Lady Macbeth is a 3.7% ABV raspberry beer produced by the Hillside Brewery at Corse, near Lumphanan.

Brewer Rob James set up the brewery from his home in 2006 and single-handedly produces bottle and cask-conditioned beers for shops in Deeside and Donside - around 160 pints a week.

He was producing three beers - Brude (4.3% ABV) - made with Alford oatmeal, Broichan (4.5% ABV) and Macbeth (4.2% ABV) - but decided to add a fruit beer to his stock in time for the Aberdeen & North East Beer Festival earlier this month.

"It was an experiment which we thought we'd like to take to the beer festival", said Rob. "The inspiration for it came from a holiday we'd had at a pub in the Black Isle, which had lots of Belgian and European beers, many of which were fruit beers. We don't have a fruit beer, so I thought we'd maybe experiment and see what we could come up with.

" My wife's friendly with Sarah Mackie, who runs Barra Berries in Oldmeldrum with her husband, so we asked her if we could get some local raspberries to produce a raspberry beer.

"We then went to the Devenick Dairy to get some whey. We thought 'let's chuck all this local produce in and see what we come up with'. It was a success and feedback has been very positive.

"A fruit beer could go two ways - if it leans too much towards fruit, it becomes like an alcopop, or if it's too beery, people are left wondering 'where's the fruit?' but the Lady Macbeth seems to have been just right.

"It is probably something we'll produce as a summer beer, as it's the season for raspberries and fruit beers tend to be drunk more in the summer.

"We could go and get raspberries all year round from Spain, but we'd like to support local agriculture and local producers".

Rob said the Lady Macbeth recipe was simple one, based on their Brude recipe, with the addition of whey and raspberries.

"Whey contains lactose which is unfermentable by brewers' yeast, so it gives it a slight sweetness", said Rob, who was born in Manchester and lived in Glasgow before meeting wife Laura and moving to Lumphanan. "It is something we'll definitely do again as we were very happy with the result!"

He said Lady Macbeth would, in the future, be stocked at the usual Deeside and Donside outlets, such as farm shops and delicatessens.

The Hillside Brewery has, to date, been so successful that Rob is now brewing full-time and is hoping to move to larger premises - but staying local!