Glasladies Beer Society teams up with breweries to honour St Enoch

With Glasgow celebrating its 850th anniversary this year, a Glasgow beer society has teamed up with breweries across the city to celebrate that milestone by creating a "Summer Series" of beer.

Glasladies Beer Society will collaborate with the breweries in the city and has given them a brief to produce a summer ale.

Nix Prabhu, group founder, said: “As a group, we wanted to celebrate alongside everyone and we had the idea to do a series of beer collaborations with a number of local Glaswegian breweries. Six breweries are participating: Simple Things Fermentations, Dookit Brewing Co. Mains Brewing, Overtone Brewing, Shilling Brewing Co. and a brand new brewery for Glasgow, Mother Tongue.”

“Each of these breweries was given the brief to brew something that fell within the realm of a summer ale. They went off and had to think about it, and came back with a lovely cross-section of beer that we are very excited to try.”

The six beers are very varied in style.

Nix Prabhu said: “We've got everything ranging from a Hazy Saison to a Belgian Pale Ale. There's one brewery that's decided to go with an old-timey style, which is a gruit ale. And if folks don't know what that is, well then that's all the more reason for you to go out and try it when it is released."

At the heart of the collaboration is the celebration of Glasgow’s patron saint, St. Enoch who is often overlooked in favour of St. Mungo.

The society explained: “All the beers in the series will be called St. Enoch: Mother Glasgow. And that was very intentional because Glasgow has two patron saints. A lot of people are familiar with St. Mungo. But it's not as widely known that St. Enoch is also one of the patron saints of Glasgow. And perhaps even less known that St. Enoch was a woman and was St Mungo's mother."

“The inspiration for this collaboration series and the beers that we'll all be enjoying in the summertime aligns with the Glasgow Fair Monday, and the history behind that is it's actually the feast day of St. Enoch. That's part of the history of Glasgow, and that ties in really well with the 850th anniversary of the city.

“Each one of the beers, although they're different in style, are brought together by the theme of a summer ale, and they're all brewed in the memory of and in celebration of St. Enoch as a mother figure for St. Mungo and for the city of Glasgow.”

The Glasladies Beer Society has been running for more than five years and has around 280 members. They meet each month at bars and pubs across Glasgow, and sometimes further afield on "beer trips".

Nix Prabhu explained: “It's amazing seeing how the group has grown as the first meetup we ever had, I booked a table and I hoped that five or six people would show up. We now have over 280 members and are in the process of organising our 4th (now annual) beer festival. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

To find out more information about the group and their activities, check out their website and Facebook page.