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Staying near Glasgow airport

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.

Beer Audit – The Session #73

The session. Once a month beer bloggers from around the world take five minutes to all discuss a particular topic. This month, the topic is beer auditing. It was suggested by this months the hosts from pints and pubs. The following quote sums up the brief for this month:

Once or twice a year I take a beer audit. I open cupboards and boxes and just have a good look at what’s there. Some beers get moved about, some make it from a box into the fridge, others get pushed further to the back of the cupboard for another day. Often I just stare at the bottles for a while and think about when I’ll drink them. Apart from the enjoyment of just looking at a hoard of beer, It tells me something about my drinking habits.

This one will be short and sweet. I have no beer store. I have a tendency to drink most, if not all of my beers fairly quickly. This is partly because I don’t have much money, so I can’t buy loads of beers to store, but it is mostly because after a day or two beers start to call me and I answer gladly.

Sorry if you were expecting more.

 

The Burnbrae: Now this is what I’m talking about!

You may remember me whinging last year about how crap it can be if we are staying away and the pub next door only has crap beer. Well, this week I’ve been working up near Glasgow and staying at, as usual, a usual Premier Inn. This is probably one of the best Premier Inn’s in the chain. The showers are hot (and powerful enough to knock over an old person), the beds are comfortable, the TV works and most important of all, next door is a proper pub; The Burnbrae.

Six hand pumps, with Old Speckled Hen and Belhaven IPA constantly on, plus up to four other guests. A warm and welcoming atmosphere. Friendly staff.  Traditional Interior. And to cap it all off, Cask Marque accredited, ensuring that the beer is of good quality. The only downside to all of this is that the food is not quite as generous with the portions as I would have hoped, and a little bit pricey.

At the weekend we decided to try a different pub down the road because it was so packed (BOO!), so we walked to a Beefeater where, by some luck, the had Old Hooky and Hobgoblin on hand pumps. I ordered the last pint of Old Hooky and Dad ordered a Hobgoblin, which was off. We decided to forget it and rely on the emergency bottles of beer in the room. Which was a shame, because of this debacle the Burnbrae has become a victim of its own success in my opinion (too expensive and too busy) and we are now contemplating a new hotel. Anyone got any thoughts for a decent place to stay in Glasgow?

 

HOW we love beer – The Session #72

The session. Once a month beer bloggers from around the world take five minutes to all discuss a particular topic. This month, the topic is novelty beers. It was suggested by this months host Ryan Newhouse, from Montana Beer Finder. The following quote sums up the brief for this month:

In light of it being about two weeks before Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be a good time to talk about how we love beer. Pay attention now, as I said “how,” not “why.” Much has already been discussed about why we love beer: its creativity, its taste, its social aspect.

…

To bring that back to beer, I’m not suggesting we need to be thinking of beer all the time, or as much as we think of our partners (though some of us might!), but I’m curious to hear what you beer lovers do to show appreciation for good craft beer.

So where do I begin? What things do I do which shows my appreciation for good beers? Well, I didn’t quote it but Ryan also suggested that the fact that we blog about beer to begin with shows how much beer means to us and, obviously, this is something that I do. I’m not the most avid blogger, I think my average weekly number of posts is only 1.6, which isn’t much, but at least I don make the effort to share when I think of something worthy to say.

Apart from that then what is there? I buy beers, I try and explore different pubs to find something new and different, especially when I am somewhere new. One thing I like to do is make sure that I am expanding by beery horizons as much as possible, if there is a beer available that I haven’t tried before, I’ll always go for that one. Also if there is a special even on I’ll try my best to get to it, even if I don’t always succeed.

My main thing though is that I keep track of what I’ve been drinking. I have many different apps on my phone which I can use to recall beers and remind me where I was and what it was like. The other day I was asked if I had tried a beer from a particular brewery, I was sure that I had but I couldn’t remember for the life of me where, or what, it was. One look on untappd and there it was, I was in the Pilgrim’s Progress, and from that the whole event came back to me. I remembered enjoying the drink, what it was like, the company I was with, I can even picture the guy behind the bar who served us.

I do a lot which people would call  geeky and obsessive and I can see where their coming from, but at the end of the day what I do most of all is enjoy my beer. I appreciate that it tastes good (mostly) and every now and again I just stop and think about that, and smile.

Goodies in the post

When I was in Manchester last weekend I made it to a few pubs which have cask marques. As I’m sure you know, by scanning the certificates which are on display you can win prizes. While in Manchester I tipped over the 25 scans mark, and so, as a reward, I was sent a very nice fridge magnet which doubles up as a bottle opener.

It really is rather fancy, I was expecting a cheap plastic token gesture, but no! This is a proper stainless steel affair! Quality.

