Episode: 4588
Title: HPR Beer Garden 11 - Belgian Scotch Ale
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4588/hpr4588.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:34 (official HPR transcript)

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4588, for 2026-03-04
Today's show is entitled, "HPR Beer Garden 11 - Belgian Scotch Ale"
The host is Kevie and the duration is 00:32:35
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Dave and Kevie talk about Belgian Scotch Ales."
Hello and welcome to yet another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio and this is the
big garden, the our regular beer style review that we have been doing for quite a few weeks
now, this is episode number 11. My name is Dave, I am joined as almost always by Kevy. Hello
how are you? Hello, I am very well, I am very well indeed because this is another one of my favorite
styles of beer, so looking forward to this. When do I go? This is when you put me through session
apes, you're still down to feed me back. Okay, accepted. On this episode we're going to be as Kevy
has already suggested, reviewing one of his favorite beer styles. Now, last episode we reviewed
Scotchales, or we heavy, we're doing a slight variant on that, and this is Belgian Scotch
Ails. Now, I haven't got a clue what the differences between the two are from the fact that one
is brooding Scotland, one is brooding Belgium, but Kevy, I think you're going to try and tell us
a bit more about him. Yes, so I finished the last bit of waffle we did a bit
we heavies with to be continued, and this is the to be continued, because once I got into discovering
new Belgian Ails, I was noticing that I'm going, well, where's this from in Scotland? Oh,
it's from Belgium, but this thing looked like it literally was produced by a shortbreadton maker.
You know, I mean, everything was tarten, the sills, things were killed, things were bagbipes,
to the point where I'm going, the way I'm going, as far as I'm aware, Belgian aren't that
Scottish, as far as I'm aware, I can't say I've actually ever been myself, I do hope to go soon,
but I was thinking there's something odd here, so I started actually looking up, and it was
amazing how it fits in so nicely with a combination of the Christmas Ails episode, the Belgian
Christmas Ails episode that we did, and also the wee heavy episode that we did previously.
So towards the end of the 19th century, the Belgian beer distributor started selling this thing called
Belgian Christmas Ails, which, as we found out, was actually done by both Youngers and Maccurians.
It was the same beer just sold as a different label, and what was happening was the Belgians
actually started to get a taste for it, and they started to mimic this Christmas Ails style,
and a few did it early on, kind of 1903 time without a great deal of success, but then the demand
actually started to come quite high, so they decided to start producing, so by the start of the
20th century, they were producing incredibly small quantities, the Belgian Scotch Ails, which is what
that we are grew out of. The big real boost for the Belgian Scotch Ails actually believe it or
not came from the first world war. British soldiers were invited with bitter from England,
which was fine for those south of the border, who were used to drinking bitter. However,
the problem was the morale of the Scottish soldiers was actually getting quite low, and they
discovered, they soon discovered, that the Belgians were producing this Scotch Ails that tasted
very similar to what they had at home, and of course the British army started ordering it for
the Scottish soldiers so that morale would actually keep boosted, and of course it had all the
characteristics, it was multi, it was fruity, it was strong and warming, it was quite boozy, even more
so actually than the Scottish own version, which tended to be between, as I said last time between
7 and 9, very often this was from 7 upwards of 13, 14 percent, although the 30, 14 was more
extreme, so it was very similar, I know something they were familiar with. However, the problem was,
it was still not the main type of beer produced, so it was still produced in relatively low quantities,
so what happened was during the First World War, they started im-porting more and more from Scotland.
