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I pressed the button too early as the bus approached the Ellon Park and Ride, and I was too embarrassed to ask the driver to drive on to the right stop. As a consequence, we disembarked on the main road between Ellon town centre and the park and ride, which is in a valley overlooked by the Brewdog Brewery. The brewery is situated in an industrial estate so between us and it there were a range of industrial premises including a builders' merchants. We tried to get to the brewery by using the labrynthine road network but gave up pretty quickly, instead opting to scramble up the dusty hills to reach our goal. Whether we were allowed to do this or not, I am unsure, but no one stopped us and soon we descended back into the heart of the brewery.
Our destination was Dogtap, where the brewery tour was slated to begin, but due to the impossible bus timetable, we had arrived an hour and a half early for it. As a result, a few drinks were in order, and the bar staff did at least recognise us from our visit the previous day. We tried to pace ourselves, largely succeeding, while we were delighted to see our colouring in was still on the wall in the Kids Corner, with our referral numbers appended. We were told by the lady running the tour that nobody had turned up to the 4pm one, so we were hopeful we would have a private booking, but in the end there were eight of us, including a Spanish couple who were translating the experience rather distractingly. Just before 6pm, we registered for the tour, where I was delighted to discover we got ours free for being shareholders. We were then given a fluorescent yellow jacket which just about fit over my capacious belly and some basic plastic goggles, whose use was to become apparent later on. After a couple of minutes of fannying about, we then followed our guide over to the adjacent office block which forms Brewdog HQ to start the tour.
The tour was billed to last ninety minutes but in the end it was closer to two hours. It was incredibly extensive, dealing with the company ethos, the history of the company along with the brewing process itself. I have been a shareholder since 2011 and so most of this was known to me, while I have also done a number of brewery tours in the US and UK so I don't need telling about the brewing process. It was interesting to discover that the equipment was all made by the same manufacturers who bedeck the other craft breweries we have visited, while it was also interesting to find out that Brewdog have a number of pieces of bespoke equipment. This was particularly the case in the Lone Wolf distillery section, a new venture for the team as they have been making vodkas and gins over the last twelve months or so. There are many murals around the brewery, largely in a graffiti style, and the huge hungry wolf darting off the wall around the distillary section was arguably the most striking. We got four free samples on the tour, including one of the gins here, and this was definitely my favourite. Indeed, I have yet to find a gin so deep in flavour than the one we tried on the little station in the distillery. In the office area we also got to enjoy a thimble of Punk IPA while over in the Overworks Brewery, we got to try slightly warm cans of Kottbusser - a sour ale experiment between Brewdog and Yellow Belly. I'm assuming we got this as the Overworks bar itself was closed, but it was worth a sample and indeed good to be back in there. On our way up to the mezzanine bar, in the small lobby area, we saw a huge scale model built in Lego of the Overworks facility. This wasn't there before and was incredibly impressive. We were told that it was done by a very keen shareholder, who has done a number of similar installations for Brewdog.
The order of the tour was HQ, Brewery #3 (the new facility), Brewery #1 and Overworks, with the distillery forming part of #3. Here we saw a worker called Doug, so I quipped he was Brewdoug, which got a modest laugh. Being near the huge fermentation tanks - the ones we had seen in the distance when approaching Ellon - was awe-inspiring, simply considering the number of litres of beer they contain and the sheer size of the operation. This was juxtaposed with some sweet elements of history, including the old canning line, which sits in Overworks. When comparing this to the huge new canning line, you get to see the scale of the operation. I asked some questions of our guide but didn't want to seem too much like a know-it-all, but I did find out some interesting things such as the reason why Ohio was chosen as their US base was that the water there is of very similar composition to that of north-east Scotland. We also got to find out why they moved to Ellon from Fraserburgh, the working practices adopted by the company and that founder James Watt likes Star Wars and has the Imperial March theme tune which plays whenever anyone walks down the corridor between the brewery and HQ. I imagine that would get annoying pretty quickly. We also got a can of Punk IPA fresh of the canning line, the freshest you can get, which we obviously had to sample as soon as we got back to the bar. It was exceptional and we will be keeping the cans as souvenirs.
