T he 19th-century Templeton building is an unexpected, yet welcome sight in the large, open expanse of Glasgow Green, the city’s oldest park. It is an imposing, hulking building, which was modelled on the Doge’s palace in Venice to appease local residents of a factory being built on their doorstep. Step through its doors, and it feels as if I’ve just landed bang smack in the centre of not Venice, but Munich. I’m greeted by the strong waft of beer and the low hum of chatter in a spacious, Bavarian-style beer hall, complete with acres of dark wood, an impressive array of taps and steins of frothy lager. If it wasn’t for the Glaswegian accents giving it away, you might think this was the Hofbräuhaus.

Instead, it’s WEST brewery, and I’m here to talk to its effervescent founder Petra Wetzel.

“Why not have a really good pint of lager?” Wetzel asks me in her soft Glaswegian lilt that occasionally betrays her German roots. “It might cost you 30p, 50p or even £1 more, but it’s a brilliant pint of lager, rather than cheap and nasty nonsense. A lot of breweries have cottoned on to the fact that people really like lager. I think that is why the resurgence in lager has occurred. The big boys are now jumping on the bandwagon of craft. Do they take consumers for complete and utter fools? When big breweries all of a sudden say they have a craft lager, ‘Bollocks to that,’ I say. It just doesn’t wash. You can go to a brewery that’s 100 times bigger than us, but there are fewer people working in it. That’s just pressing buttons; that’s not brewing. You just become a factory.”

Although WEST is housed in a former factory, Wetzel says you won’t find mass-produced lager here. It’s strictly premium, brewed according to the centuries-old German Purity Law (or Reinheitsgebot). The law specified that only barley, hops, yeast and water were permitted in the brewing of beer, and was introduced to safeguard standards.

“The big boys are now jumping on the bandwagon of craft. Do they take consumers for complete and utter fools? When big breweries all of a sudden say they have a craft lager, ‘Bollocks to that,’ I say”

The Reinheitsgebot has lost its legal status over time, but many breweries in Germany – and WEST in the UK – are very proud of what it stands for and continue to abide by it. “One of the ways I think the big breweries in the UK were going wrong was that they were adding tons of chemicals and you could tell, or they were struggling to have a consistent feel to the beer,” explains Wetzel. “I just thought, let’s go back to basics. Now I think it is our USP [unique selling point]. People say, ‘You’re hindering your development,’ but no, we use four really great ingredients and you can combine them in different ways. It’s a nice steering point that leads us along.”

Speciality malts, added to the beer for colour and flavour, are sourced from the Weyermann Malz in Bamberg whilst hops are from the Hallertau region of Germany, one of the largest hop-growing areas in the world. At the helm of the brewery’s operations are senior brewers, Dave Sopko and Luke Kennedy, who trained at Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh and Weihenstephan in Germany, respectively. “I could give you eight different beers today and they all taste different but they are all made with the four raw ingredients,” Wetzel continues. “The skill is to make very complex flavours with just four raw ingredients. Anyone can make a raspberry beer by chucking raspberries into it. That’s not the skill. The skill is to come up with a banana and cloves flavour, like our wheat beer, without using banana and cloves.”

Wetzel grew up in Franconia in Bavaria, and her upbringing is evident not only in WEST’s adoption of the German Purity Law, but in her outlook on brewing. She believes that a good brewery in Germany doesn’t need to sell its beer outside a radius of 30 miles because the beer it produces is held in such high regard. “I know German brewers who are fiercely proud of the fact they only sell within that radius. Let’s be honest, beer is not rocket science. I don’t pretend I’m doing something that will give me a Nobel Prize one day. So why do we have to make it complicated?

“I want to be a respected regional brewer,” she asserts. “In Germany, that’s being the best of the best. You’re basically renowned for your beer in your area and people are loyal to you as a business because of what you stand for. You produce the same beer every time, and people love that beer and will be drinking it from the minute they hit 18 until the day they die. That’s your beer. You’re proud of drinking WEST.”

Considering WEST’s neighbour is Tennent’s, you’d be forgiven for thinking this would be a hard ask, but WEST is gaining traction and winning over the locals one by one. It’s apparent even now. It’s just struck midday on a chilly Wednesday afternoon, and as we’re sipping St. Mungo in the beer hall, more and more punters are sauntering in. By the time I leave an hour later, it’s buzzing. WEST has even won over residents in Glasgow’s neighbouring city despite the friendly rivalry that exists between the two. “I got stopped on the street in Edinburgh by a guy the other day and he said, ‘Your St. Mungo lager is absolutely fabulous.’ That’s the stuff of dreams and it’s what my dad always said, ‘You want a beer to be proud of.’”

Wetzel, who is fondly called a ‘Gerwegian’ by her friends, knew at an early age that Scotland was for her. She first came to the country when she was 13 years old as part of a school exchange programme, and likens the visit to a “spiritual” homecoming. She soon returned to study at the University of Glasgow. It was then that Wetzel and her father coined the idea for WEST, over a pint naturally, though not as you might expect. During a visit, her father, a beer connoisseur, tried the local lager. “He wasn’t very impressed,” Wetzel recalls. “He couldn’t believe a city like Glasgow didn’t have a good brewery. And that stuck with me.”

