As Scotland prepare to take on Germany at next month’s Euros we visit West Brewery to bring the cultures together.
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00:00So the building was originally built as a carpet factory. It went through multiple
00:07planning applications because the local residents weren't happy with a factory being built in
00:12Glasgow's oldest park, so they employed an architect called William Leaper who eventually
00:19designed the building on the Doge's Palace in Venice, which is why we've got this unbelievable
00:24looking building as our home now. But it's a building that would have made carpets for
00:31I think the Titanic unfortunately, Buckingham Palace, Taj Mahal as well,
00:36so a real iconic piece of Glasgow architecture. You've established yourself as one of Glasgow's
00:42best-known beers. What is your relationship like with Glasgow's East End?
00:47It's our home. We've been here since we opened 18 years ago. I guess at the time you could argue
00:55probably it's not the most fashionable or trendiest part of the city when we opened,
00:59and a few people probably raised their eyes to think, why go there? I guess most breweries also,
01:05the easy option is just to be in an industrial state on the edge of a city, but actually,
01:11taking part of Glasgow's industrial heritage and then repurposing it for a modern business is
01:20absolute genius from our founder, Petra, at the time. I just can't imagine us being anywhere else.
01:24I think the East End is proper Glasgow. It's working-class Glasgow. I think people appreciate
01:32the fact of what we are and what we try and do, and I think when you have neighbours such as
01:37the Barra's, Barralands Ballroom, it's just home. I think we're here to stay.
01:46So as a brewery, our obvious connection to Germany is Petra, our founder, is German. She's from near
01:52Nuremberg in Bavaria, and she founded a brewery to make a lager that Glasgow would be proud of,
01:58and we have a German heritage in Germany. Breweries in Germany have to adhere to the
02:04German Beer Purity Law, the Rheinheitsgewalt, which is reputedly the oldest food law in the
02:09world, and it decrees that you can only use malt, water, hops and yeast, and that's it.
02:15So we as a business, there's never any option of us ever doing anything other than
02:22adhering to the German Beer Purity Law as a German brewery in Glasgow.