Edinburgh's Cold Town Brewery serves up a special beer for Pride month

One of Scotland’s leading independent breweries has teamed up with LGBT+ rights charity Stonewall to launch a new beer. Cold Town Brewery is launching the limited edition ‘Proud as Helles’ lager on June 15, National Beer Day, which falls in Pride month.

Let us know what you think and join the conversation at the bottom of this article.

Cold Town Brewery is named after Caldtoun, an old name for the area around Calton Hill, where a brewery used to stand, reputedly the first in Britain to brew lager in 1835. As part of the beer launch, the company is making a £2,500 donation to Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBT+ charity. They are also part of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme, which involves organisations paying for advice on how to make their institution LGBT friendly.

The programme made headlines this week after Liz Truss, the UK minister for women and equalities, called for government departments to withdraw from the scheme after questioning its value for money.

Cheers - Cold Town Brewery has created a beer for Pride month

The Scottish beer industry has recently been rocked by allegations of employee mistreatment, as an open letter from former Brewdog staff alleged that a culture of fear at the company caused mental health problems for many employees.

Additionally, British Beer Girl, an Instagram account run by Edinburgh based beer writer Siobhan Hewison, gained attention for sharing stories of sexism and harassment in the British beer industry, resulting in the resignation of the CEO of Manchester based brewery Marble Beers.

Chris Andrews, one of the head brewers at Cold Town Brewery, said: “We’re really proud to be working with Stonewall in support of our friends in the LBGTQ+ community and to celebrate diversity during Pride month.

“This is the first time we’ve created a lager specially to mark Pride month, which we think will appeal to everyone.”

The brewery's C*old Town Beer

The ‘Proud as Helles’ lager is mildly spicy with hints of citrus, and is said to pair well with barbecued meats, salty snacks or a pizza. It is available on draught from selected pubs and bars across Scotland from June until September, including Cold Town House in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. The limited edition lager is also available to buy direct from the Cold Town Beer online shop."

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.