is situated beneath the chapel of the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. It is beyond doubt that a substantial dwelling had occupied the site for some time before King Alexander I granted Traquair House a royal charter in 1107, since its walls have formed a retreat for 23 monarchs, a refuge for persecuted Catholics, and a bastion of support for the Jacobites’ long conflict to regain the Scottish throne lost in 1688.

The brewery was in full operation when Mary Queen of Scots visited Traquair in 1566 and records show that Charles Edward Stuart—Bonnie Prince Charlie—and his entourage sampled its already renowned produce in 1745. It can be little wonder that Traquair’s strong, malt-influenced ales come ready laced with nostalgia and wrapped in tradition. One of its current beers, Bear Ale, commemorates the house’s grand “Bear Gates” that were closed behind Bonnie Prince Charlie and will never open until the British crown once more sits on a Stuart head.

The brewery had fallen into disuse in the early 1880s but was revived in 1965 by Peter Maxwell Stuart, whose ancestry traces the family line. The brewing equipment was intact, including a Russian memel oak mash tun and open unlined oak fermenters. His first beer, Traquair House Ale (7.2% alcohol by volume), evolved from an 18th-century recipe that determined the brewery’s heady, dark, and traditionally Scottish style.

Now run by his daughter Lady Catherine Maxwell Stuart—Traquair’s 21st laird—an estimated 70% of the brewery’s production is exported to the United States, Canada, Scandinavia, and Japan.

See also scotland.