After several decades of homebrewing beer, with occasional ventures into making wine (from ingredients gathered from gardens and hedgerows), it was possibly an obvious choice to jump on the craft beer/real ale bandwagon, when I was offered voluntary redundancy, but for me it was and still is very much a leap of faith. Looking for a new career that did not involve travelling long distances every week and being away from home more often than not, there was much to recommend a venture into the brewing industry. Research showed that while Edinburgh had a couple of dozen small local breweries, there were precious few around Glasgow. Having had many friends praise the quality of my homebrewed beer, saying they would happily pay for a pint if it was being served in a pub, I started refining two of my favourite recipes in anticipation of going commercial'. These received good reviews in focus groups and tasting sessions and were eventually chosen as our launch candidates, Drop & Drift.