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new make

our new makes

Our New Make encapsulates our iterative approach to production and why we use heritage and speciality malts, brewer’s, wine and specialty yeasts. Our New Make spirit exhibit unique flavours, giving drinkers the opportunity to understand how flavour is created during our Scotch Whisky production process, before any cask influence.
Know your ferm and you’ll know your new make. You have to take the time to really get to grips with where you want to go fermentation wise. The same applies when changing up the mash bill, and knowing what each malt is going to bring to the party. The variety of our released new makes reflects that time taken.
Vicky

holyrood distiller

our new makes

providing drinkers with
full transparency

Each label on our New Make bottles outlines our recipe and process from start to finish, allowing for full transparency and greater understanding of our process and approach.

brewer's series

brewer's x distiller's yeast

see specifications

brewer's series

brewer's x distiller's yeast

Maltster
Crisp
malt
Pot Still Distiller's Malt
yeast 1
Distiller's Yeast: M Strain
yeast 2
Brewer's Yeast: US05
original gravity
1.06
final gravity
0.9967
wash abv
8.12%
Fermentation time
111.5 hours
on spirit
76.30%
off spirit
62.50%
bxd
crystal
choc
MBE

new make

brewer's series

This is our foundation and the start of our journey. Each iteration of the brewers series shows how we implement what we’ve learned from our trials of brewing yeasts and specialty malts, with the culmination coming in the form of Made By Edinburgh. We show our working on the labels to encourage people to follow us on the quest for great flavour and to enjoy geeking out with us.
HRD_50CL_ANMS_Labels_75mmx114m_AW_0809214
HRD_50CL_ANMS_Labels_75mmx114m_AW_0809213
HRD_50CL_ANMS_Labels_75mmx114m_AW_0809212
HRD_50CL_ANMS_Labels_75mmx114m_AW_080921

aged new make

brewer's series

The Aged New Make series is a chance to further explore how classic brewing yeasts and heritage barley varieties evolve during the maturation process. The Belgian Ale Yeast has delightful fruity flavours that are complemented by the dark character of the Port cask, while the American ale yeast has that bold citrus punch we all enjoy in IPA beers combined with the hallmark vanilla notes of bourbon casks. Our championing of unique malts is shown with the fruity and juicy Plumage Archer and the rich biscuit notes of Maris Otter.

Our American Ale Yeast aged New Make was the highest scoring in its category at the IWSC.

hefeweizen
Vienna
light munich malt
islay heavily peated

new make

bierbrauer's series

Our homage to classic brewing techniques and components doesn’t stop at home. We wanted to honour one of the great brewing cultures of the world, Germany. Sourcing beloved malts such as Vienna and Munich, as well as beech smoked malt, famously used in Rauch beers. Combined with hefeweizen yeast for those much loved German beer characteristics or our Edinburgh Ale yeast for a handshake between nations.

new make

bub project

As we continue to explore Scotch Whisky’s past for flavour inspiration, we encounter new paths of discovery. Holyrood undertook the challenge of creating Bub after being approached by Dave Broom and Arthur Motely who had discovered it in J. Macdonald’s The maltster, distiller, and spirit dealer’s companion published in 1828 . It was a rare opportunity for the distillery to recreate a piece of Scotch Whisky tradition, a spirit that hasn’t been created for over a century.

new make

world whisky day

Limited edition New Make expressions to celebrate World Whisky Day. Thought provoking releases that demonstrate, not only the global reach of Scotch Whisky, but how cross category knowledge can create new unique flavours in Scotch Whisky production.

new make

holyrood x pilot

Made in collaboration with Pilot Brewery, this New Make follows one of Pilot’s brewing recipes. It compliments our focus on creating flavour in the brewing stage of production, and is another example of cross category knowledge sharing to create unique styles while utilising traditional methods of Scotch Whisky production.

