Younger's Brewery (William Younger & Company) was a brewery in Edinburgh which grew from humble beginnings in 1749 to become one of the city’s main commercial enterprises, supplying domestic and foreign markets. It should not be confused with another, less renowned Edinburgh brewery, that of Robert Younger, who also brewed in Holyrood at the St. Ann's Brewery or that of George Younger, who brewed in Alloa.
In 1931 Younger's merged with McEwan’s to form Scottish Brewers, which in turn merged with Newcastle Breweries in 1960 to form Scottish & Newcastle. By the late 1960s the combine employed the largest single workforce in the city.
The company’s UK operations were taken over by Heineken in 2008. In October 2011 the Bedford-based Wells & Young's Brewery announced that it had purchased the Younger's and McEwan's brands from Heineken UK.
Younger family
The Younger family home was in the village of Linton (now West Linton), Peeblesshire, where their house still stands. Younger’s father was a farmer, vintner and bailie. The surname may be of Dutch or Flemish origin (possibly from Yonckeers). A William Younger of Flemish extraction is recorded in a Berwickshire legal document of 1515, and a John Younger of Cockburnspath, Berwickshire was accused of cattle-stealing in 1559.
The first Younger recorded at Linton is Thomas Younger, whose will, dated 17 February 1597, is held by Register House in Edinburgh. One family member was a Commissioner of Militia for Peeblesshire in the reign of Charles II. Others were elders of the Kirk in the reign of William II and one, around 1700, was a Writer to the Signet.
In 1749, William Younger left home for Edinburgh, aged 16, and whilst it is often speculated that he found employment in Robert Anderson's brewhouse in Leith, there is no documentary evidence for this. In 1753 he met his future wife Grizel Cochrane Syme, who was also from Linton. Thanks to her family connections (Thomas Cochrane, 8th Earl of Dundonald, was a Commissioner of Excise), it appears that before their marriage William became an exciseman. As second watchman at the new Leith Glass Works, he oversaw the collection of Government duty on manufactured bottles. When his father died in 1755, he inherited a share of the family’s wealth, and this, together with his exciseman’s salary of £25 per annum, enabled him to marry. A year later, he was promoted at the age of twenty-five to be one of the "Excise Surveyors of Edinburgh and precincts" on a salary of £60 per annum.
As his personal wealth increased in the 1760s, Younger bought land, a house, a share in a ship, a co-partnership in a stage coach company and a share in brewery premises near the Kirkgate, Leith. In 1768 he increased the storage facilities for the brewery by purchasing seven large cellars, two dwelling houses and a large warehouse in Broad Wynd. Shortly thereafter he joined three friends in taking over the Edinburgh-Leith stage coach company. He also bought a part share in a brig on the London-Leith run, named William of Leith which also carried cargo as far afield as Hamburg and Danzig. Overworked and ill by the end of 1769, Younger died on 5 May of that year. His widow Grizel married Leith brewer Alexander Anderson and continued to brew under the name Grizel Younger Anderson until 1794.
Family firm
In 1778 one of Younger’s sons, Archibald Campbell Younger, having served his apprenticeship under Anderson, established his own brewery within the precincts of the Abbey of Holyroodhouse at Croft-an'-Righ. This began an association of the area with brewing which lasted until demolition of the Abbey Brewery in the 1990s. The move made good business sense, because at that time several hundred people lived within the Abbey sanctuary and ale brewed there escaped the two pennies Scots custom levied by Edinburgh Town Council after 1693 on every pint brewed within the town walls. Younger’s strong ale was sold in the taverns of the High Street, the Cowgate and the Grassmarket in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Robert Chambers, in his Traditions of Edinburgh, writes of Johnnie Dowie’s Tavern in Libberton’s Wynd (swept away by the creation of George IV Bridge), "Johnnie Dowie’s was chiefly celebrated for ale – Younger’s Edinburgh ale – a potent fluid which almost glued the lips of the drinker together, and of which few, therefore, could despatch more than a bottle".