The next chapter

Project Angel

Our Story

Growing in Scotland

From our beginnings as a family business that was committed to bringing quality malt to Glasgow’s brewers, we’ve grown and developed into a trusted partner to many of the world’s leading distillers and brewers.

^

1823

Founded

Frank and Hugh Baird establish the Great Canal Brewery in Glasgow. Their vision is to provide consistent high quality beer to the growing Glasgow population.

They quickly realise the importance of a quality malt as an essential requirement for great beers and begin supplying malt to other brewers in 1832.

^

Early 2000's

Investment in Arbroath

Bairds invests in a new state of the art malting plant in Arbroath, committing to supplying quality malt for Scotland’s distilling customers.

Our Arbroath maltings is also the newest malting facility in the UK, recognising our ongoing commitment to Scotland’s growers and malt customers.

^

2020

Project Angel

Bairds Malt is delighted to announce Project Angel, representing the next chapter for our company and bringing together opportunities for Scotland’s barley growers and distillers.

find out more about project angel

investment for the next chapter

Bairds Malt hold a proud record with the most recent malting plant investments in the UK. We built a new state of the art maltings at our Arbroath site in 2010, providing a quality malting product to meet increasing demand from Scotland’s distillers.

Now in 2020, a decade later, Bairds is again investing in new maltings with support and investment from our parent company – United Malt.

Work is currently underway at our Arbroath facility, which will see the refurbishment of the Clova malting plant, increasing production capacity by 22,000 metric tonnes (mt) per annum.

Further to the development of Arbroath, a new malting plant will be constructed at our Inverness facility on Longman Road, increasing capacity by 57,000mt per annum.

Project angel

At a glance

Project Angel

Work Commences

malt capacity increase (mt)

MT Barley Required

Maltings come online

{

This is a very exciting period for the distilling industry in Scotland and with this investment, in addition to the support from our significant grower base, we believe this expansion provides a world class malting plant to supply our customers with the quality Scottish distilling malt they require. This is a long-term industry with long term relationships right along the supply chain from ‘Drill to Still’ and this enables Bairds Malt to play its part in supporting the investment we’ve seen recently in whisky production and going forward for many years to come.

Dr Richard Broadbent

President, Bairds Malt Ltd

good news for scotland’s distillers

As Scotland’s distilleries continue to grow, the capacity of UK maltings needs to keep up. Twice in the last decade we have answered the calls of our customers who want the provenance of UK malting barley. As we continue to grow alongside our distilling partners, we’re ensuring the future is secure for the next generation.

good news for scotland’s growers

At Bairds we pride ourselves on sourcing barley from growers local to our maltings. As we continue to grow, we will require more malting barley and as our customers put increasingly more emphasis on provenance on traceability, we want to cement our position as the UK’s leading maltster.

the world’s best whisky – it starts here.

Our business was founded on the vision of two brothers who saw the success that quality malt could bring to the wider brewing industry.

Nearly 200 years later that commitment to quality malt remains and underpins everything we do as a business.

We recognise that Scotland’s best whiskies require quality malt, and that quality malt needs the UK’s best barley. As well as being a proud member of the UK assured malt scheme, Bairds also runs the most intensive seed trial development programme in the UK in partnership with our Scottish Merchanting Partner, Scotgrain Agriculture.

This programme allows us to develop new seed varieties over several years and trial them in different growing climates of Scotland. We then run the harvested crop trials through a micro malting programme to allow us to test the performance of each new variety from drill to still.

Long before the new make spirit begins its journey of maturation, the story of Scotland’s greatest export is entrusted to the generations of Scotland’s growers who partner with us to bring the best barley into your casks. We believe that the world’s best whisky begins with the grain.

on the eastern seaboard

Arbroath redevelopment

Our Clovas were first built back in the 1980s as part of a development back then. Fast forward 40 years and we are redeveloping at our Arbroath site to take full advantage of the benefits of these unique germination and kilning vessels. As both processes take place in the same vessel this minimises energy usage and the need to transfer the malt between the two stages, resulting in a process that is a lot gentler on the kilned malt.

in the heart of the highlands

a new maltings for inverness

Our new malting plant will be constructed at our Inverness facility on Longman Road, increasing capacity by 57,000mt per annum. Construction of the new state-of-the-art malting plant is well underway, with the first batch of barley expected to come through the maltings by the end of 2021.