Chain Pier Distillery

About the distillery

Chain Pier Distillery is an active micro-distillery in Granton in Edinburgh’s Lowlands. It went into production in December 2018 and is operated by Halewood, which is also linked to John Crabbie & Co. With one wash still, one spirit still, and a borehole as its water source, it is a small, modern facility with a focus on development and production.

History

The story of Chain Pier Distillery begins in 2017, when Halewood, owner of John Crabbie & Co, set the plans in motion for a micro-distillery in Granton in Edinburgh. The following year, the facility went into operation, and production began in December 2018. The distillery was used as a development site while waiting for the new distillery in the Bonnington area of Edinburgh. Here, recipes for single malt, grain whisky, and gin could be tested before production was moved on to new commercial premises. Both locations have later become operational, so Chain Pier stands as part of a larger expansion of the company’s whisky and spirit production in the city.

Raw materials and production

Chain Pier is set up as a micro-distillery with one wash still and one spirit still, providing a simple and easy-to-understand production setup. Water is drawn from a borehole, and the annual capacity is 500,000 liters. The distillery is located in the Lowlands and, according to the description, has been used to develop new recipes for single malt, grain whisky, and gin before the commercial production moved on to other locations. This describes a facility where flexibility and development work have played a central role.

Whiskies

There are still no registered single malts from Chain Pier, and no bottlings have been listed either. This means that the distillery’s profile is primarily about the production itself and the role it has played as a development distillery, rather than about an established range of whiskies. The documented activity points to a house under construction, where future releases can grow out of the work on new recipes.

Visiting the distillery

There is no visitor center at Chain Pier Distillery, and therefore there are currently no documented visitor experiences, tours, or tastings to plan around. The distillery appears to be a production site rather than a public visitor attraction, and the available information does not describe opening hours or booking arrangements.

Philosophy and craftsmanship

Chain Pier is clearly intended as a place for development: here, new recipes for single malt, grain whisky, and gin have been worked on while building up the company’s other production capacity in Edinburgh. This shows a practice where a smaller facility is used to test and refine spirits before production is scaled up further.