February 1, 2006 -- The trend of mid-sized regionals buying up equal or smaller brewers seems poised to continue apace in 2006 with the announcement that Caledonian Brewing of Edinburgh has acquired the smaller Scottish craft brewery, Harviestoun.

The deal, which was made for an undisclosed sum, follows the purchase of another Scottish brewery, Belhaven, by the English regional, Greene King, and the acquisition of Gale’s Brewing by London’s Fuller, Smith & Turner, both in 2005.

One curiosity of the Caledonian-Harviestoun deal is that it unites the back-to-back winners of the Champion Beer of Britain in 2003 and 2003, respectively Caledonian’s Deuchar’s IPA and Harviestoun’s Bitter & Twisted. As reported in the e-malt.com newsletter, Stephen Crawley, Managing Director of Caledonian, has declared that brewing will continue at Harviestoun’s brewery at Alva, Scotland, and added that the company expects to expand the facility in due course.

Ken Brooker, founder of Harviestoun, was delighted by the deal, saying that he “couldn’t have wished for a better scenario.”

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