10 things that make Scotland pretty special.....

1. When you are sitting outside at a pub in Scotland, at least two other people from a different table will start a conversation with you!

2. When you are looking to escape the city hustle and bustle you can jump in your car, drive for an hour and end up here...

3. When you attend a Scottish Wedding there will most likely be a ‘Ceilidh’. This is a traditional Scottish dance and really adds something special to a wedding!

4. Scottish people speak a lot of jibberish and for some reason it always sounds like they are saying something friendly! Here are some examples:

Alright Pal - Are you ok friend?

What a bonnie lass - What a beautiful woman

Ken? - Do you understand?

Up-tae? - What are you doing right now?

5. Scottish people LOVE greasy food. You will probably find a great fish supper or bacon butty on every corner in Glasgow!

6. Scottish people are realistic and prepare well for all types of weather conditions! The weather forecast this week is…. rain.

7. The television was invented by a Scottish person!

8. Scotland’s famous drink ‘irn-Bru’ has it’s own tartan!

9. The Scottish have long enjoyed a reputation for being grumpy, aloof and dour, but a new study suggests they are actually the most friendly people in Britain!

10. We have the Munro’s.The best known Munro is Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles at 4,413 feet.

What do you love about Scotland?

JAW BREW, THE COMMUNITY.

Jaw Brew has its roots in the local community – both in Bardowie and in Milngavie. With both the brewery and our sister company Bardowie Gin, we have always had a strong sense of place and a deep connection to the history and heritage of what we are doing.

Jaw Brew is made to encourage connection. To be a social tool that brings people together. Beer has long had a bad rep as being an anti-social driver of bad behaviour and this couldn’t be further from the truth. It helps people to find common ground, to reach out within their communities and to make connections - this has never been more necessary than throughout this unique lockdown year.

Jostling to find space within the craft beer market is no joke, and the hard truth is that in Scotland most taps are brewery-tied leaving only 15% shared (or competed for) by the smaller craft breweries. We at Jaw Brew decided not to fight against our craft colleagues and made the unusual step of opening our own pub. The Jaw Brew micro pub was opened with great pride just before Xmas 2019 and we were delighted with the local support. In fact, our greatest ever weekend came the week right before lockdown descended across the nation for the first time!

In our pub there are no screens. There’s no juke box, no fruit machine, no distractions.

It’s all about conversation. There are some board games but the focus is on connection and socialising. We opened the day after the last General Election as a public service essentially and have never looked back from this sense of community engagement and support. Our local area supported us right from the very beginning and the micro pub has served to be a hub for neighbours to communicate and get to know each other. This is what we set out to create from the beginning – to foster relationships and encourage conversation where it might not otherwise have existed. Obviously, a tricky ask with the doors closed for most of this year but the ethos and our intention remains the same for whenever things might return to “normal”.

Our proximity to the train station means we have a wide demographic who can reach us and safely travel to and from the premises and our neighbours will be able to wander back when the restrictions are lifted. Life has been complicated, complex and somewhat isolated for many throughout this strange year, but we look forward to a time coming soon when we can get back to what we love to do best – get that conversation started again.

Not only are we located in the heart of our beautiful town, Milngavie, we also are at the start (or the end – whichever way you go) of the West Highland Way. Start or End your journey with a cold beer, or buy some to take with you on the trip, even buy some as a memento of your long distance accomplishment.

Green Brewing in the Craft Beer Industry

Recently the effects of climate change are becoming tangible, with wilder weather and unseasonal conditions throughout the world becoming commonplace. Greenhouse gasses have been wreaking havoc on our oceans, skies and landscapes for decades and the burgeoning concern of environmental accountability is ever present.

So we thought we’d tell you about the challenges faced as a microbrewery to keep things green and the kind of things that can be done to overcome them, keeping our contribution to the Scottish carbon footprint as small as possible.

Challenges

TRANSPORT

The biggest contribution to carbon based emissions for the brewing industry is logistics. This comes from transport of goods to and from the brewery, a fundamental necessity. As fossil fuels are still used to run transport vehicles, it is impossible to have zero transport related carbon emissions, however the sure fire way to reduce this impact is to act efficiently and to source all produce from the UK where possible, the more local the better.

Using local distributors and wholesalers will consolidate transportation, and planning logistics carefully to deliver in bulk by location - focussing on bars closest to a brewery - will also reduce bulk emissions. Where possible, the use of Eco-Kegs and e-casks, which are one way delivery kegs and casks designed to reduce emissions and waste carbon, can reduce the emissions of delivery for any one brewery.

Ecokegs are even made from high value recyclable PET and HDPE plastics, which can be sent back to the supplier and reused or recycled locally. For empty containers, we pick these up when they are on or near a delivery route. This doesn't just help cut down on carbon emissions, but is happily also common business sense as these measures also generally help reduce transport costs, which is probably why it's common practice with most breweries.

“The biggest contribution to carbon based emissions for the brewing industry is logistics.

ENERGY

Breweries require a vast amount of energy to run effectively. A hot liquor tank must be heated after all, and a cold room must be kept cold. Any effort to conserve this energy is useful, saving on energy expenditure and wastage. Energy efficiency is particularly pertinent because a lot of modern grid energy is produced using fossil fuels, although Scotland is a prominent world leader in changing this trend, with 60% of the country’s energy usage being derived from renewables.

