OK, so I’m back. I’ve just finished a large job north of the border. Starting a few weeks ago we were staying at a Premier Inn next to a pub, now we’re staying at another near to Glasgow airport. Many thanks to Adam Shafi on twitter, who suggested some different pubs to try, however, the boss wasn’t having it. He likes to have secure parking for the van.
Premeir Inn – Glasgow Airport – does not have a pub attached. Instead it has a restaurant in the hotel itself. The beer selection is not good. Looking across the bar I asked for a Guinness, after spotting a Guinness tap, the waiter then advised me that although there is a tap it wasn’t attached to any beer, although I could have a Guinness… from a can. They wanted to charge me more than £4 for a can of Guinness. There was a petrol station directly opposite the hotel which had four packs of Guinness for £5. Go Figure.
We were at this hotel for several weeks, so it was fortunate that I had the brain wave to check inside the airport. Inside the terminal building is a JD Wetherspoon. Salvation. It wasn’t as cheap as the usual Wethersoon’s prices, but it was in an airport, so we couldn’t really complain.
One beer which I really wanted to try while I was in Scotland was Orkney’s Dark Island. I had tried the bottle and thought it was pretty good and was hoping it would be on tap at Wetherspoon’s. Every day we went in and every day there was a hand pump which said “Dark Island coming soon”. After a few days we asked when it was actually going to be on. They had no clue. They didn’t even know if they had any ordered, it certainly wasn’t in the cellar.
This was the routine then, after work go back tot the hotel, have a shower and head to the airport for some food and a decent pint, ask about Dark Island until… the airport caught fire. It was only a minor fire, but it meant that the last few nights we had to resort to beers from the petrol station and food from the hotel. We never did get a pint of Dark Island, although the Red McGregor from the same brewery was quite nice.
Favourite beer from the whole trip was Clydesdale IPA by Strathaven ales.