Our brewery is located on the northwesterly tip of Orkney’s mainland, a wind-battered area known as Swannay. Brewing in a rustic farmstead we’re in a unique location: showered in spray from the Atlantic Ocean in the winter and surrounded by fertile farmland in the summer.
Once a dairy farm producing farmhouse cheese, our cluster of farm buildings is as much a labour of love as our beers. A mixture of cow sheds, barns and coldstores that used to house beasts, cheesemakers and tonnes of maturing cheese; the whole site is connected by our sheltered courtyard that you enter under the archway - the shape of which now forms part of our logo.
We have two brewhouses that are used according to demand. The original five barrel plant (one barrel is 164 litres) and a marginally newer twenty barrel plant. Fermentation space totals 125 barrels but we run under capacity so that our beer and ourselves are never rushed.
Just over half of our beer goes into cask with bottle and keg making up the remaining, but growing balance. The larger plant is responsible for most of the volume leaving the five barrel kit for small batch beers and a little experimentation.
Using only one strain of yeast, we brew beer styles from low strength, hoppy session beers to double-digit strength, barrel-aged porters. All of our core range brands have won awards at national or international level - totaling over 100 in just over ten years of brewing - surely making us one of the most decorated Scottish breweries of recent times.