Again, it's funny, you wouldn't get away with these days changing the label or calling it something
totally different, but it also focused on ramping up production, and because of just the way things
went with the war etc, it wasn't actually until the 1930s that they were properly producing
vast amounts of the Scottish scale, but it's amazing to think that it was actually homesick,
Scottish soldiers that were one of the big early drives to get the Scottish ale more readily available
onto the Belgian market, and of course the Belgians had already discovered, they enjoyed the Christmas
seal, they actually weren't selling it as Christmas seal, it was very much Scottish ale, and it's
funny to see a lot of these labels, as I said, you would think they were from the very heart of the
Highlands produced and we bought the somewhere, and literally been paraded out with bagpipes and
tilted men, you know, it was so over the top Scottish, and these are still been produced to this day,
and it was that bigger industry, some of them were brewed in Scotland and never to be sold in Scotland,
they were exclusively for the Belgian market, so they were brewed, they were then im-ported,
and these were not rebranded ones, these were exclusive for this, however I have found out,
now there's a lot of them kept this very secret, but they're no longer brewed in Scotland,
I don't think any of them are as far as I'm aware, I was trying to read the correct,
but they're now all brewed in Belgium, so although sadly, the wee heavy has largely
kind of disappeared outside of very much specialist beer shops, yet because of the Belgian love for it,
you can enjoy a good old-fashioned wee heavy today, as long as you decide to buy it from Belgium.
You've not left me many questions because you've been that was very comprehensive,
I am intrigued by the fact that I may have misinterpreted this, but the fact that the
Belgian Scotch Ayles don't typically appear in Scotland, they don't you literally have to get them
from an im-port complete. Is there a particular reason for that? Is it a legal reason,
no, I just don't know, it's considered non-canon, probably the non-canon, yeah, I would probably go
with that, as far as I'm aware, it's you can get them in specialist beer shops, I wonder does it
just that maybe they don't want to be seen to be taken away from the local brewing industry,
I wonder is at the reason why? I suppose that would depend on how prolific
Scotch Ayles are in Scotland, as in Scotch Scotch Ayles. Yes, sadly not, not that.
Now, could that be cause and effect or is the Scotch Ayles phasing out organically,
which could actually leave an opening for the Belgian Scotch Ayles to come and fill that gap?
I think it's just mostly down to people's thinking habits, generally in Scotland, you look at
more popular these days, it's far more a country that was a lot more, not exclusively,
but a lot more lag or drinkers, a lot more lower ABVs, but I think that's actually
down to drinking culture in Scotland, drinking culture in Scotland for people who enjoy beer,
people don't seem to know how to actually sit and sip and enjoy a beer, they kind of want to
neck it off the time. So of course, if you did that with a 10% beer, you're not going to be
around for too long in the night, you'll be going home quickly. Right, okay, now there's a time and
a place for doing that with a beer, I wouldn't have expected that Scotland was the place.
Sadly, yes, if you go into a lot of eateries, not all of them, but a lot of eateries, and you'll
get a whine list as long as the sheet of paper and probably print on both sides, and you ask
what beer do you have, and they'll say 10 and slagger, you don't have any other beers, and they might
say something like Stella or Peronir something like that. Yeah, okay, so I think it is more down to,
obviously it is down to a bit of supply and demand, sadly. Okay, we're going to segue just slightly
here. If you were to ask the Scottsperson on the street, what their favorite beer style was,
what would be the overwhelming response? Probably slagger IP, that is the overwhelming,
you mean you will, I'm not saying excuse me, I'm not saying excuse me, but you'll get, if it's an
older person, guaranteed, does the Appain to Heavy, that would be just a bit nearly all, you might
give some people like Appain to light, which is mild, don't neglect, it's practically the same
beer. You'll get the, you know, people like me, who will say you'll still get maybe a few people
for we Heavy, but those should be few and far between. Right, so what does that mean then for the
Scottsperson beer industry, if you take away the Largo's and the Light Tales? The problem is,
the Scottsperson beer industry is very much split, the all-time ones, like the big names that
you're so well known, tenons, macurons, young girls, I mean, young girls is practically vanished.
That's a huge brewery, but it's been bought over that many times now, it's vanished.
You look at the macurons, you know, they were owned by Scottsperson, you Castle, who became bought
by Heinrich and they've just practically killed off all of the beers, which is really sad,
but at the same time, I'm saying it sad, but once, respect, they were never fantastic beers.
The local macurons wasn't, they were decent, they were all right, you wouldn't generally say,
wow, that's amazing. It has left a real void in the market and when I think that there was
next to no craft breweries in about 2000 at all, very, very few, there was the odd one or two.
