As the Craft Brewing scene booms in Wales as it does across the United Kingdom, with Craft Breweries popping up and producing top quality, interesting and intriguing new Craft beer, and with Wales stereotypically thought of as a beer loving nation, we found ourselves considering the history of beer and brewing in Wales which led to the rise of the Craft brewing industry itself. Wales is perhaps most famously known as the land of song, a land of rolling green valleys, stunning coastlines, and to many of its visitors and inhabitants, a good pint. “Iechyd da”, the battle-cry of the welsh drinker, often heard to the backdrop of Tom Jones, Stereophonics, roaring anthems “llawn calon” - full of heart - and bellowed from somewhere deeper than likely anyone can explain. On a fabled match day beer flows through the streets of Cardiff and every other Welsh city; the England and Wales fixture should be on everyone’s bucket list, regardless of victor and national affinity.

With the advent of craft brewing in the latter half of the naughties you will be hard pressed to miss a young upstart punk brewer if you throw a stone in any direction, but brewing in Wales is in our blood, it fuels our song, and so craft brewing can’t be such a new thing can it?

The independence of creating that magical Welsh Ale dates much further than the naughties, in fact there are many historical references to Welsh Ale, or bragawd, a honey based drink, more akin to mead than today’s beer, as a sought after commodity. It was brewed by monks in Tintern Abbey, perhaps even gracing the famous Cauldron of Ceridwen as hinted in the tales of Taliesin. The recipe for Guinness is even controversially claimed to be Welsh, borrowed from a Welshman in Pembrokeshire, and for the sake of not stirring the pot of controversy no more will be said about it. 

Each area of Wales has its distinctive taste, from the “cymoedd”, the South Wales Valleys, the south western cities of Swansea and Carmerthen to the tips of the Gower and Pembrokeshire, St Davids up to Aberystwyth, the historic seat of Owain Glyndwr in Machynlleth, following the Wales Coast Path as it winds North to Caernarfon and Bangor, gracing the shores of Anglesey, touching Beaumaris and back through the Welsh countryside of Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons.

Beer in Wales, and indeed the UK faced a seismic decline after the temperance movement in the 1800’s and World War’s, and the Craft movement of the naughties breathed, and continues it’s bellowing fresh, well needed life back into the industry, forcing the bigger brewers to adapt and react and open craft brewing departments of their own. Companies like Brains, a much loved part of Welsh landscape, synonymous with Wales and especially Cardiff, and our national team - their logo once festooned across the proud red chests of our players - found they had to keep up with the Craft movement or be left behind - that change is only a good thing for those of us who enjoy a good pint.

Beer is our heritage, great beer is our right, a privilege those of us at Love Our Craft believe in and fight for. 

Iechyd da!

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