Almost a decade later, the idea came to fruition and Wetzel’s then-husband opened WEST in 2006 with her father’s backing. But five months after opening, Wetzel and her husband split, and she discovered soon afterwards that the business was floundering. It went into administration in 2008, but Wetzel was tenacious and took over the reins, again with the help of her father. “I thought it was a bloody good idea to start with. I remembered what my dad said about having a drinking culture of using a beer mat and a place where everyone is welcome. It’s not home, it’s not work, but a place you can feel comfortable. At the end of the day, a business needs really hard work and dedication, and I’m a grafter.”

In the early days, Wetzel delivered beer in her Volkswagen Estate with her son, Noah, and dog, Heidi, in tow; WEST is now stocked in more than 500 pubs across the UK. “Pride in what you do is everything to us, and the lovely thing is we didn’t think we’d become a beer brand. It’s all happened very organically,” she says. So what are the secrets of her success?

“Women are always the sensible ones on any team,” she laughs. “I think one of the reasons we’ve done so well is that 80% of our staff is female. There aren’t many breweries that have a big proportion of women working there. It was just the best person for the job, and in a lot of cases that was a woman. It’s a stereotypical thing to say, but because we are women and drink beer, it makes us slightly more sympathetic to the female drinker. I laughed when a big brewery brought out a beer for women a few years ago, and it was in a clear bottle with a pink ribbon on it. That was eleven men around a table in grey suits.”

Wetzel is planning to grow the current capacity of the brewery at Templeton, which will meet the rise in demand for WEST and increase the brewery’s output by up to eight times. A bigger brewery may also allow the company to expand its range of beer and bottle those beers (only St. Mungo is currently bottled).

“Pride in what you do is everything to us, and the lovely thing is we didn’t think we’d become a beer brand. It’s all happened very organically”

Wetzel may also consider exporting WEST to other lager-loving countries such as North America. Given WEST’s ethos is ‘Glaswegian Heart, German Head’, another factor that has contributed to the brand’s success, what about Germany, I ask her? ”I was thinking about this,” she laughs. “Scotland has such a positive image in Germany. I think if we said this was a Scottish premium lager, but brewed in accordance with the German Purity Law, it would be fun to try. WEST combines the Glasgow passion, humour and Scottish ingenuity, but we also have the German engineering, correctness and efficiency. You are merging two cultures into something better. It’s one for the future.”

Although WEST is growing, it won’t lose sight of its principles and will remain focused on quality and its customers. “I come from a background where it is about longevity and sustainability. You know I’m 40 this year, and I have an eight-year-old, and who knows, in 20 years time, he might say, ‘Mum I’d quite like to work at WEST.’ There are some breweries in Germany that are 500 years old. If somebody asked me what my exit strategy is, it would be dying and letting somebody else inherit the brewery.

“Glasgow has made me the person I am today,” she continues. “I’m really proud and passionate about this part of town. Everybody asks, ‘What do you aspire to?’ For some it’s getting rich; for me I’d like to leave a legacy within Glasgow that I’ve contributed to the regeneration of the east end of the city.”

For now, Wetzel leaves us with a challenge: “You get a hangover because of chemicals and refining agents. I maintain that if you drink WEST all night, you won’t have a hangover the next day.” I’m not so sure. Now, where is that stein of St. Mungo?

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The WEST Way

WEST beer is brewed in strict accordance with the German Purity Law of 1516. Although only four key ingredients are used, no two beers are the same

The premium lager – Named after the Patron Saint of Glasgow, WEST’s signature premium lager, St. Mungo, is a hybrid of a Bavarian Helles and a northern German Pils. It is full bodied, clean and crisp.

The session lager – WEST 4 was brewed at the request of a WEST customer, who sought a session lager at 4% ABV. A refreshing drink with substance, Wetzel describes it as a “genuine alternative to mass-produced session lagers”.

The wheat beer – Hefeweizen, a Bavarian-style wheat beer, is brewed with 80 per cent malted wheat and finished in a traditional unfiltered style. It is packed full of banana and clove flavours.

The pale ale – WEST’s Glasgow Pale Ale, GPA, is brewed like a beer style from Cologne called Kölsch. Like IPAs, WEST’s GPA is light and hoppy. It is produced with both malted barley and wheat, and is hopped with American Chinook and Hallertau Mittelfrueh.

The red lager – Munich Red is one for both ale and lager drinkers. A deep, ruby red lager full of character with a biscuity base and sweet caramel flavours.

The stout – Black is WEST’s take on a dark, smooth stout. It is dry with complex dark chocolate and coffee flavours, but isn’t bitter. As the glass warms up, the flavour profile gradually changes.

The dark lager – Inspired by its traditional Bavarian namesake, Dunkel has a deep, malty character with the aroma of chocolate and a nutty taste. Five malts are blended to give WEST’s dark lager its flavour.

The musical lager – King Tuts lager was created in collaboration with Glasgow’s renowned music venue. The lager is light and easy drinking with earthy, citrous flavours.

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