Category: Scotland

Book Review: Edinburgh Pub Walks by Bob Steel

epw1I get cranky. Especially when I have had a cold since Thursday and couldn’t get out on the snowshoes this weekend as planned. Heck, I really could not maintain much of a level of consciousness given the fever here, the aches there and the surreal effect of cold medication. Not prime time for the beer fan. So, it’s a good thing we have books for these drier stretches. I got this one in the mail a few months ago. Been wondering when I would post about it. I really should post more reviews of CAMRA’s excellent books but when this rare review copy came, I noticed my street address was off by about 127 front doors. Some guy two tenths of a mile away must have a great collection.

Anyway, I love this book. Why? Well, for one thing I am familiar with some walks covered having family that live on a few of the streets named upon the maps. I have spent some time there. I even dodged an indignant but well emptied bottle flung from a terrace far far above one Saturday at Hibs when Georgie Best was a no show and my father decided to leave early. But those connections to the town aren’t what makes this book work for me. No, its the maps themselves that draw you in. Bright, well laid out and placed smartly on the page they offer clear instruction by the clever use of colour leaving no real need for a table explaining what means what. Then there are the photos which make you want to crawl right though into that place in Prestonpans or the other on Rose Street. [Sadly, it appears that the Rose Street Brewery, where I spent a few happy days in 1986, is not more or at least not worth mentioning.] And then there are the walking tours. I don’t know of any North American pub guide based on this idea but it is an excellent one. Implicitly moderate or perhaps otherwise sensible, the 25 routes provide more information than a traveler might ever require and maybe even enough to keep a local well occupied.

The book seems to have been backed by the combination of CAMRA and Caledonian Brewery which might lead one to worry that a fix was in. Not a chance as there is every indication of as ecumenical an approach to mentioning tap offerings as you might wish. Well worth the investment for anyone there in Edinburgh or planning to be.

Twenty Years Ago, A Christmas Eve In Scotland

One of my favorite Christmas Eves was twenty years ago tonight, in Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland. I was visiting my uncle, auntie and cousins and had settled into a week long stay. It didn’t take long for it to seem like to everyone in the village I was that “coosin frae Gan-ee-der.” People shouted hello to me from across the street, a colonial vestige of something, a bit of all their people who had gone away. I had been there a few years before by myself so was renewing old friendships but this time I had come there from a new direction – from Poland where I had been teaching English as a second language in a small city on the Baltic coast. And I’m still married to the guest I brought along, the one I had met only a few weeks before, back there well east of Germany where the Soviets still had tanks. All in all, a complex bit of culture shock going on: from the nutty affluence of North America to the balance of hard luck and new hope world of the land keeking out from behind the Iron Curtain and then on to somewhere in between, an old village in the old country in winter.

In that village there was a pub. The Golf Inn. Down the street and around the corner from the family home most evenings we played pool, drank a lot of Guinness and sat around and talked night after night with family and friends, greens keepers, university students back from college all curious about what we had seen in the East. We were there on Christmas Eve, too, dressed up a bit more and well fed by auntie, packed in with the neighbours likewise having a great old time when, at 11 pm, without any warning to we two Canadians in the corner, all moved as one across the road to the Church of Scotland, the Kirk, for the service. It was magic. Never been in a church before or since after a night filled with beer and friends. Before and after the dour sermon, there were great big men swaying in kilts, well oiled from the evening to that point. They sang in congregation and beefy harmony in great booming voices. Unlike this night, twenty years later in another church in another country, I am now not sure if they sang the Viking meets Italian carol “In the Bleak Midwinter” but they may well have:

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

After church, we were with the half that did not pour back into the pub to continue. We had to get back. There were plenty of guests in the house besides ourselves, generations of relatives that all had to get up in the morning as one. We walked together back round the corner and up the street in the cold still dark night full of the singing, the beer, the night.