Now, there are hundreds, my idea, I maybe even say thousands, because it's not them dotted
in tiny, we've religious and things around Scotland and because Scotland is so remote,
I mean, you've experienced this, a lot of them will only deliver, they're small, they're not
brewing millions, they'll deliver to their own local areas and getting them, you can't get them
but they're very expensive, you know, so your problem is you might go to a place and find a lovely,
I mean, I can think of, I went to the Olipple Beer Festival and I had the AL of Athel and I thought,
this is lovely, I'm going to start drinking this more regularly, I've never been able to find it,
I ever again, so, I mean, I can find it, it's on the website and it shows me it's still a
produce now that I can't actually order it online, so you've got that issue, so yeah,
you've just got delivery and logistics are actually a bit of a problem, right? So this is why I'm
always keen to try and support local breweries when they're starting producing beers to
keep them up because at the end of the day, it's way better than what the big breweries were producing.
Anything would be, yes, arguably, I've got to ask one more question and then I think it's probably
about time to start cracking these bottles out. Do you think that Scotland is becoming a microborionation?
Yes, it is now. Well, there's a definite split, there's your lagger drinkers and they just want
tenants, you know, they're very loyal to ten slagger, which I don't get. I really, I really can't
understand it. It's the nothing else though. No, no, there are other things, but just they're very
loyal to, I mean, I remember that when the local brewery here started producing, which is now
sadly closed. There's other ones, but the one I'm thinking of, he started producing and he was
producing Klansman, which was a golden ale, and then what he did is he pumped it through
knife rotaps to make it more like a lagger, and a lot of the lagger drinkers who tasted it said,
oh, that's really nice. Would you drink it? Oh, no, no, I want my tenants. But you're like,
so it's really terribly frustrating, but you've got, there's no surplus on people. No,
where you got very much two splits at Asplit, sorry, it's very much two halves, and you will get
ones who are, they want that pint a lager, and you'll get the other half who will, I want to try
something new, I want to try different things. So I'd say that's the split on this street. I think you're
probably here to ask for people's favorite beer. If you get rather than say you're favorite style,
if you go favorite beer, I think you would probably depending on where you're out of course.
You're either going to get a range of locally spears that you've generally never heard of, or
ten as lagger, you know, that's going to be a little answer, which in one sense is actually good
for the craft beer market in school, because there's so many of them, no, it's, it's lovely.
I mean, I've had tenants, I've had, was it four variants of tenants? I think you used to be able to
get back in the 1980s when I shouldn't have been drinking to sing, but nothing really blew me away.
A lager is a lager is a lager, there are different taste profiles, but ultimately the
end of the day is a lager. It's nothing special, in my opinion, and I apologize. No, I don't,
I don't apologize. To all the people I may have offended by saying that. But when you've got so
much choice, so much variety, so many styles, so many flavour profiles of all the beers. I mean,
we're in your own episode 11, and I have learned so much. Why would I go into a pub, and order
what is probably on the most prominent pump in the entire bar, and that's calling, or that
to be fair, I used to drink calling, and I used to like it. I know, I'm sorry, I have my card in.
But see, that's a problem. There's so many people who want to vary. I mean, you enjoyed it at
the time, but would you go back to it now? No, because I know better. Yeah, exactly. And that's
where the problem is, we need to get people trying these beers and trying different things,
because they'll then suddenly realize, whoa, that's actually a heck of a lot nicer. I mean,
even when it comes to Lager, you can get good Lager. But, you know, I mean, Lager by itself,
the whole Lager, Lager is actually not, the name isn't actually Lager originally. This is
the Lager episode, but the term Lager is actually referred to storing it underground at a
cool temperature for a long period, and it let it mature. What gets produced as Lager today,
generally, is something that is made in the morning, and is finished practically by the evening.
There's new age in it at all, and you're like, this is why it's bland, this is why it's tasteless.
Lager should actually have some flavour. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Anywho, I think we should probably
move on. Yes, because I'm definitely thirsty, you know. So, I have in front of me a bottle, which is
actually, it is silly. I mean, managed to get this, yeah, literally. I got this from a
biz of Europe order that I placed well before Christmas. In fact, I ran about the time that was on
the search for Christmas sales, and we were doing the different Christmas sales styles across two
episodes. And I thought, big brain, I'll order ahead and try and get the styles that we're going
to be doing in the early part of 2026. So, yeah, I failed on the last one, because the one previously
we decided wasn't a valid Scotch ale, but I managed to get myself two Belgian Scotch ale's.
