David Rogerson from WooHa (bottom left of Zoom screen)

Held at the end of June 2020 and hosted on CAMRA’s virtual pub, the Red (on)Lion, this was one of the many CAMRA video conferencing events that have attracted on-line participants from across the country. The beers to be sampled could be bought in advance by participants from CAMRA or direct from the brewers.

David Rogerson introduced himself, he is the production manager at WooHa Brewing and qualified as a brewer at Herriot-Watt University, lastly working at Marstons (Charles Wells etc) in Bedford. Originally from Dumfies he recounted that some time ago in a pub with his parents he tried a fresh-on beer only to discover it was of dubious quality which set him thinking and eventually becoming determined to make good beer.

WooHa is an independent brewery started in 2015 by the owner Heather McDonald who lives in Scotland but originates from Tennessee. The brewery is in Kinloss on an old farm site and a little remote. Apparently their forklift truck sometimes get stuck in the mud outside the brewery, and the area has frequent power cuts – in fact one struck during the event but was so quick only some of the lights went off but the brewery pc was unaffected and the internet connection wasn’t lost.

David explained that one of his colleagues lives not far from the brewery and so when at home during a power cut he knows to go and reset the chillers and various other electronic equipment at the brewery. There are a number of empolyees at Wooha who are ex RAF and served at the bases nearby. “It’s from these bases that they intercept Russian intruders”.

The beers. Wooha produces a core range of five beers, and some occasional specials. The beer is unfiltered and is sold in bottles and casks.

First beer – Northern Mischief Lager, 5% ABV

“This includes wheat malt for mouth feel with English and german hops. “Some lager brewers want as few possible flavours as possible in their lager” explained David. Not so here, and like most lagers good carbonation is important for this. There has been a change of name as previously it was called Woo-Ha Lager. We use four or five yeasts at the brewery, one of these is the lager yeast. We mainly brew with bottom fermenting yeasts that drop to the bottom of our fermenting vessels and so are easier to separate from the beer.”

Hello Friday, Pale Ale, 3.8% ABV

“The newest beer in range started end of 2019. It has orange on the nose and with the flavour. A session beer with a high IBU. The malts used are pale and crystal, hops are USA and German. We use mainly English malts from Muntons. There’s lots of barley growing here but it goes to the Diagio maltings which is quite near-by for distilling. The crystal malt in Hello Friday gives a darker gold colour. It is also dry hopped and Mandarina Bavaria imparts the notes of orange.”

At this point, as in many zoom and skype meetings there was a slight interruption due to someone moving about in the speaker’s background. David explained that this was Wiebka who is a German Brewster working at the brewery. Apparently earlier in the year £1.5 million was raised through crowd-funding. “This has been going on marketing and recruiting and helping us survive this period. A nearby Brewery has not been so lucky and recently closed.”

Rogue Clan, 6% ABV

A darker beer with a nose of heather and honey, three malts including munich which gives a slight sweetness and only brambling hops. In times past Scotland was restricted on hops – they cant be grown here as they need 13 hours of daylight for some time. This beer a great example of the Scottish style. The recipe is five years old”.

The reply when asked about Scottish milds – “Scotland has 60, 70, and 80 Shilling beers – milds here are not common.”

“We were doing 40 or 50 barrels a week of beer until Covid. We have a 10 barrel brew house with basic equipment, and one mash tun. It brews of 1,600 to 2,000 litres of beer. It is fun to brew here and we have a small bottle line. Today we were bottling the IPA. We also have a pilot brew kit whose results may or may not translate to full size.

We brewed a champagne style ale – Speak Easy. It won a NE Scotland Food & Drink award, we wanted it to have a nose similar champagne. We do weird and wonderful as long as it doesn’t impact on our core stuff. People are willing to pay for weird and wonderfull stuff but then want to go back to something more everyday”.

Pinata, 6.2% ABV

“Big on hops, citrus, pine and grapefruit. A West coast style IPA style. East coast IPA tend to be hazy, thick and fruity. Before BrewDog in the US the west coast was obsessed on getting the bitterest beer. It’s so named after a colleague brought in a giant hop piñata for Christmas.

This is our IPA and it has 2 US hops, it has a nice glass cling pattern. Head’s not necessarily important in beer but aesthetics are a needed. This is the most bitter beer we do. Though we do aim at some time to make a more hoppier beer as a special.”

Question – supermarkets? “Pinata will be sold in August at Liddle Scotland, also CoOp in Scotland and maybe NISA across UK. Though obviously beers can be bought from our new website and they’re available from Amazon. We may be supplying some hotels through a hood and drinks supplier -maybe. We’re currently selling in Sweden which has a most unusual off-licence system involving pharmacies, plus selling in Italy and Russia.”

Rauch n’ Roll, 5% ABV

“This is another of our original recipes. Jet black with chocolate malt. That’s the most expensive malt we use and it’s pricy because of the extra energy used to make it. Our rauch has a smokey roasted flavour from Vidermans Malts. We don’t use peat smoked malt, it always seems to make beer tasting cheesey. Our rauch malt is beech smoked and smooth. It’s bitterness coming mainly through the malt.

After March all our cask beer sales nosedived for obvious reasons. We’re concentrating on bottled at the moment, but cask is easier. Our bottled conditioned beers last two years, but after that it is still good. For non-bottle conditioned it can last six months to a year less. We don’t filter, for me over-filtered bottled beer has no mouth feel. All our bottled beers are vegan with no finings. But in our casks we use finings.

We did special – Dragon SMASH (Single Malt And Single Hop) it was our lowest ABV at 3.6, fruity easy to drink with a flavour like passion fruits.

I did attempt to brew an egg-nog stout – adding lactose, vanilla and nutmeg, plus something else I can’t remember at the moment. It went wrong, perhaps some chemistry interaction, it tasted of menthol cigarettes.”

Question – The artwork on the labels, are those contour lines? “No it’s just a pattern, but it’s our new look and is used in lots WooHa promotional materials now.”

WooHa Brewing ,
Upper Hempriggs Farm ,
Kinloss ,
Scotland,
IV36, 2UB

Website: https://www.woohabrewing.com/

February 2023 Update: Sadly WooHa went into administration in 2021, however it was saved when it was bought by US based North Coast Brewing Co.

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Published: 1st July 2020.