OUR PROCESS

Heritage Malts, 

Specialty Malts, 

& Yeast 

 

Each label on our New Make bottles outlines our recipe and process from start to finish, allowing for full transparency and greater understanding of our process and approach.
HERITAGE MALTS
0
Heritage malts hold a legendary status among both brewers and distillers, for their ability to impart unique flavours, but more importantly for us, their texture. Texture and mouthfeel are key components of flavour. From heavy and oily, to light and silky, mouthfeel markedly impacts the character of a spirit.
learn more
SPECIALTY MALTS
0
Speciality malts form or second building block of flavour. The brewing industry has long used malt roasting to create the baseline flavours to make up the main body of their beers characters. In creating our whisky we have employed the same methodology, using specialty malts to build the tone of our spirit, from which we can build further layers of flavour during fermentation.
learn more
YEAST STRAINS
0
Our third building block of flavour is our use of brewer’s and speciality yeast. Traditionally distilleries used a combination of distiller’s yeast and brewer’s yeast strains which were often obtained locally, as a method of propagating flavour. The Scotch Whisky industry has since moved towards strains that have provided a greater yield, and brewer’s yeast has almost been totally phased out of today’s Scotch Whisky production. Instead, other stages of the production process, have become the focus of creating flavour. At Holyrood we are re-examining brewer’s and speciality yeasts to use them as a means of creating unique flavours once again.
learn more

brewing heart, 

whisky soul

“We’re revisiting what was once common place in Scotch Whisky distilleries; putting our brewing recipe at the heart of our whisky making process. At Holyrood, we put just as much emphasis on the malt and yeast as we do on our cask selection, as we believe all three of these aspects contribute to creating unique and exciting flavour.. 

 

 

Casks will always play a large part in whisky, but we believe that heritage barley, speciality malts, brewer’s and speciality yeasts, are our building blocks of flavour, which we can build on when our spirit enters the cask.”

Calum Rae
distillery manager

We Test, Learn, Improve, Repeat

Heritage Barley Strains
0

We are continually discovering more heritage barley varieties that were once part of Edinburgh’s rich brewing heritage and giving them a new purpose:

  • Plumage Archer
  • Chevalier
  • Golden Promise
  • Maris Otter
Speciality Malt Varieties
0

By introducing speciality malts into the distilling process we impart new and unique flavours to our spirits, with nearly all of them still used in brewing today:

  • Chocolate Malt
  • Crystal Malt (150:light/ 240: Medium/ 400:Dark)
  • Brown Malt
  • Vienna Malt
  • Black Malt
  • Biscuit Malt
  • Light and Dark Munich Malt
  • Amber Malt
  • Caramalt
  • Cara Gold
  • Dextrin 
  • Chit 
Yeast Strains
0

Just like our choice of malts, yeast strains offer another avenue of flavour creation. To date, we have used brewer’s, distiller’s, wine and even sake yeast strains:

  • Pinnacle M/MG+
  • DY379
  • DY502
  • Edinburgh Ale Yeast (EAY)
  • Hefeweizen
  • S-04
  • US-05
  • Kviek Ale (Sigmund)
  • S-33
  • Brux (like) Trois
  • Fresh Nottingham Ale yeast
  • N379 (Belgian)
  • Tetley 70
  • Sherry flor
  • Pepenero
  • Toronero
  • BP725 (Bordeaux)
  • MaurivinPDM (Champagne)
  • MaurivinB (Burgundy)
  • Mirtillo Rosso
  • Bollicine champagne
  • tropical sym wine yeast
  • rose wine yeast
  • passion fruit wine yeast
  • apple/pear wine yeast
  • Grand zin
  • BC10 Bayanus
  • le more yeast
  • Pinnacle S (Rum)
  • Black Death Yeast
  • Sake
  • Heff 4

Our New Make Spirit

Our New Make spirit is taken off of the still, and is the spirit that will eventually be matured to become Scotch Whisky. Each of our New Make Spirits showcase different ingredients not commonly seen in modern distilling, including heritage barleys, speciality malts, and a diverse range of yeast strains.
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