Traquair HouseBrewery

Traquair House Brewery operates from a wing of Traquair House, reputedly the oldest continuously inhabited house in Scotland. Peter Maxwell Stuart, the 20th Laird, restarted brewing in 1965 after finding the original eighteenth-century equipment intact, including a two-hundred-gallon copper bought in 1738. His daughter, Catherine Maxwell Stuart, now runs the estate and brewery, fermenting the ales in oak tuns made from Russian memel wood. Three bottled beers are produced: Traquair House Ale, the coriander-spiced Jacobite Ale, and Bear Ale. About sixty percent of output is exported. Visitors can book a thirty-minute tour with tastings, walk the grounds' yew maze, or call into the brewery shop before the house closes for winter in November.