March on........ 03/07/2012
 
This is March and time is marching on........  The first thing I must do is apologise for not updating the blog in February, but when you see what I've been up to you'll probably realize why ! 

Work is incredibly busy, I've been working away from home a lot over the last six weeks. The first trip was to Liverpool where I was working at the ACC arena for a week. This was a great conference to work on and I had a number of chances to go out and see what Liverpool has to offer. I went to the Cavern pub on the Sunday night with a good friend, J.B., and we saw an excellent band and had a few Guinness and some more local ales. Over the course of the week we went to various other pubs around the Mathew Street area, including the oldest pub in Liverpool, "Ye Hole in Ye Wall", where I had a pint of "Silver Moon" which is a porter and was beautifully smooth. At the end of the week we went to the Cavern Club, (you know the one - where The Beatles used to play), and saw another band, it was a good night out but not as lively as the Cavern pub across the road. The picture on the right is J.B. and me in the Cavern Club.  
When I got back home from Liverpool I only had a few days at home before my next job so I decided to have a day out with my family.

We went to the Wallace Monument in Stirling, we took in the views and had a great packed lunch out in the open, then we went onto Stirling Castle. Both of these places are well worth a visit. We spent hours in the castle and could have spent more time there but decided to call it a day and go and get some food. On our way out I stopped at the gift shop and saw that they had a reasonable choice of whiskys, check out the pictures below. The first two pictures were taken at the Wallace Monument, the next two were taken at Stirling Castle. 
Just outside Stirling Castle is a pub called "The Portcullis", this is where we went for a meal. I would really recommend this place as they had some great real ales, the menu was large and the food was great ! they even let me behind the bar for a few photo's. There will be a review of this pub on the site soon !
A day later I was on a plane to Miami.

I worked at a pharmaceutical conference there for nine days. We only had a couple of chances to go out as this was a full on conference. Below are some photo's and a video. the first photo was taken during the build and is in the main room, the beach photo was taken as we, me and J.B., walked to work in the morning and the video shows the out door venue for the gala dinner.
On the few occasions we did get out we went to a few bars and a club. The first bar we found was on Lincoln Drive and it was a German bar, as I wanted to drink more than a 330ml bottle at a time we got a few large beers. We moved to a club on Ocean Drive called the Clevlander which was loud and lively. Most of the beers I came across in America were the usual suspects, Bud, Miller, San Miguel, etc with a lot of "light" versions - but my favorite was Samuel Adams. A few days later, on my way home, at the airport, I had my last Samual Adams of the trip at Bongos Cuban Cafe.    
When I got back from Miami, on the 25th of Feb I had a whole two days to recover from the jet lag before I was on the road again. This time I was working in Glasgow and Manchester - on a medical roadshow. When in Glasgow I took some of the crew to "The Horseshoe Bar" and also to Waxy O'Connors, where we enjoyed the beer and the Glasgow hospitality. I introduced some of them to "Bitter and Twisted", by the Harviestoun Brewery, which went down very well ! 

In Manchester we didn't have time to go into town, we were working at an airport hotel, but we did get invited to the gala dinner. On my way home I had a couple of cheeky pints, Guinness, at the airport.  
I am writing this blog at the SECC in Glasgow where I'm currently working at a Diabetes conference and there is more travel on the way !!! - see next months blog .

Sales of my book "The Tartan Pint" have been disappointing, this may be due to the fact it is only available as a download. However, I was recently working at a book sellers event and managed to talk to some publishers about it. One of the publishers is interested in it so there may be a paperback edition on its way - although this may take some time.   

Until next time !!!

P.S. if you have any comments about the blog, or any questions, or just want to get in touch then please contact me. You can do this through the contacts page on the web site. 

Cheers, Alastair
1 Comment
 
 
I went to the Scottish Real Ale Festival last Thursday with my good mate, Stuart. We both enjoyed the festival and drank some great beers. We also managed to talk to a few brewers from around Scotland. Check out the video below for a flavour of the event. Cheers !!!
Add Comment
 
 
It has been two weeks since my last post, sorry !!!

As the title of this post is "a busy couple of weeks" you might understand that I've just not had the time to get organised. I have gone from full time employment, (I was the senior audio visual technician at the RBS conference center, Gogarburn), to being freelance again and I'm busy but enjoying the work.

I have managed to fit in a few visits to a brewery and some pubs over the last two weeks. One of the highlights was a visit to  Stewart Brewing, at their brewery in Loanhead on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I was visiting another company in the area about freelance work and took the opportunity to pop in. I  met Jo Stewart, co owner of Stewart Brewing, and she was kind enough to give me a guided tour of the brewery, which I filmed. Check out the clip below:


Last weekend was the start to this years six nations rugby. Scotland were playing France, (in France), so I decided it was a good excuse to go for a few beers with my mate John. We decide not to  go into Edinburgh this time as there would be no rugby supporters there, so we went to South Queensferry. This small town has a lot of history behind it, with some of the pubs dating back to 1683 and others being mentioned in famous novels by the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson. We started at one end of the old high street and steadily, (well steadily at first), made our way to the other side. The first pub we went to was the "Hawes Inn". Check out the clip below:
After the dissapointment of the Hawes Inn we moved along the high street to a small pub, (its a snug really), called the "Anchor Inn". This bar was small, its about the same size as a large living room from an ordinary house, but I liked it. It was full of locals talking, reading the paper and relaxing. There was no music but it had a decent sized screen for watching the sports and the bar maid was very helpful. I ordered the round, spoke to john and just as I was taking my jacket off she brought the drinks over to us. We only had one drink here, (I wanted a few screens to watch the rugby), then moved onto the "Ferry Tap". Check out the clip below:
The rugby started, we watched the first half, Scotland were not playing well - at all. We then decided to go to a bar with smaller screens as we didn't want to see the game in any detail. We went to the bar at "Orocco Pier", (this is also a restaurant which is well worth a visit). It was a different atmosphere all together, more up market and aimed at coffee drinkers during the day and couples at night. It was also by far the most expensive round of the night - not a problem to me as it was John's turn to buy !!! Check out the clip below:
We stayed here for a while then moved onto two other pubs in the high street, the "Stag Inn" and the "Moorings". The Stag is very much a down to earth locals bar with the standard range of drinks and a friendly enough feel to it. The Moorings was OK but a bit run down. I believe it is about to close for refurbishment. There are clips filmed in both of these pubs, but as it was now quite late in the evening they were not very good, even I can't make out what I was saying !!!

I am looking forward to next weekend as Scotland is playing Wales at Murrayfield - Anybody fancy a pint in Edinburgh ?  
Add Comment