the way. Visitors can book a session to brew their own beer in the Craft Beer Kitchen, sample the Stewart Brewing range in the bar and stock up from the shop.

“It has been very exciting and it’s a good job I started making beer,” says Stewart. “I couldn’t do anything else! I suppose I’ve got my brothers to thank for chucking me out of the pub. That’s where it all started.”

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The alchemist: Stewart Brewing’s Innovation Brewer recalls his triumphs – and disasters

Bruce Smith has brewed some extraordinary beers. In recent months alone, he and his colleagues at Stewart Brewing have created a popcorn Pilsner, an Earl Grey-infused amber ale and a watermelon wheat beer

There was even a carrot and coriander beer. They all proved popular when sampled by local beer fans – and the watermelon wheat beer in particular may be launched to a wider audience.

Smith is Innovation Brewer at Stewart Brewing, tasked with creating unusual and eye-catching ideas for new beers, as well as tweaking the company’s established brews to add extra finesse. He’s also responsible for developing the Craft Beer Kitchen – a brilliant initiative where beer fans can go to make their own beer, bottle it, label it and take it away to drink.

But Smith’s entry into brewing was partly accidental. After a peripatetic childhood that took in Oxford, Cambridge and Berlin (his father is a pharmaceutical doctor), he ended up in Bridge of Allan near Stirling. He was set on a career in physiotherapy, and studied it for four years at Glasgow Caledonian University. However, during his holidays, he landed a job at a small experimental brewery in Bridge of Allan called the Tinpot Brewery (part of the Allanwater Brewhouse pub). It was a career-changer. The owner Douglas Ross produces small batches of flavoured beer that are as weird as they are wonderful. Anyone for oregano-flavoured pizza beer?

Smith learnt a lot and working with Ross inspired an all-consuming wonder for pushing flavours in beer. “I’m one of those sad people who wakes up in the middle of the night with a beer idea and has to write it down,” he says.

Physiotherapy was swiftly abandoned and Smith applied to study a Masters degree in Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt. While there, he took part in Natural Selection Brewing, a programme run by Stewart Brewing and Heriot-Watt University in which four students get the opportunity to use the brewery to conceive, brew and then launch a limited edition beer.

“I’m one of those sad people who wakes up in the middle of the night with a beer idea and has to write it down”

“It’s like applying for job,” he says. “There’s a written application, an interview and then they pick four people with specific roles in mind: head brewer, sales, marketing and comms/PR. Because of my background, I landed the head brewer role. Jo and Steve Stewart [the brewery owners] had quite a liberal approach but gave us a guiding hand whenever we got carried away.”

The beer they came up with, Origin (complete with an image of Charles Darwin) was a saison, inspired by Belgian summer beers. “It turned out to be the style of the season,” says Smith. It sold well and even won a Silver Medal at the Dublin Craft Beer Cup – not a bad start for four students.

Even better, Smith was offered a full-time role at Stewart Brewing. Keen to refresh the business by giving a younger generation freedom to experiment, Steve Stewart encouraged Smith to use his imagination to the full. Not that he is alone in coming up with off-the-wall ideas. The watermelon idea was originally the suggestion of Matt Spencer, Head Brewer at Stewart Brewing, and it was Jo Stewart who came up with the popcorn wheeze.

So how do you go about making flavoured beers? “Usually, with fruits like watermelon, we freeze them to break down the cell walls,” says Smith. “That means that when you open them up, they’ve pretty much macerated themselves. That creates a watermelon puree that we add to the beer after it’s been fermented. It’s the purest way of flavouring the beer.

“As for the popcorn, we dry-popped the corn to make sure we didn’t pick up any fats and then just used it in the mash. I wasn’t sure the popcorn flavour would necessarily come through but it worked really well.”

In case this experimental beer lark sounds far too easy, rest assured that it can often go wrong. “I tried making a St Patrick’s Day beer using mint,” says Smith. “I thought that if I did a fairly dark beer with some roasted chocolate things going on, the mint might have an After Eight vibe. Unfortunately, it was more like mouthwash. Nobody wants to drink mouthwash. I’ve also made a lavender beer that ended up like something you’d expect to find in your grandmother’s washroom.”

Of course, purists will argue that beer is beer and all this messing around with crazy flavours and aromas is silly novelty stuff. Smith shrugs. “There are people putting stuff into beer for no better reason than it exists,” he says. “You’ve got to have a reason and you’ve got to have balance. If you remember that, then why not? It’s an interesting way to make beer.”

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