A SCOTTISH brewer is planning to “play it forward” by investing in helping the country’s emerging musicians recover from the pandemic following a major sales spike over the past 18 months.

As well as unveiling plans to open its own 250-capacity live music venue in its Portobello brewery, Vault City has announced a new partnership with one of Scotland’s most famous venues – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow.

In the first of a series of co-branded gigs, Vault City will sponsor New Noise, a brand new one-dayer taking place on October 30.

The event will be headlined by Glasgow-based alt-rock quartet The Van T’s who make their return to the stage for the first time since a sell-out King Tut’s New Year’s Revolution show in January 2020.

Vault City moved into its own purpose-built brewery in Portobello, Edinburgh last year. The brewery now produces four times more than before the start of Scotland’s second lockdown in January.

The Vault City team’s passion for live music is at the core of the brewer’s mission to support artists, with plans already under way for its own new music venue, which will open in 2022.

Edinburgh-based co-founder Steven Smith-Hay, who began brewing beers in his Murrayfield kitchen in 2018, said: “We’re very lucky our business has gone from strength to strength during the pandemic. We want to pay it forward to those who have been unable to work and reach their audience.

“I missed going to see live music so much – but that pales in comparison to how live musicians who have been starved of their livelihood must feel.”