Levenbank Distillery, founded by the team at Loch Lomond Brewery, is partnering with Northern Monk on a project bringing the worlds of craft beer and whisky together.
Brian Dickson and Euan MacEachern get down to work
The collaboration will see Northern Monk’s head brewer and co-founder Brian Dickson come to Scotland to brew an imperial stout which will be developed into three distinct products over the coming years. These will be:
- The base imperial stout, in keg and can for the on- and off-trade. A portion will also be bottled to be included in a future curated set.
- An Oloroso cask-aged imperial stout; and
- A single-grain Scotch whisky. The imperial stout recipe will be distilled into whisky and laid down to mature for a period of three or four years in the same casks used to age the cask-aged imperial stout release.
Upon completion of the whisky’s maturation, there will be a three-part collection, offering consumers a unique opportunity to explore the transformation of a single recipe across beer, cask-ageing, and whisky distilling.
“We are delighted to be partnering with Northern Monk on the first of our beer to whisky exploration projects,” said Euan MacEachern, head brewer, head distiller and company director at Loch Lomond Brewery and Levenbank Distillery. “It marks the beginning of a wider initiative to explore the relationship between brewing and distilling through collaborations with leading craft brewers.
“Future collaborations will experiment with a range of styles, including barley wines, doppelbocks, imperial reds, and sour beers, with the aim of demonstrating that the style of beer, or wash as it’s known in the whisky world, has a significant influence on the flavour of the whisky.”
Brian Dickson added: “At Northern Monk, we’ve always been passionate about pushing the boundaries of what beer can be, and this collaboration is a perfect example of that. Working with Levenbank/Loch Lomond Brewery to create an imperial stout designed to be drunk fresh as a beer, and also to be barrel-aged and used for whisky making, is an incredible opportunity to explore the relationship between brewing and distilling.
“We can’t wait to see how the rich, bold flavours of the imperial stout evolve through the distillation and cask-ageing process into something truly special.”