I can't tell you what the first one is, and the reason for that will become apparent very soon.
But the second one is literally silly. So, it's from the Brasserie de Silly, which is a Belgian
brewery, and the ale is called Scotch Silly, or Silly Scotch, whichever way you want to put. We'll
call it. The bottle is, it's a lovely brown bottle, green labeling. Scotch Silly is born from a
unique tradition and throughout the years as grown into a reference beer for its particular style.
Lovely red colour with more than a hint of copper is hidden below a beige head.
Complexer roamers, bubbles, a lot of sense of brieosha companies by raisins, fruit, jam, and
fresh raspberry. Well, I'll be looking at it for that, definitely. But initial impressions of those
of honey and caramel flavors of prunes and a rose malt come through the finish. And there's a
lot going on in there. It is eight percent, which is moderately strong. And I'm going to show
up talk him. I know him there. Here we go. Oh, hello. Oh, do they say prunes? Yes.
Oh, that's interesting. It says the prunes come through in the finish, but I'm definitely getting
getting them in the in the aroma. That is a gorgeous colour. It's a beautiful ruby colour.
Yeah, quite a bit of colour agent. You think with a ruby or an amber ale, it's a lot more transparent.
So the colour is quite it's quite a clean colour. But this one actually seems to have quite a
big head on it. I really need to go back to school and learn how to pour a beer. But no, the
colouring is gorgeous. It's almost an orange hint of orange in the colouring, which you wouldn't
typically expect to see in a beer. And I've done myself a disservice here because I'm
actually waiting for the inch and a half of head to go down. In fact, somebody can go and get
me a spoon. That'll help. Right. So now weirdly, I'm not getting a lot, a lot through the nose
right now. But when I first opened the bottle, it was, it was very, very strong. Let's give it a try.
Oh, wow. That's very multi, as you would hope and expect. It is quite sweet as well.
I definitely getting some of the fruits that it mentions, the fruity jam, the raspberry. That
prune is still coming through surprisingly. I didn't expect that to. I don't recall
tasting that on the first run when I had this. And I don't remember this, which is really weird.
But yeah, very, very multi, very sweet, very fruity. I'm sticking my nose back in there.
I'm definitely getting some sort of like caramel, but kind of a muted or a dull caramel, not the,
the really sweet burnt sugary type of caramel that you would expect to see in a beer like this.
This is very good indeed. I've almost, almost glad I forgot and I had this before.
Mm, absolutely. Well, there you go. It was a nice surprise for yourself. Well, tell us what you've got.
I have got Macshoof, which, and, well, you don't need to see if you've got a bottle there. I've
got the older style label. Despite the fact I just ordered this, it's got the noom dwarf, whatever it is.
In front of a week cake with the, oh, no, the new one doesn't have the cake, of course.
No, it doesn't, but it's that bagpipes. Oh, you also got bagpipes as well. The bagpipes,
he's got the tartan-thru's, my one as well. So, yes, very stereotypically Scottish.
On the cake, mine says Brudon. So, I've got a sign. You could assign with that, yeah. That says Brudon.
Right, so let's get this open.
Uh, nice bit of smokyness coming off there. Not smoky flavor, I just meant it's more
coming out of it. Mm, it's multi. There's a peppery spicy note. Yeah, I'm getting that's
where I'm getting multi peppery spicy. That's from the bottle. So, let's put it.
Fairly lively head, not quite as lively as yours, but still quite a lively head there.
So, and as you can see yourself, you thought that you, it was exactly the same as your
own. It looks black on the camera. Mm, but it's kind of certainly more. This is more, yeah,
this is mahogany. This is already brown. It's, I think it's slightly browner than your room was.
I split the, the red ruby red. In the glass, this has gotten quite a bit more boozy on the nose.
There's notes of toasted brown sugar. Yeah, it's not a spicy at all.
