WEST On The Green
WEST brews every lager and ale here on four ingredients under the 1516 Reinheitsgebot, soft water from Loch Katrine, British malted barley, noble Hallertau hops and its own yeast, and says that makes it the only UK brewery holding the whole range to that rule.
Why go
Petra Wetzel, born in Bavaria, started it in 2006 inside the Templeton building on Glasgow Green, a red-brick pile from 1892 that Time Out describes as modelled on Doge's Palace in Venice
(Time Out Glasgow). A GBP 5m brewery went in on the same premises in 2016 and took capacity to 2,500,000 litres a year, so the beerhall is drinking beer made through the wall. The constraint is the interesting part: no adjuncts, no additives, which is why the house style runs helles, weissbier and Munich red rather than the fruited sours everyone else was brewing in the 2010s. Matt Munro took over as managing director in 2021, the brewery employs 60 people, and in March 2026 it marked 20 years by putting a pint of St Mungo back to its 2006 price of GBP 2.90 for three days (DRAM Scotland).
Order this / avoid
- Order: St Mungo, then the currywurst, which the brewery priced back to GBP 6.80 for the anniversary. Time Out's picks run from the
Bayrischer wurtsalat starter, a cold salad of garlic sausage, gherkin and onion served with rye bread
through Jaeger schnitzel and Bavarian cheese spaetzle.2 - Avoid: the fish and chips. The kitchen is here to cook German food and every other Glasgow room does that dish better.
What locals & experts say
- Time Out Glasgow (Malcolm Jack): the beers are
a cut above many other German-style beers,
and the venue ishugely popular.
2 - DRAM Scotland (2026): on the 20-year mark, MD Matt Munro said
Reaching 20 years is a significant milestone in any sector, but particularly in brewing.
1 - House claim, attributed: WEST states it is
the only one in the UK to brew all its lagers and ales in line with the Reinheitsgebot.
No independent body certifies that, so it stays the brewery's claim.1 - Local rec: Jeff's save, his verdict below.
Good to know
- Timing: open through the day into the evening, kitchen running across the same hours.
- Booking: worth reserving for dinner or a group, since the beerhall takes roughly 500,000 visitors a year and Glasgow Green events fill it.
- Getting there: Templeton Building on Glasgow Green, walkable from the Barras and the East End, with the beer garden facing the park.
Craft signals (beer: a fixed house range)
Two signals put the drink list at static, and static here is a description rather than an insult. The brewery's own beerhall page offers the house range and nothing else, framed on the purity-law constraint rather than on variety, while the food menus around it get reissued and dated every few months4. The List files it as an also-try that pours all of WEST's own beers, not among the city's rotating-tap bars5. St Mungo has been the house lager since 2006 and that consistency is the argument, but it does mean nothing on these taps is a reason to cross town.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "German beer and food. Decent, but not excellent for both."
Verdict
could-visit — Solid, and it does one thing properly. Every WEST lager and ale is brewed to the 1516 Reinheitsgebot on four ingredients, Loch Katrine water, British malted barley, Hallertau hops and house yeast, which the brewery says makes it the only UK producer doing so across the whole range, and Time Out judged the results 'a cut above many other German-style beers'. Twenty years in, still independently owned, brewing 2.5 million litres a year inside the 1892 Templeton building on Glasgow Green. It stays at could-visit because Jeff ate and drank there and calls both the beer and the food decent rather than excellent, and a 500,000-visitor beerhall is an experience of scale, not of craft at the table.