2. What Even *is* Scotch Ale?
I first took interest in beers that weren’t Tennents Lager in 2014. I was 24, and I’d just left Scotland for Seattle where your local tavern is liable to have upwards of 15 beer taps dispensing several different styles.
While customers tickled themselves pink over having a Scotsman serve them Scotch Ale, I was scratching my head about this ‘scotch’ stuff.
There are misconceptions surrounding Scotch Ale. Namely, false links to Scotch Whisky, such as implying smoke character where there is none in the beer, and suspecting barrel ageing where there are no barrels to be found. What’s more, contemporary takes on the Scotch Ale range from something that resembles an amiable 70 Schilling, to a powder keg of a beer in the vein of a Wee Heavy. Wee Heavies are likened by some to English Barleywines — frankly, almost no Scotch Ale that’ll flow from a tap today drinks anything like an English Barleywine.
What the hell is going on? Am I over complicating a clear cut beer style? Or is the Scotch Ale as murky as the water of Leith after a lashing of rain?
Beer guru Michael Jackson wrote about one of the pioneers of modern Scotch Ales who he encountered in Yakima, not too far from Seattle on the west coast of the United States. This particular brewer argued that, rather than an homage to a traditional Scottish beer style, it was his own ancestry that imparted the ‘scotch’ onto his Scotch Ale.
Though a rare peculiar case, it flags up that the term ‘scotch’ isn’t always handled with care in beer circles. It’s plausible that for some brewers even a loose attempt at adhering to a beer recipe attributed to Scottish brewing can bring the word scotch into play— therefore brews resembling everything from the Scottish Light Ale, to the Wee Heavy — and all the way up to the Light Heavy Scottish Ale that I just made up — are given the ambiguous scotch label, making it less and less indicative of a defined flavour profile or malt bill.
None of this is a slight on the drinkable majority of Scotch Ales at all, but stepping out of beer circles for a minute, the word in question merits scrutiny.
Out of context, scotch evoke Scotland’s vaunted malt whisky industry; to differentiate from Irish, American, Canadian and Japanese cousins among others, our malts are known as Scotch Whisky abroad. Owing to the industry’s extreme global relevance, and perhaps whisky culture’s exclusivity, the term as sort of reluctantly been adopted at home.
How about Scotch Tape? There’s that word again — like, I believe, with our whisky, we did not name it so; Scotch Tape is called scotch, because in its early days the tape was deemed not to have enough adhesive. The producers were frugal and thanks to the old stereotype about Scottish people, the tape became known as ‘scotch’.
Scotch Eggs? Not Scottish, it’s alleged those eggs were first wrapped in sausage in London — sorry!
Scotch Broth? Surely this other barley bearing Scottish creation has been around a long, long time, but Scottish writer James Boswell credits its name to English writer Dr Samuel Johnson for who Boswell was a biographer.
Scotch Broom is an aggressive, invasive shrub that’s the scourge of swathes of the new world, and is by no means solely a Scottish export.
Heard of ‘Scotch Greys’? A name given to a type of louse! There are also whispers online of a plant called ‘Scotch Attorney’, but the rationale behind its name isn’t clear.
Two things are true: Scots seldom name things ‘scotch’; and many things named ‘scotch’ are not Scottish. The word is used on our behalf — often in a disparaging way — and far from vindicating it, our willingness to embrace the term relinquishes some control over what our culture is. Scotland is full of substance and can do better than letting global romanticism decide how we talk and, therefore, how we think about ourselves. Your weariness or even outright condemnation of the term ‘scotch’ going forward is much appreciated.
That goes for Scottish beer, too. In beer writer John Palmer’s ‘How to Brew’, Edinburgh is mentioned alongside brewing epicentres Pilsen, Dublin and Dortmund for its unique water profile. Scotland’s brewing legacy empowers us to do more than react to global craft beer market trends.
‘Scotch Ale’, as I encounter the term, lines up with ‘German Lager’ as a beer descriptor — it’s vague but with added etymological taint. Where are the Dortmunders, Rauchbiers and Märzens of Scottish brewing?
