Portfolio: Gerwegian fizz

Image: David Anderson for Hot Rum Cow

WEST’s Petra Wetzel on keeping it simple, taking on lager’s big boys and leaving a legacy

The 19th-century Templeton building is an unexpected, yet welcome sight in the large, open expanse of Glasgow Green, the city’s oldest park. It is an imposing, hulking building, which was modelled on the Doge’s palace in Venice to appease local residents of a factory being built on their doorstep. Step through its doors, and it feels as if I’ve just landed bang smack in the centre of not Venice, but Munich. I’m greeted by the strong waft of beer and the low hum of chatter in a spacious, Bavarian-style beer hall, complete with acres of dark wood, an impressive array of taps and steins of frothy lager. If it wasn’t for the Glaswegian accents giving it away, you might think this was the Hofbräuhaus.

Instead, it’s WEST brewery, and I’m here to talk to its effervescent founder Petra Wetzel.

Portfolio: Polugar’s back for the crown

Image: Poluga for Hot Rum Cow

Vodka is merely a pretender to Polugar’s throne. Controversial perhaps, but Boris Rodionov makes a strong case for Russia’s forgotten drink claiming the title of Russia’s national drink

It was supped by European kings and queens in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Peter the Great. It was cherished and distilled by Russia’s nobility and loved by their loyal subjects. But when column stills were introduced to Russia in the late 19th century, along with a state monopoly on booze, Polugar was exiled, condemned to a life of obscurity and banished to the history books.