Caledonian lags behind but has a lager at last

THEY'VE added flavours ranging from chocolate to banana in an attempt to give a modern twist to their famous ales.

But now beer-makers at the city's Caledonian Brewery have broken a 139-year tradition – by producing lager.

Renowned for its distinctive pale ale Deuchars and the heavier and stronger Caledonian 80/-, the iconic Slateford Road brewery has, until now, never produced a lager.

But after experimenting with everything from lemon to passion fruit, the brewery is taking yet one more step into the unknown by creating the first cask lager.

And to celebrate the new venture, the Caledonian Brewing Company has named the beer after its founder, George Lorimer Junior, who created the brewery on what was then the edge of Edinburgh in 1869.

The new beer has been created using lager malt but it has fewer bubbles than a gassy lager – meaning the beer is expected to appeal to ale and lager drinkers alike.

Craig Steven, operations manager at the Caledonian Brewing Company, told the Evening News today: "To get people back into pubs you have to do as much as you can to make something different.

"A lot of people are drinking at home since the smoking ban, but you just can't buy cask beer at home.

"That's why we like to change things about a bit and try new things, to get people into pubs."

About 1000 casks of Lorimer's Cask Lager have been made – enough for 88,000 pints.

The barrels are to be delivered to pubs across Edinburgh, Scotland and the rest of the UK and will go on sale later this week.

Among the bars expected to stock the new product are branches of JD Wetherspoon, including The Standing Order in George Street.

As well as noting the legacy of the brewer's founder, the name Lorimer's links it with one of the best-known beers produced in Edinburgh during the time of the Capital's thriving beer industry.

Lorimer's Best Scotch became known across the UK – especially the north-east of England – for decades after Sunderland-based Vaux took over the Caledonian Brewery in 1919.

The famous product only stopped being produced when Vaux announced that it was closing the historic brewery in 1986. A year later, there was a management buy-out and the new team, under head brewer Russel Sharp, set about creating a new product – Deuchars IPA, which also took its name from a former Edinburgh brewer, Robert Deuchars.

Marie Moser, marketing manager at the Caledonian Brewery, said: "We are fiercely proud that the brewery has been here since 1869, so it was a deliberate decision to use the Lorimer's name, as with Deuchars.

"We wanted to nod back to Edinburgh when it was a real brewing centre.

"Lorimer's was well-known for Lorimer's Best Scotch, which was a pale ale, and people will still remember it.

"It is only because this beer is so different that we were confident people wouldn't confuse it with Lorimer's Best Scotch."