Tasting nights, a barn and a mouse.

Harviestoun says it “started life in a shed on 5th October 1983,” when Ken Brooker, a home brewer, held tasting nights for friends; Companies House records the company’s incorporation on the same day. English Wikipedia places the start in a stone barn, about 200 years old, on a farm near Dollar and Tillicoultry in Clackmannanshire, at the foot of the Ochil Hills. The company dates its first proper brewery to 1986, and with it the arrival of Harvie the mouse, a mascot it describes as “a resourceful and determined character.” In 2004, English Wikipedia says, the brewery moved to the Alva Industrial Estate, where it remains.

The beers that define it came in the next two decades, the company says: Schiehallion, a lager named after the Scottish mountain, in 1994; Bitter & Twisted, a golden ale first trialled on a kit in a friend’s shed, in 1997; and Old Engine Oil, a stout, whose Special Reserve version grew in 2002 out of an idea to age beer in whisky casks. In 2007 the brewery formalised a partnership with the Orkney distillery Highland Park for Ola Dubh, a strong dark beer aged in its casks; English Wikipedia gives the name as Scottish Gaelic for “black oil.”

Sold to Caledonian, then bought back.

Harviestoun’s ownership has changed once and then changed back. In January 2006, English Wikipedia says, citing the Sunday Herald, it was bought by the Caledonian Brewing Company, the maker of Deuchars IPA; Harviestoun’s own history says Caledonian’s founders, Sandy Orr and Donald MacDonald, brought it in. Two years later Caledonian itself was sold. The Morning Advertiser reported on 11 April 2008 that as Scottish & Newcastle agreed to buy Caledonian — whose brands were to pass to Heineken in the break-up of S&N between Heineken and Carlsberg — long-term shareholders Orr, MacDonald and Stephen Crawley had bought Harviestoun from Caledonian to keep it independent. The new managing director, Chris Miller, called it “very much business as usual here.”

Companies House lists Harviestoun Brewery Limited as an active company at Alva, controlled since February 2023 by a holding company, Harviestoun Brewery (Holdings) Limited. In March 2026 chief executive Andrew McKnight told SLTN that the brewery “remains independently owned and brewed in Scotland.”

The brewery’s people have changed more often than its owners. The company says a new executive team took over in 2019, and that in 2022 master brewer Stuart Cail retired after 25 years and was succeeded by Amy Cockburn, who had joined as a brewer in 2008. It says about four-fifths of its malt comes from a farm within eight miles and is malted at Alloa.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all British craft brewers: Camden Town Brewery, Thornbridge, Magic Rock, Siren Craft Brew, Tiny Rebel, Harviestoun and Lost and Grounded. They began as small, founder-run businesses, but they have travelled very different roads since — some remain in their founders’ hands, while others have been sold, licensed or bought back.

Camden Town Brewery was founded in London in 2010 by Jasper Cuppaidge, in railway arches beneath Kentish Town West station, according to English Wikipedia; AB InBev has owned it since 2015, after a sale announced that December. Thornbridge brewed its first beers in 2005 in outbuildings at Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire and opened a larger brewery in Bakewell in 2009, English Wikipedia says. Harviestoun was started by Ken Brooker in a farm barn near Dollar, in Clackmannanshire — in 1983, English Wikipedia says — and moved to Alva in 2004; Caledonian bought it in 2006, and in April 2008 long-standing shareholders bought it back to keep it independent, The Morning Advertiser reported.

Magic Rock was founded in Huddersfield in 2011 by Richard Burhouse. The Australian brewer Lion took full ownership in 2019, Lion’s UK business passed to Odyssey Inns in 2022, and in January 2025, after administrators were appointed and the Huddersfield brewery closed, Keystone Brewing Group took an exclusive licence to produce the brand, Just Drinks reported. Tiny Rebel was founded in Newport in 2012 by the brothers-in-law Brad Cummings and Gazz Williams and moved its brewing to Rogerstone, in Newport, in 2017. Siren Craft Brew was set up in 2013 by Darron Anley at Finchampstead in Berkshire, and in April 2026 Anley told Beer Today that it was “still independent.” Lost and Grounded was founded in Bristol by Alex Troncoso and Annie Clements and says it was established in 2016.

A brewery’s identity is carried by its pump clips, cans and labels as much as by its beer, and those can outlast changes of owner or even the brewery itself. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its beer is brewed and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Mischief since 1983.

The look has been redrawn twice in recent years. The company says it underwent “a complete rebrand” in 2019. In July 2026 Brewers Journal reported a further new identity being rolled out across Schiehallion, Bitter & Twisted and Old Engine Oil, on cans, bottles, point-of-sale and digital channels: a simplified logo, a bold illustrated mouse motif that nods to the brewery’s “Mischief Since 1983” line, and clearer colour coding across the range. McKnight said the new look captured quality, craftsmanship and heritage while giving the range a more distinctive, contemporary feel. No design agency was named.

Schiehallion carries the business. The company calls it its number one seller, and SLTN reported in March 2026 that it made up about two-thirds of the brewery’s output. The same report described a first phase of investment at Alva — a new warehouse and more office space — to bring storage back on site after years of renting space in Glasgow, and plans for new beers including a pale ale, a brown ale and a nitro stout. The core range on the company’s website today is Schiehallion, Bitter & Twisted, Old Engine Oil, The Ridge pale ale and Ola Dubh.

The range has widened around that core. The company dates Wheesht, an alcohol-free dark ale, to 2019 and Heaven Cent, a session IPA, to 2020, and its website lists Ola Dubh in 12- and 18-year-old versions. Brewers Journal reported in July 2026 that the brewery’s beers had been listed at hotels and bars including Gleneagles, The Caledonian in Edinburgh and the Coburg Bar at The Connaught in London, and that the beer writer Pete Brown had picked Schiehallion for a Times list of supermarket beers.

For a design guide, Harviestoun shows how a small mascot from 1986 can become the centre of a modern identity, with colour doing the sorting between beers. Compare Highland Park, the distillery behind its Ola Dubh casks, and BrewDog, another Scottish brewer. For this guide we use Ochil green, malt gold and engine-oil black with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Harviestoun’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.