Scotland: Paradox Islay #004, BrewDog, Aberdeenshire

bdpi1What a mess. I hadn’t realized the label was made of hard card stock stuck on with two-sided sticky tape. I might take it down to the lab and get James’ near teen DNA off of it. Bottle 131 of 200. By opening it, I probably just threw away the 100 bucks I could get from some guy in Kansas on eBay. Sent as a sample by the brewery when they were but boys a few years back. I decided to open it after watching a little Horatio Hornblower that was accompanied by a Bourbn County stout. No doubt you have known that moment, too.

As promised, it is all Islay on the nose, the beloved smoky low Islands Scots whisky. Land of my fathers. Because the stout sat in a barrel of the 1968. My mother’s cousin-in-law was a canny and, for the Clyde, stylish post-war whisky broker in the southwest so I am sure he would approve. He certainly would recognize it. Deep deep mahogany under mocha rim and froth. Aroma of the malt but in the mouth it is sharp. At first, a hammer of old Dutch man’s licorice with all the salt that goes along with seaweedy Islay – then something like a stout with something like a whisky. It isn’t really anything like “balanced” and I wonder, honestly, if it is more of an artifact than a beer. Dry and a little like something I would call harsh but on the lovely side of harsh. Descriptors like “whopping”, “foolish” and “two by four to the head” come to mind. Planky. Sae halp ma bob. That is all I can say.

One sole BAer went mad for this early Holy Grail like example of experimental 21st century UK brewing.

Has An Unacceptable Level Of Drinking Been Described?

Pete Brown has run a series of posts this week and last that delve into stats being issued by various government agencies and health lobby groups in the UK. It is important work that Pete is doing as there is no stat worse than the unexamined stat. Today’s post was called “More Hilarity with Statistics” which examined claims about the level of drinking in Scotland. I made a comment over there but did some more rooting around to make sure I agreed with what I was seeing and, to avoid looking like a totally rude idiot being all finger pointy in the comments, thought I would set it out here instead. I also got thinking because even if a stat can be discredited it does not mean that the underlying facts necessarily do not exists, only that they are not well described. But, as I said in the comments, I am really bad at math so I am happy to be corrected.

The BBC story Pete began with was titled “Scots ‘Drink 46 Bottles of Vodka‘” by which they mean per person per year on average. Pete suggested that this was not particularly well researched as tourism trade taking the booze away was not figured in – but then when I ran the numbers I saw this pattern:

  • Scotland has about 8% of the UK population
  • total UK booze sales in 2007 were worth over 41 billion pounds
  • and therefore, Scotland’s booze sales can be approximated at around 4 billion pounds.

I took the numbers from this soul suckingly slow .pdf source. I read them to meaning that if every penny of the 25 million pounds spent at distillery shops was non-Scots resident alcohol sales, removing it entirely from Scottish consumption, it only represents well under 1% of total Scottish sales? If that is the case, the variation is under a bottle of vodka a year. I said that even if I was off by a whole decimal point and the distillery sales represent 10% of sales isn’t it still a little bit alarming that every Scots adult averages 41 or 42 bottles of vodka a year? By which I mean I had a gut feeling it was in fact pretty high. But is it?

A little more looking around further, found information stating that 30% of Scots adults say they do not drink – which means the drinking Scot averages 58 or so bottle a year working off the conservative 41 bottles a week stat. It is more like 65 a year if you go by the BBC’s number of 46. I got the “did not drink” percentage from this pdf. So you have 30% of Scots not drinking, 35% drinking up to the average and 35% drinking over the average.

What does that mean? 58 bottles a year on average means 1.12 x 700 ml bottles a week at 40% that means 313 ml of pure alcohol a week. By comparison, a standard Canadian 12 oz 5% beer has 341 ml. Which means that average Scots drinker’s booze consumption is the equivalent of 19 standard 5% Canadian beers a week. Sounds like a bit more than you might think is a good idea, week after week day after day. But not fatal. It’s maybe what we expect the average healthy working Joe would drink in a week. Similarly, a US 22 oz bomber has 650 ml. At 8% that is 65 ml of pure alcohol. Which means that the Scot’s drinker’s booze consumption is the equivalent of 4.8 bombers of 8% US craft beer a week. Is that going to scare off a craft beer fan? Hardly.

