September 22 2023

Black Isle Brewery, the Highland distiller of organic beers, has revealed plans to relocate to a five-acre site at Inverness Retail & Business Park to boost export capacity.

At its current Allangrange home Black Isle has cultivated a 130 acre organic farm set amidst thousands of newly planted deciduous trees, a flavour of which will be brought to the new location.

The proposals have been developed by Threesixty Architecture, in collaboration with Ewan Wotherspoon. As two certified B-Corp companies the project prioritises a shared commitment to environmental and social responsibility. Large areas of green space for fruit trees and wildflower meadows are envisaged, placed within a natural landscape with the collection of new buildings pinwheeling around a central courtyard that welcomes the landscape right into the heart of the proposals.

David Gladwin, Black Isle’s founder and MD, said; “The move to the new site feels like a natural progression for us – it allows us to continue to grow and to promote our nature-first, community- centred philosophy. Many people will question why we are moving away from a beautiful organic farm, but it opens up some very exciting new possibilities for us, one of which to work more closely with the University of the Highlands and Islands to facilitate a new brewing and distilling course. It takes the pressure off the farm and allows us to continue to turn it into a wildlife haven and educational centre for those that want to learn more about organics and working with nature.”

Inspired by Black Isle’s existing farm the agriculture-inspired design sees gables ‘peeled back’ to provide a glimpse of the activities within and permit views out to the verdant grounds.

2 Comments

#1 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 22 Sep 2023 at 10:13 AM

Surely a brewer brews?

PR speak is now out of control -- I blame Bill Gates and his on-line thesaurus.

#2 Posted by Hector Macinnes on 25 Sep 2023 at 15:45 PM

That looks like a great development! Having somewhere nice like this might help civilize some of the chavs in Inverness! (they seem to have a lot of them! Some of whom congregate in that retail park at night time in their cars!)

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