The tour concluded around 8pm, meaning we missed the bus we wanted to catch. This gave us about half an hour of chilling in the bar, relaxing after an incredibly hot jaunt around the brewery (the temperatures in the fermentation rooms were scorching on account of the incredibly warm day). We grabbed another beer before bidding farewell to the Dogtap staff and the brewery itself. It had been a pleasure to visit and we wish we could have stayed longer, but there were a number of other bars we wanted to try back in Aberdeen and we needed to get back. Fortunately, the bus did turn up on time this time, meaning that we got back to the city centre reasonably quickly, with a plan to visit three or four bars before heading to bed. Wolfie wasn't on call so we had fewer restrictions, which was most welcome, so our first port of call was the Six Degrees North bar which had been closed the night before. We called here after examining the exquisite city council offices again, a building whose beauty I still cannot get over. Six Degrees North was bigger inside than its frontage would suggest, and they had a range of beers on from the brewery, along with a tap takeover from a Belgian brewer that specialises in sour beers. I asked the lady serving behind the bar what she could recommend that you wouldn't get in Leeds, to which she responded 'can't you get good craft beer in Leeds?', which was a little rude. Still, her recommendation was good and soon we had sat down and were enjoying a quite unique sour variety
I wanted to call off at the Brewdog Flagship bar after here, particularly as it was just down the road and we were walking past it anyway. This is indeed where we went, being served by the same lady who had served us the night before. We then headed down to CASC, a craft beer bar recommended to us by pretty much everyone in the city since our arrival, for good reason too. This is a remarkable little underground bar, with cool staff, particularly the bright orange haired lady who served us. She was remarkably talkative and we had a long-ranging discussion over the course of about twenty minutes, focusing on everything from the local bus services to comic books. Most of the bars have LCD menus for some reason, which adds an element of sophistication to proceedings, and CASC was definitely one like that. However, it also had a little bit of a canteen feel to it, perhaps because it was below ground level. Either way, I loved it and really wished we could have stayed longer.
However, time was pressing and we had one more place to visit - The Craftsman. Fortunately, most of the good bars in Aberdeen are all within a stone's throw of each other so getting down here wasn't too difficult. It was actually opposite the bus station and we had walked past it numerous times before. Upon arrival, the barman seemed a little put out that we had chosen this as our last bar to visit, but it was really a matter of geography over favouritism. They had 14 beers on tap, as opposed to CASC and Fierce's 20 each, but each one of them seemed good. We therefore grabbed one and had a brief chat with the barkeep. He told us we should check out Krakatoa - the Aztec/Indonesian themed bar whose bust in the doorway had scared the shit out of me earlier that day. The fact it was a rock bar certainly appealed, but time was pressing and we had promised the guys at Fierce we would go for a nightcap. This is indeed what we did and it was here where we met the bearded gentleman to whom we had spoken on the lower ground level of Brewdog the night before. He was with his partner, assumedly, and his bulldog, who was incredibly friendly. Due to their shared love of craft beer - and indeed the collaborations between the two breweries - the staff at Brewdog and Fierce know each other so we were involved in a cool conversation between everyone for a good fifteen minutes or so. We then headed to what had become our usual seat to finish our beers. I had wanted to buy some takeouts for my dad, but I hadn't realised there is a law in Scotland preventing this after 10pm. The barman did lament that he hadn't told me about this when we had been in the bar at lunchtime, having overheard my conversation with Wolfie, but I guess it was one of those things. Still, at least I had bought a bottle opener and a keyring for my Dad from the Brewdog brewery, not least because he had been interested in our bottle opener when I had gotten it out at my granddad's house a few days before.
