Long ago, there were many breweries in Glasgow. Of all those that brewed ale or beer for the pubs, inns and taverns of the city in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, now only one remains: Tennent's in the Wellpark Brewery.
In this video I do my best to paint a picture of the brewing industry in Glasgow's past, an industry that, like most industries, has all but vanished, with only a few new brewers added to a list of not very many.
The history of Glasgow's brewing industry begins with maltsters and malt barns where barley was processed into malt. In truth, the industry probably began with monks and religious men who brewed beer and earned some money by selling some of it on. But in the medieval period maltings started to appear, and the resultant malt was sold to inns and taverns where ale was brewed on the premises for consumption by customers.
But gradually many maltsters released they could increase their profits by brewing the beer themselves and selling it to the inns and taverns, and so Scotland's brewing industry began.
In Glasgow there were many breweries, from Hugh Baird's Great Canal Brewery that existed from the early 19th century up until the beginning of the 20th century, to the large brewery at Anderston, by Warroch Street, known as the large brewery to perhaps distinguish it from another smaller brewery in Bishop Street that was also called the Anderston Brewery. Of course, back in the old days Anderston wasn't part of Glasgow, and was only incorporated into the city in 1846, but let's not nit-pick.
Back in the 18th century you also had Struther's Brewery in what is now the Barras Market area, between what is now Ross Street and Kent Street, where the finest porter in these lands was brewed from a secret recipe. Did Glasgow brew a dark porter or stout before Arthur Guinness in Dublin got his hands on the recipe? The Struthers family of brewers became so successful that they opened a new brewery - the Greenhead Brewery - a little further east, close to the edge of Glasgow Green. Later, this brewery was altered and re-used by brewers Steel, Coulson & Co, and late still, Calder's, then occupied by aerated water manufacturers and bottlers Joseph Dunn.
And then, of course, there's Tennent's, originally a family of maltsers going back to the 16th century who, like many maltsters, began brewing their own beer, probably in the 18th century in the Drygate, not far from the current Wellpark Brewery. Where would we be today without the world-famed Tennent's Lager?