ABOUT US
Background
Glen Affric Brewery started brewing in November 2016, but our story goes way back.
While working in Shanghai, co-founder Craig McCormick and his father, Trevor got caught up in China’s craft beer movement. Blown away by the range of modern brewing, Craig joined the team at China’s top craft brewery, Shanghai Boxing Cat Brewery and learned his trade. After further ‘research’ trips to San Diego, the dream of the family brewery started to take shape.
That brewery became Glen Affric, a beautiful part of Scotland where the McCormick family have a long-time family home. Premises were bought in the picturesque village of Cannich, Glen Affric and planning permissions submitted for redevelopment there. While this was in process further premises were secured in substantial brand new units in Birkenhead, close to the family’s base on the Wirral.
Returning to the UK in 2016, and with brother Calum and mother Alison coming on board, the family started with a pilot 500-litre brewhouse, balancing experimental beers with a focus on a core range of delicious, highly sessionable West Coast styles. For the first nine months, local demand meant beers rarely escaped the taproom, but with a significant increase in capacity, the brewery is now distributed and sold across the UK.
“one of the most underrated breweries in the UK.”
— Jonny Garrett, UK Beer Writer of the Year 2019 & Co-Founder of The Craft Beer Channel
The Brewery
We take the quality and absolute consistency of our beers very seriously.
We have invested heavily in a state-of-the-art 30hl brewery built to our specifications, making sure we have the ability to expand quickly and efficiently. We increased capacity to brew to 2,500hl in our first year but have increased this by a further 10,000hl of tank space to allow ‘real’ tank flexibility not only for the needs of our base core range but also for our extensive specials series already well into production, including our substantial barrel-age programme.
Canning Line
In addition, we have recently installed our second canning line, capable of 2000 cans per hour and the ability to package a variety of can sizes from 250ml slims to 500ml tall boys.
We do this to ensure that we have complete control of the quality of our output from start to finish and give our customers a beer experience we’d be proud of.