We were feeling a little weary after this and with the time pushing midnight, the bars were closing anywhere. Consequently, we headed back to the hotel, all of two minutes away, ordered some room service for the room (cheese and ham sandwiches served with crisps in curry bowls for some reason) and chilled. We had a long drive down to Newcastle ahead of us the next day and we wanted to see some sights en route too, not to mention drop into the Dundee Brewdog bar to complete the Scottish set. This will be picked up next time.
Our destination was Dogtap, where the brewery tour was slated to begin, but due to the impossible bus timetable, we had arrived an hour and a half early for it. As a result, a few drinks were in order, and the bar staff did at least recognise us from our visit the previous day. We tried to pace ourselves, largely succeeding, while we were delighted to see our colouring in was still on the wall in the Kids Corner, with our referral numbers appended. We were told by the lady running the tour that nobody had turned up to the 4pm one, so we were hopeful we would have a private booking, but in the end there were eight of us, including a Spanish couple who were translating the experience rather distractingly. Just before 6pm, we registered for the tour, where I was delighted to discover we got ours free for being shareholders. We were then given a fluorescent yellow jacket which just about fit over my capacious belly and some basic plastic goggles, whose use was to become apparent later on. After a couple of minutes of fannying about, we then followed our guide over to the adjacent office block which forms Brewdog HQ to start the tour.
The tour was billed to last ninety minutes but in the end it was closer to two hours. It was incredibly extensive, dealing with the company ethos, the history of the company along with the brewing process itself. I have been a shareholder since 2011 and so most of this was known to me, while I have also done a number of brewery tours in the US and UK so I don't need telling about the brewing process. It was interesting to discover that the equipment was all made by the same manufacturers who bedeck the other craft breweries we have visited, while it was also interesting to find out that Brewdog have a number of pieces of bespoke equipment. This was particularly the case in the Lone Wolf distillery section, a new venture for the team as they have been making vodkas and gins over the last twelve months or so. There are many murals around the brewery, largely in a graffiti style, and the huge hungry wolf darting off the wall around the distillary section was arguably the most striking. We got four free samples on the tour, including one of the gins here, and this was definitely my favourite. Indeed, I have yet to find a gin so deep in flavour than the one we tried on the little station in the distillery. In the office area we also got to enjoy a thimble of Punk IPA while over in the Overworks Brewery, we got to try slightly warm cans of Kottbusser - a sour ale experiment between Brewdog and Yellow Belly. I'm assuming we got this as the Overworks bar itself was closed, but it was worth a sample and indeed good to be back in there. On our way up to the mezzanine bar, in the small lobby area, we saw a huge scale model built in Lego of the Overworks facility. This wasn't there before and was incredibly impressive. We were told that it was done by a very keen shareholder, who has done a number of similar installations for Brewdog.
The order of the tour was HQ, Brewery #3 (the new facility), Brewery #1 and Overworks, with the distillery forming part of #3. Here we saw a worker called Doug, so I quipped he was Brewdoug, which got a modest laugh. Being near the huge fermentation tanks - the ones we had seen in the distance when approaching Ellon - was awe-inspiring, simply considering the number of litres of beer they contain and the sheer size of the operation. This was juxtaposed with some sweet elements of history, including the old canning line, which sits in Overworks. When comparing this to the huge new canning line, you get to see the scale of the operation. I asked some questions of our guide but didn't want to seem too much like a know-it-all, but I did find out some interesting things such as the reason why Ohio was chosen as their US base was that the water there is of very similar composition to that of north-east Scotland. We also got to find out why they moved to Ellon from Fraserburgh, the working practices adopted by the company and that founder James Watt likes Star Wars and has the Imperial March theme tune which plays whenever anyone walks down the corridor between the brewery and HQ. I imagine that would get annoying pretty quickly. We also got a can of Punk IPA fresh of the canning line, the freshest you can get, which we obviously had to sample as soon as we got back to the bar. It was exceptional and we will be keeping the cans as souvenirs.