The National Winter Ale Festival 2013: a weekend away in Manchester

Last week saw the Sheridan suite in Manchester play host to The National Winter Ale Festival, as I’m sure you know, especially if you have seen my Twitter account in the past few days. I was there, this is what happened.

A coach came and took us to Manchester on the Friday afternoon (by ‘us’ I mean myself and Jonny, mate, walker and fellow beer drinker). It wasn’t a very nice coach – there was no leg room. When  we finally arrived in the city centre we had to trudge through the snow, trying to find our digs for the evening. I had cleverly decided to memorize the map (this doesn’t always work), but we did eventually find shelter. We checked in, dumped our stuff and set out into the city.

Hungry and thirsty we dived straight into the first pub we could see that did food. The Piccadilly on Piccadilly, generally OK pub with five real ales on, none of which I had tried before. We sat down and had dinner, and tried all ales on offer. In the mean time we had been joined by Dan, a mate who neither Jonny had seen since a house party some time ago who now lived locally.

After The Piccadilly we moved on to Brewdog, where we spent the rest of the evening having some rather fancy (and pricey) beers, AB:12 especially was a highlight for all of us.

*

Following morning we walked up to the Sheridan Suite, where the festival was taking place. By the time we had got there, there was already a queue out of the door. It soon started to move and we were in.

First pint of the day (After paying to get in, then paying for a programme and then paying for a glass and PAYING to put my coat down) was from Offbeat brewery, a red ale called OddBall Red. A good start, and the good beers kept coming. One of the highlights of the day was another beer from Offbeat called Venus Ella; part of the Venus project, which promoted women brewing. Dunham Massey’s Porter was also up there as one of my favourites of the day.

I have to admit I thought that it was going to be a much larger affair than it was. I was expecting one of CAMRA’s national events to cater for a larger surge of people. When we first walked in I thought to myself that it was going to be rammed, but, in the end, it was just the right size.

The only downside for me was that all of the champion beers which had won at the festival were announced earlier and as such were all gone by the time we got there. Shame.

*

After the festival called time me walked back into the city, got a few cans of beer and sat in the common room in the hostel. There was a very loud group of girls from Ireland, who wouldn’t shut up or leave, and an overly friendly chap who was either from Denmark or the Netherlands, Jonny wasn’t overly keen on him.

Following morning we checked out and hit a Wetherspoon’s  had breakfast and a pint of Ilkley’s Lotus IPA, which was nice. After which we mover on to a different Wetherspoon’s which had more choice,amongst which was the champion beer from the festival, Elland 1872 Porter, which was one of the best beers of the weekend.

Last beer of the weekend was Build a rocket boys! by Robinson’s. I had been wanting to try it for some time after finding the bottles somewhat lacking. The cask version more than made up for it.

All in all, lots of good beers at a good festival in a good city.

Potton Brewery’s Shambles Bitter (4.3%)

I come from Bedfordshire, it’s a small county that a lot of people can’t place on a map. Most people don’t know what happen’s here. And most people don’t notice when they pass through it on the M1 or the A1. Nether the less I am proud to come from this fine county which gave the world Luton style vans, the first workable tractor, modern methods for the manufacture of straw hats, A Pilgrim’s Progress, Victoria Pendleton, Ronnie Barker and Carol Vorderman, to name but a few.

The problem with living here is that no one dives a damn. Those who have always lived here, like myself, are fed up with all our natural landscape being ripped up and turned into landfill for London, and those that have moved here do so because they can get the train into London easily, but don’t have the bothers of actually living in London. Slowly and surely all of the local traditions are dying out and people are forgetting the ways things were. There aren’t even the nutter’s setting up museums of local history.

A while age I decided to look into it all, local history and the like. I discovered that we had our own regional dish, and one chain of bakeries still makes a version of it. A few Google’s here and there and I think I got my own idea of how to make a Bedfordshire Clanger. Today I decided I was going to make one and had to go to the supermarket to get some bits and bobs. While I was in Tesco I noticed a bottle of beer which I had been meaning to try for ages and never got round to. It seemed like the perfect time to try a beer from a Bedfordshire brewery. Ladies and Gentlemen… Shambles Bitter from The Potton Brewery Co.

Pour and colour:
Light amber in colour. White head, short. quickly faded to nothing

Aroma:
Light, yeasty from the bottle. Poured, it reminded me of the chilli beer I had before new years, there was a bite and a sweetness, in the aroma which both chilli beers and Shambles have in common.

Taste:
Some green vegetable bitterness. Quite dry. Yeasty taste. Biscuit malt flavours.

Mouth feel:
Light, effervescent. Small bubbles but lots of them.

After-taste:
Citric and dry. A very drying alkaline feeling in the back of the throat sand tongue, think milk of magnesia without the milk?!