Yeah, see, from the bottle, I'm going to compare the two of them now. From the bottle, much
peppery spicy. I don't see how much peppery, but it's just spicy note. No, it doesn't, that
removes, but it does smell boozyer from the glass. I have to confess, so, right, it's going to
finish that off. Right, there we go. That's actually settled down quite nicely, and it's not totally
gone, so it's a nice head on that. Mm, cheers. Cheers. Yeah, multi toasted caramel. There's, whoa,
there's an extra layer. I did not notice on this beer. I've always seen that fruity,
or taste it to see. That fruity, dark fruits, dark dried fruit. Again, raisins, kind of figs,
but there's a lighter fruit coming through on the back end. Like a green apple, or a pear, or something.
Which I've not actually noticed before. Mm, which actually takes the sweetness,
lingering sweetness, it's very often with the Belgian score of the shields. It's taken that away
almost. You don't have the lingering sweetness. It's not necessarily bad or good. It's just
slightly different. I've not noticed that with this much shift before. It's definitely got the
Scottish flavoring. Yeah, you've got that malt-heavy front end. You've got the toasted caramel
coming through you. No, no, we're near as boozey in the taste as it actually smelled. But that's
actually dangerous, because that on a hot day would be dangerous. That's eight percent similar to yours.
I think I could knock that back very easily. Mm, okay. Oh, actually quite gassy.
That's one thing, this one isn't, even though it did flare up a bit in the glass. It's not,
it's not fizzy. Mm, no, no, I don't mean fizzy. I mean, the kind of after you've
drank it, it's giving you milk burping. It's what I kind of gassy, but when on to go stir,
it's not fizzy at all. I'm tasting it. You know, I don't know, have I just never waited long enough
for that? But that's something really different. I quite like that, actually. It's good,
what would otherwise be quite a sweet, a very sweet, lingering finish. Normally with these,
you get the kind of sweetness along with bitter fruits. But it actually cleans up the palate quite
nicely. That's, yeah, I really like that. This is something that is very, very nice indeed.
Yes, oh, I certainly would have this. So looking at the label, Maksuf is a resident halted,
starting off with its alluding ruby red hues with a lively frothy head, but not as nowhere near
a frothy as a silly. It leads you to an exciting taste of Anna's seed licorice and caramel,
blending a place in my field with a balanced depth and color. Keep on track and you'll reach the
final hint of pear with a delicious little light bitterness. At 8% ABV, this is one for the
daredevil's. That's what the box is. Okay. I'm not getting licorice. I must admit, I'm not,
and I'm not getting Anna's seed. There's a spiciness to it that is there in the background,
but it's definitely nowhere near. Anna's seed to me would be clawing and dominant. This is not
but that is very nice indeed. To be honest, I'm glad it's not exactly how the description sees.
So I'm on the fan of Anna's seed, but you're absolutely right. It can and very often
does dominate. I mean, there's nothing I like out of sight as well, but I just tend to find that it's
it's a wee bit like, to me, it's a wee bit like cooking with stoutton. It's an art. And
right, they're the often, it just dominates the food. And that's what I find with the drinks,
it can dominate. We have a thumbs up from my eldest. We have just had a live tasting
with no commentary, which is part of the course, but he tends to react quite harshly to
certain nails and certainly those that have a strong nose and he did react to it, but then he tried
it and he was like, double thumbs up, double thumbs up. Yes, that's good. So double thumbs up
from your eldest, from your kids. What about father? What does father give it to?
It is getting better, which is not really what I expected. If I, I've just looked at what I rated
this on an on tap to when I had it just before the new year, I would have given it it a seven
or half, which I'd still have pretty decent score, seven and a half out of ten is pretty decent.
Yeah, it is. But I think I'm going to change that based on on this tasting. I think maybe I
didn't go into it in as much detail then as I have done now. And I think there's a lot more
going in there than I probably gave it credit for what I first tried it. So I think I'm actually
going to put this down as an eight and a half. Oh, very good. Because this is really, really nice.
I do still have one left from the order I made, although I have a very distinct feeling that
might get stolen by my eldest. So there may be a fight over it, we shall see. But yeah, definitely
I'll get eight and a half out of ten for the Scotch silly. And do you know what I'm actually thinking
along the same lines as that for the Macshoof? I probably go along lines of eight and a half.
