Thistle Brewery, East Vennel, Alloa

Thistle Brewery, East Vennel, Alloa

This medium-sized brewery occupies a complex of buildings dating from 1870, incorporating earlier structures from Old Bridge Street and early 19th-century maltings, with a notable office addition of 1896. The site is primarily constructed of polychrome red brick with yellow brick dressings, though some roof lines have been subject to additions and alterations. Historic brewing plant remains in use.

The 1896 office, possibly designed by John Melvin, is a 2-storey building with later attic and an asymmetrical plan. The ground floor features bull-faced rubble with large circular portholes flanking an arched office entrance detailed with an elliptical hoodmould and vermiculated imposts. A smaller, similarly detailed entrance to the former manager's house stands to the right. The vehicular entrance, originally arched, was later widened and given a concrete lintel. The first floor contains single and bipartite windows with a scroll-pedimented datestone above the goods entrance. Five simple gabletted dormers punctuate the roof. The rear is brick-built. Internally, the ground floor is open and the upper floors are carried on steel beams and twin cast-iron columns. The roof is slate. Period fittings include etched glass mirrors, a timber spiral stair, and a thistle mosaic at the entrance.

The main brewery comprises several connected ranges. A 1-storey basement building termed "Cellar No 1" adjoins to the right of the office.

The malt and hop store forms a 3-storey, 5-bay range from the west. It is built in polychrome brick with a rubble-built west gable and a central gabletted hoist. The roof is a piended slate. The ground floor functions as a pend and hop store. The first floor contains timber-boarded malt bins. The open attic is king-post roofed with traps for pouring malt into the bins below.

The brewhouse, a 4-storey, 8-bay structure of polychrome brick, adjoins to the east. Its small top-floor windows are now blocked. A square-section lift tower surmounts the building and carries a weather vane. A square-section brick stack with sheet metal-clad extension stands to the rear. The gabled slate roof was replaced in 1968 by a flat roof except at the west end. The cooler tower, which steps down to the east, retains its original piended slate roof, ridge ventilator, and louvred upper stage, though the lower louvres have been bricked up.

The tun room, a 3-storey, 3-bay structure to the east, features central hoist doors and a gabled sheet-metal clad roof rebuilt around 1968.

Internally, from west to east, the brewery contains a grist mill by Seck of London, line shaft-driven, with timber stair balusters. Two domed riveted coppers—at least one by Abercrombie of Alloa—now direct oil-fired, sit alongside a cast-iron mash tun. Eight oak fermenting tuns, copper-lined, are present. A yeast plant was installed in 1969.

The maltings form a 4-storey structure, with the ground floor now functioning as a basement. The lower two floors are early 19th-century rubble-built construction, while the upper floors are of later polychrome brick. A kiln that formerly stood at the southeast was taken down around 1948. The gable facing Old Bridge Street is harled. The roof is piended asbestos.

Internally, lengthwise timber beams rest on early to mid-19th-century cast-iron columns with saddles; timber pads are present at the second floor, where the ceiling was heightened during reconstruction of the upper floors. Stone steps stand at the second floor. The basement area to the south is not of special interest.

The elevation to Old Bridge Street comprises the maltings gable noted above, followed by a curving low 1- and 2-storey range that partially incorporates 17th- and 18th-century domestic buildings. A marriage lintel dated 1668, probably relocated, is visible. Most openings have been altered. The lower part has an asbestos roof while the upper part retains a slate roof, chimneypieces, and timber line-shaft brackets.

A 2-storey brick-built cooperage, with altered ground floor, stands between the brewhouse and the Thistle Bar.