Final Verdict:

8 / 10

Light and refreshing with a good bite. I love this beer. I am going to be buying this a lot more. Why have I not tried this before now. Absolutely fab.

And my clanger?… Without a doubt the nicest thing I have ever made myself.

Cairngorms’s Wildcat

This bottle of Cairngorm’s Wildcat (5.1%) appeared in the fridge with a label on it indicating that it was bought from a local garden centre for £2.29.

 

Pour and colour:
Deep amber in colour. Head was a light beige coloured, thick and fluffy. Lasting throughout the drink.

Aroma:
There wasn’t much in the way of a smell. Later on, as the beer warmed up a small amount of the beers character came through on the nose.

Taste:
Burnt, malty base. Light and sweet, fruity taste, slightly raisin-y. Hinting towards coffee. Definite leather and a slightly medical twinge to it.

Mouth feel:
Medium bodied with a good level of carbonation. Just as I like it.

After-taste:
Especially long lingering after taste, slightly complicated but on the whole echoed the main tastes in the beer.

Final Verdict:

8 / 10

Good well rounded beer, not going to change the world but very enjoyable, none the less.

Mulling Cider

Christmas has just gone and I have been working my way through the lovely booze based gifts which have been gratefully received during the festive period. Included in this was some chilli beers, gin and a cider gift set. The cider included two bottles of Sheppy’s Cider, Bullfinch and Goldfinch. Also in the set was a ceramic cider jug and a pack of mulling spices in tea bags.

Wanting to try the ciders I decided to drink them without mulling them. I found the Goldfinch a little too dry for my tastes but the Bullfinch was just right.

Jug and cider box

I later decided I’d try mulling some cider with the spices. I thought that it would be a bit silly to use a sparkling cider, seeming as I was going to pour it into a saucepan, then let it simmer, surely all the fizz would be gone? So I bought a box of Weston’s Wyld Wood Cider (7.3%).

I have never tried muled cider, yet alone make it. Fortunately the recipe is simple. Two litres of cider, one mulling spice sachet and simmer for half an hour (do not allow to boil). Keeping an eye on the saucepan for half an hour was tedious, one bag floating in a pan, doing nothing isn’t exactly riveting entertainment. Also standing in front of it, I didn’t notice the room filling with the thick spicy smell of all the spices. People who walked into the room said it was like walking into a physical wall of smell. No one actually complained about it though. Served via the jug supplies.

Bringing a mug of hot, mulled cider to my mouth for the first time I got huge hit of vapour hit me in the face, full of flavours and probably evaporating alcohol. It took a moment to get used to, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. I just had to get through two litres of it before it got cold. I found that the cooler the cider got, the less desirable it was. In the end I chucked the last half a pint, which was just as well because there was some sort of brown slurry. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been harmful but I’m glad I didn’t drink that.

All in all I think you need to make smaller batches to drink while it’s hot, can you buy the spices which haven’t been pre packed for two litre batches? Or, make a large batch and share it.

My new years resolution

Another year ends and I find myself looking at everyone’s wrap up of the year which has been. Many taking the opportunity to join in with the Golden Pint awards. I thought about doing the same but when I went through the categories I realised just how crap I’ve been this year.

I mean best foreign beer, looking back I can only think of about four. That makes it really difficult to judge best foreign brewer. Best retailers? My beers this year were about 50% Supermarket 40% at the pub and 10% beer festivals. I can’t think of any independent retailers that I visited and I definitely didn’t buy any beers online.

OK, so best book or magazine? I read three, all by Pete Brown, which were really good, but I can’t really say with any authority that they were my favourite because I have nothing to compare them with (although I don’t quite know what else would beat them, they were brilliant reads).

What I can tell you is that my favourite beer this year was B & T‘s Fruit Bat. This is probably the only category in the Golden Pint’s which I feel that I have done enough drinking. Also I have to take my hat off to whoever at Thwaites is in charge of their Twitter account. Some how this person has managed to find a different way of saying “We hope you enjoyed your beer” every time I had one of their drinks, and this year I was quite partial to a can of their Dark Mild.

Hopefully 2013 will bring me more beery delights to try and enjoy. Hopefully I will have more luck in going places to enjoy beer and hopefully I’ll be able to blog about them. I’m not going to make a promise, because then it is doomed to failure, but I will try to seek out more and expand my horizons. Hopefully in 2013 I’ll be able to write my Golden Pint’s of the year with a broad range of past experiences which I can judge from. If not, I’ll just re-write this post.

Here’s to a great 2013.

Enjoy yourselves.

Happen New Year, let’s make it a good one.

Cheers! Salut! Cin Cin! Yamas! Prost!

(By the way if your looking at the time this posted and thinking “Hasn’t he got anything better to do on NYE than sit in and write this crap, don’t worry, I’m currently out somewhere in London. This was written yesterday and scheduled to post now”)