To this end, a brewery can use a heat exchanger to recycle heat produced from the kettle during the brewing process to heat water for the next brew, while simultaneously cooling the wort (beer prior to fermentation) to a reasonable fermenting temperature. Other ways of conserving energy include producing your own, as has been proven with Rocky Ridge brewery in Australia implementing solar panels to power their brewery.

WASTE

In brewing we are fortunate that so much of our used ingredients has onward potential. Malt, hops, excess beer, everything can be used. Spent hops are composted to use as mulch and spent malt is used to feed livestock. The tricky parts are cost effective replacements for single use plastics, such as keystones and shives for which we still need a solution.

Shredded waste paper can be used for packaging, reuse of incoming packaging for outgoing products is an easy way to stay sustainable and the use of biodegradable plastics at events is a decidedly positive alternative to their oil based counterparts.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY & AREAS OF GROWTH

There are some byproducts from other industries we can use in a veritably proactive fashion. This includes waste from our own business and even from others, as the case has been in our partnership with Aulds the bakers. They have an excess of bread rolls which can be used to make beer, which we have done to create our Hardtack blonde beer. There has been some promising development in recent times regarding the production and use of sustainable materials in the brewing industry.

There is a brewery in America making can ring holders, dog chews and other things out of spent grain, and an interesting project in the UK held by Cuantech turning the common byproduct of prawn shells in the seafood industry into packaging with natural antimicrobial properties, but these steps are just the beginning.

It is clear to see that the difficulty with being environmentally conscientious as a business is that the two agendas don’t always run in parallel. What is best for the planet isn't always what's best for the wallet, which is difficult for any business. What businesses need in order to become more environmentally aware is a financial incentive to use greener methods of running the business, and there’s no better incentive than that given by the consumer. If being environmentally friendly will boost sales, it will become a priority for every business.

SOURCES

Ecokeg / Regrained / Cuantec / Crafty Pint / Independent / Carlsberg

Is Beer Too Expensive?

To start off, we feel the answer to this is both yes and no. It depends which beer, from which brewery. Location, ABV, ingredients, quality, personal preference, and honesty as well as global and local economics all play a role in defining beer price. All breweries are equal, but are some more equal than others?

Beer duty is set by the UK government in brackets for all beer, so higher ABV beers will cost more due to the tax imposed on them. To make beer requires ingredients which can vary wildly in cost with demand, beer style trends, economies of scale of both suppliers and buyers, weather all playing a role. A higher quality beer will use higher quality ingredients, which of course will demand a higher price. Where these ingredients are sourced from will affect the cost, usually in a linear “further away more expensive” fashion due to transport costs, although for large breweries the economies of scale can sometimes influence that relationship, causing malt or hops to be cheaper to buy in larger quantities from far-flung locations rather than smaller amounts locally. Many beer ingredients, hops in particular, are sourced from all over the globe according to what beer styles are being produced, as different varieties of hops are suited to different climates and soil types. The effect of economies of scale is seen amongst competitor breweries as well, where bigger breweries with huge outgoings are able to undercut smaller ones who aren’t shifting as much. This is because it is more expensive and takes longer for a small brewery, using smaller kit, to produce the same amount of beer as a large brewery, as well as other factors like bulk ordering. Of course the good thing for the little guys is as production grows, quality becomes much harder to control and is sometimes even intentionally neglected in favour of more cost effective methods of production - such as using cheaper, lower quality ingredients or using adjuncts to replace more expensive malt which has an effect on the quality of the beer, but not always the popularity.

A reason for this could well be our addiction to super chilled c02 saturated beverages, both the chill and the bubbles numb the taste buds making it harder to taste what you’re drinking and C02 has a very unique coppery taste which is easily identifiable in most beers. Try any drink sold as fizzy when it’s flat and you’ll see what we mean. For good quality beer, it shouldn't make much of a difference, so long as the beer is kept at a reasonable 6-8 degrees C. Taste changes with temperature… who knew? This can affect a person's preference for a certain beer, not to be confused with quality which is a measure of the standard of a beer against similar types. At the end of the day it is the people who rule. So why is it still £6 for a pint in some places? Because people are willing to pay for it.

This is where point of sale also weighs in. It's important to note that each establishment selling beer has its own costs, and as a result each needs a different margin. Some pubs are dictated as to what their margin will be, like group managed pubs. Others are a bit looser and the managers dictate the margin they need. The difference in these margins by far holds a bigger variation than the cost of the beer between breweries, who must all compete in the same marketplace.

Beer with better marketing will sell at a higher price. Good marketing increases popularity which ultimately means more money coming in to the brewery coffers – hence marketing being so gosh darn expensive. Ultimately the customer perception of a given beer is what drives the success of the brewery, although there is no guarantee that the steps taken to  improve this perception will pay off. This is why there is a notable difference between breweries marketing, with some pulling out all the stops to sell their brand and others who don’t shout so much about it. This is usually a financial decision, as the return on marketing campaigns is usually a slow burn needing a lot of up front capital to gradually increase sales, which many smaller independent breweries simply don’t have.

Moral of the story? It all comes down to trust. If you care about what you drink, you should care about where it comes from and if you can trust the brewery, you can trust the brew.

Hype trains aside, the old saying holds true: you get what you pay for.