I'm really enjoying it. It's very good. Had I not had the Gordon's Scotch ale, I may have done
it higher. But to me, that Gordon's one is the the permical of the Belgian Scotch ale's. So I can see
where I can see what I like it. I can see where I prefer the Gordon's version. I mean, this is
obviously the danger. And this is why we recommend people do alter the scores if they feel it.
You may try something and it blows you away. But then the more you drink it, the more you reduce
okay, prefer that one over that one. They're not all five or five or ten out of ten,
just as he. Yeah, I think probably had I tried this first. As the first ever Scotch ale from
Belgium, it probably would have been full marks. But I think after that, after a good few,
the discerning palette, I think I'm going to go up at eight and a half. I think that's about
where it is. Pardon me. Okay, well a question for you then. Why didn't you go for the Gordon's
for this? Because I specifically bought this for this and we did I did the Gordon's for the
as yet to be unreleased reserve cushoof. Oh, of course you did. Yes, my apologies. Make sense.
So yeah, all in all, that was a fairly successful review, I think, eight and a half each.
So yeah, awesome. Yes, absolutely, yes. Okay, so did we decide we didn't have any feedback from
previous shows to mention? Yes, we're very disappointed folks. No feedback as far as we can see.
We went back with the overall shows. Very disappointing. So no new feedback at all. So if you do
want to give us feedback, then please do leave us a message on a comment on the show. That's
about actually know the best way is to actually record your own version of this show,
that cus this is a community podcast. However, you can leave a comment on the shows and we will
read it out. You can also message us on MasterDone. You can message us on untapped if you wish.
The only problem is I'm liable to forget to read it out. I'm being perfectly honest.
So if you want your comment for a day out, please leave it as a comment on one of the previous
shows. And also, yes, that's the better way of doing it. Yes, and also, if you want to recommend
any styles, then please do. Don't wait for the future style to come up like put a poster on the
if I comment on like this show of Belgian scotchales and just say, hey guys, I want you to review
so it will be or I want you to review whatever. If there's something you're actions and
and I'm going to put the caveat of if we can get it because yes, there are some limitations. Actually
there are a lot of limitations. I don't want to do beer and discredit because somebody wants us to review
just to say, well, I'll just produce you for example. There's a beer in Britain called Ashai. Is it
Ashai or Ashai? Do you know what I mean? I've heard of one of the code Ashai. Is that like a
like a a log, a bottle typically sold in restaurants? It's it's a bottle. Yeah, and it's
got a silver label. And it's full of either Chinese or Japanese, right? I'm not really sure
because I'm not very fluent now. Yeah, that's the choice the same one. Yeah, probably is. And
then when you actually read the very bottom, despite all this foreign writing on it, it says
Bruden Britten. You know, so it's not really fair to say. And in the same way, I've had
genuine Italian beer and Moretti and it's nothing like what we have here. So you do the
disservice to say just because it's Bruden the country. Oh, this is what it must be like. Is
this like drinking Guinness out side of Ireland? But yes, yes. Yeah, no, I get it.
That is it. Awesome. Well, why don't you tell us what it is we're going to be reviewing
next time. Oh, I'm continuing with some of the favorites of mine. Although to be honest,
or the sex style, I've only relatively recently discovered, but I have taken a liking to it.
And we are going to be continuing. I think as far as my word, this is the last of our winter
warmers. So after this one, we should be coming out and maybe going to more spring beers,
but this is going to be a Baltic porter. Can also be called an imperial porter. So keep an eye
it. If you want to actually get a hold of one and join in with us, then yeah, you're more than
welcome. So we're looking for a Baltic or imperial porter. And I only hope I can find one because
trying to find the beers that you've suggested so far has been quite a challenge for me.
And before we start to be recording, I know Carol, I mean, I have too many beers anyway,
but I don't have a Baltic porter. So yes, I'll be continuing with my search for a Baltic porter
over the next week or two. But yeah, coming out of the winter beers and into a more springy
style, I think the supermarkets will be a lot more forgiving to those styles, the lighter styles,
than the darker ones. So let's hope. Absolutely. Right in. So join us again tomorrow for another
exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio.
You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org.
Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is.
Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network.
Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.
