The Loch Ness Brewery has teamed up with soft fruit experts from the James Hutton Institute near Dundee and a Fife berry farmer to create a new blackberry beer.
Tapping into the growing niche market not just for craft beers but also for fruit-flavoured beverages, the new Berry LochNESS beer was actually born out of a possible dispute over use of the Loch Ness name.
The Drumnadrochit-based brewery has been trading since 2011 under the Loch Ness name, and Loch Ness blackberries were developed and launched in 1989 by the James Hutton Institute.
A phone call and some explanation not only resolved any brewing issues but also soon turned into a conversation about the possibilities of teaming the namesake products to make something new that would create profile for both firms and for their respective industries.
Jonathan Snape, Managing Director of James Hutton Limited, commercial affiliate of the James Hutton Institute, said: 'It’s great to be able to create a product that teams many aspects of Scotland’s resources to make something new and of top quality: great fruit, bred and grown in Scotland, our pure, abundant water and our home-grown barley and brewing expertise.'
Late in the growing season, Fife berry farmer Robert Simpson came up trumps with a large enough harvest of the Loch Ness blackberries to make a viable batch of beer.
Berry LochNESS is now available in specialist outlets. Stephen Crossland, of Loch Ness Brewery, echoed Snape’s view, and added: 'We welcome the opportunity to develop new, niche brews for a market that is growing and evolving and think this latest recipe is one that will help win our beer new fans.'
Researchers at the James Hutton Institute have recently started small scale experiments to see if it would be possible to create a variety of hops that could be grown viably in Scotland – much further north than its normal range – with a view to giving beer-makers the full set of brewing ingredients sourced from Scotland.
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