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 !!!
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What a weekend ! I arrived at Thistly Cross on a sunny Friday afternoon and soon got into the spirit of things with a glass of the 14% Bowmore whisky cider. I was lucky enough to speak to Peter Stuart for a couple of minutes about how he started making cider and his vision for the future. There is a video of this on the Thistly Cross Cider page, filmed by my friend Kamil. Once the tent was up we made our way to the bar and we enjoyed a good few real ales from various breweries. One of the breweries was the Tempest Brewery from Kelso and I met Gavin Meiklejohn, the owner and head brewer. We sampled a few of his beers and my favourite was the Citra - well worth a try.  Gavin Meiklejohn and myself enjoying a few beers at the bar I also met a few other brewers, such as the head brewer from Demon Brew, watch this space for more details ........  That night our wives arrived and joined us at the bar. Later we barbecued some beautiful meat, drank some great Cider and spent the night in our tent. The next day we went to the battle re - anactment, which I enjoyed, then we headed to a local fish farm and bought some fish for the barbecue with Mark, who was a nice guy that we met at the festival. Then it was back to the bar to sample some more real ale's and great cider !!! The ceilidh later on that night was really enjoyable and a great end to the weekend. Check out the video below for a flavour of the event. I left the festival on the Sunday and on the Monday was in London working. As you might guess, I did make time for a few beers. I went out to two pubs with my good friend Stewart. The pub below was in the City of Westminster and was old and surrounded by new office buildings. they had a few good ales and the staff were friendly.   However, my favorite pub in London is "The Ship Inn". This is just across the road and through a passage from monument station. It's my favorite for a whole lot of reasons !! most of which I'm not going into here, but they serve great food, great ale and it has an old world friendly feel to it. Many thanks to the manager and barman who made us feel very welcome on Monday night - despite the lack of blue cheese sauce for the steak - but the free pint more than made up for it.     I am now back home and drying out my liver in preparation for the next time !
Cheers Alastair |
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February 2014
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