The tour concluded around 8pm, meaning we missed the bus we wanted to catch. This gave us about half an hour of chilling in the bar, relaxing after an incredibly hot jaunt around the brewery (the temperatures in the fermentation rooms were scorching on account of the incredibly warm day). We grabbed another beer before bidding farewell to the Dogtap staff and the brewery itself. It had been a pleasure to visit and we wish we could have stayed longer, but there were a number of other bars we wanted to try back in Aberdeen and we needed to get back. Fortunately, the bus did turn up on time this time, meaning that we got back to the city centre reasonably quickly, with a plan to visit three or four bars before heading to bed. Wolfie wasn't on call so we had fewer restrictions, which was most welcome, so our first port of call was the Six Degrees North bar which had been closed the night before. We called here after examining the exquisite city council offices again, a building whose beauty I still cannot get over. Six Degrees North was bigger inside than its frontage would suggest, and they had a range of beers on from the brewery, along with a tap takeover from a Belgian brewer that specialises in sour beers. I asked the lady serving behind the bar what she could recommend that you wouldn't get in Leeds, to which she responded 'can't you get good craft beer in Leeds?', which was a little rude. Still, her recommendation was good and soon we had sat down and were enjoying a quite unique sour variety
I wanted to call off at the Brewdog Flagship bar after here, particularly as it was just down the road and we were walking past it anyway. This is indeed where we went, being served by the same lady who had served us the night before. We then headed down to CASC, a craft beer bar recommended to us by pretty much everyone in the city since our arrival, for good reason too. This is a remarkable little underground bar, with cool staff, particularly the bright orange haired lady who served us. She was remarkably talkative and we had a long-ranging discussion over the course of about twenty minutes, focusing on everything from the local bus services to comic books. Most of the bars have LCD menus for some reason, which adds an element of sophistication to proceedings, and CASC was definitely one like that. However, it also had a little bit of a canteen feel to it, perhaps because it was below ground level. Either way, I loved it and really wished we could have stayed longer.
However, time was pressing and we had one more place to visit - The Craftsman. Fortunately, most of the good bars in Aberdeen are all within a stone's throw of each other so getting down here wasn't too difficult. It was actually opposite the bus station and we had walked past it numerous times before. Upon arrival, the barman seemed a little put out that we had chosen this as our last bar to visit, but it was really a matter of geography over favouritism. They had 14 beers on tap, as opposed to CASC and Fierce's 20 each, but each one of them seemed good. We therefore grabbed one and had a brief chat with the barkeep. He told us we should check out Krakatoa - the Aztec/Indonesian themed bar whose bust in the doorway had scared the shit out of me earlier that day. The fact it was a rock bar certainly appealed, but time was pressing and we had promised the guys at Fierce we would go for a nightcap. This is indeed what we did and it was here where we met the bearded gentleman to whom we had spoken on the lower ground level of Brewdog the night before. He was with his partner, assumedly, and his bulldog, who was incredibly friendly. Due to their shared love of craft beer - and indeed the collaborations between the two breweries - the staff at Brewdog and Fierce know each other so we were involved in a cool conversation between everyone for a good fifteen minutes or so. We then headed to what had become our usual seat to finish our beers. I had wanted to buy some takeouts for my dad, but I hadn't realised there is a law in Scotland preventing this after 10pm. The barman did lament that he hadn't told me about this when we had been in the bar at lunchtime, having overheard my conversation with Wolfie, but I guess it was one of those things. Still, at least I had bought a bottle opener and a keyring for my Dad from the Brewdog brewery, not least because he had been interested in our bottle opener when I had gotten it out at my granddad's house a few days before.
We were feeling a little weary after this and with the time pushing midnight, the bars were closing anywhere. Consequently, we headed back to the hotel, all of two minutes away, ordered some room service for the room (cheese and ham sandwiches served with crisps in curry bowls for some reason) and chilled. We had a long drive down to Newcastle ahead of us the next day and we wanted to see some sights en route too, not to mention drop into the Dundee Brewdog bar to complete the Scottish set. This will be picked up next time.
