Brewing in Scotland goes back further than in most of Britain. One history of the craft puts it simply: 'the earliest evidence of beer brewing in Scotland dates to the Neolithic period,' a thread running from Orkney farmsteads to the breweries working today in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the towns between them. That history shows up in a scene mixing old-school heavy and export styles with newer hazy pales, sours and barrel-aged stouts, sometimes brewed a few streets apart in the same city. The Highlands and islands add breweries of their own, some small enough to sell mostly from the door, others now sending cans the length of the country. Edinburgh and Glasgow hold most of the bottle shops, though smaller towns increasingly have somewhere decent to pick up a can or two. We keep a running note of what's actually gone down in price across the sites we watch, shown here next to their full shelves, not just the sale bin. Given how spread out the country is, what's live in Aberdeen won't always match what's live in Ayrshire, so it pays to check back rather than trust one visit to catch something worth having.
The full UK brewery and bottle shop directory · Find breweries, pubs & shops near you · Every live deal