At the moment Scotland has of the order of 15 commercial breweries and these represent a range of production capacities from under 100 barrels per year for the smallest one-man operations to over 2–5 million barrels per year for the largest modern plant. All the main beer types, ale, lager and stout, are produced and lager is a more important component than for the United Kingdom generally. There is 1 Scottish-based United Kingdom national brewer and production is also carried out in Scotland by 3 other of the United Kingdom nationals. These 4 account for most of the beer produced with the rest contributed mainly by 2 Scottish regional brewers and 1 brewery owned by an English regional brewer.

The essentials for beer production, water, malt, hops, yeast, finings and energy, can all be had from Scottish sources with the exception of hops and finings. The last decade has seen a massive increase in the area of barley grown in Scotland and along with this has gone a large increase in malting capacity, so that the supply situation for malt has been transformed. However, brewers may still buy malt from other sources to obtain specific properties or to ensure a more stable blend. In addition, brewers commonly employ a certain amount of unmalted cereal adjuncts, e.g. barley, maize, wheat, and sugar to increase economically the strength of their worts. In cases where beer is meant to keep longer or travel further than the traditional ales, brewers use a variety of filter materials such as cellulose and kieselguhr, stabilizing aids such as PVPP and alginates, and in many modern plants industrial enzymes are used as remedial aids and as established items in the production schedules. None of these quantitatively minor materials seem to be produced by Scottish companies.