But it is an average and that is what I think is the real concern. It means 35% of Scots drinkers adults drink more… because 65% drinkers there drink less including the 30% who abstain. I think those numbers are troubling. They may well be wrong so please do your own a arithmetic. But if they are not wrong – is there not a valid public health concern where 35% of your population is doing that level of drinking. I don’t really care if you think there is no such thing as a public health concern from a libertarian point of view as that is not the point here. Nor does someone called “Alan Campbell McLeod” care if you think this is only a Scottish problem. I think we can all agree that there is a point beyond which alcohol is unhealthy. Is that point been identified by the BBC report?

Scotland: Chaos Theory and Its Prototype, BrewDog

1739I heard the news today. Chaos Theory was being delisted. Discontinued. One of the sure signs of a brewery moving into a next stage is rationalization and we have seen a bit of that with BrewDog. They have new staff and a new range for their experimental beer ideas. But once upon a time they were not rationalizing. They were a wee bit irrational, in fact, as they used to send me samples… including samples of prototypes. These two beers have been in the stash for at least a year. I think I got them in November 2008 along with a following email from James actually saying “sorry it took me so long to send them” even though it was free beer and I was Canadian. They have held up well. The prototype shows some crown cap rusting but the proper labeled version is quite clean. At over 7%, there’s no issue as to condition with the best before being over six months from now. Let’s have a go.

The two beers appear roughly the same – medium amber orange with a swell white froth and foam. On the sniff, the prototype is a bit richer but both are raisin tart with prototype leaning towards a really gorgeously complex set of orange peel, allspice, baked raisin edgings. In the mouth, the prototype suffers a tiny bit from a drabness – even with the swirl of malt richness – which could be time but also tastes like a bit of cardamom. There is a bit of a husky quality to it that butts heads with the fruit richness, too, the aroma’s promise. A little bitter and even mineral in the finish even with the barley candy playing out. Still, big and fine and I’d have bought it if it ever made the shelves.

Theory put into practice is a notch finer. The note of the finishing hops stands out more clearly – tangerine peel, candy cane and even maybe a hint of coffee bean. In the mouth, there’s a little less to work with than the prototype but there’s more control even with all the bitterness. Softer water with weedy hops over peppermint and peppery hops over rich cream malt. Pear in the malt. Also big, pretty brash but not off kilter. A very well made beer that the BAers gave big respect.

BrewDog has been doing all things for (and to) all people including taking a brash, cheeky culturally appropriate stance that I love more than even each of their beers. But like childhood’s end, it’s no longer all about adding. Sometimes there is subtracting in life.

Day 15: War, Xmas Photos And Roger Freaks Out!

I got a great gift in the mail today. Copy 8 of 10 of Ron Pattinson’s new book, WAR! He wrote about the book’s release this very morning from his home in The Netherlands and by suppertime a copy was in my mailbox here in Canada. Compiling his studies to date on the years of World War I and World War II, it is a great example of the work he is doing to bringing actual detailed primary research to the question of the history of beer.

One wishes all beer writers were so concerned with the facts as we witnessed today from Roger Protz who went all freaky handbags over BrewDog’s new and insanely strong beer. He’s received a number of head shaking responses, deservedly so given his use of language like “over-inflated egos and naked ambition” and “the wild buckeroos” and “what were you smoking last night, chaps?” and “this bunch of ego-maniacs” and “anxious to give beer a bad name.” The oddest thing is that he goes off on his own ice flow all the while misunderstanding the technical process used for actually making the beer, baldly claiming it had wine yeast in it… not that wine yeast would get you a 32% beer. One wonders what Protz was thinking or, in fact, had been smoking himself when he wrote such a blurt. He has certainly gone a long way to discredit his own opinions on experimental beer generally. For a more measured response, you may want to read Pete Brown’s post on the new and insanely strong beer from last Thursday…you know, when it was news.

Now with the Xmas 2009 Beer Blog Yuletide Photo Contest Extravaganza. First, a couple of solo entries from Canada.

Chris Berry of Kanata, Ontario sent this one picture to the right which sorta looks normal… until you have a good look at the baby’s face. Frank MacDonald of Torbay Newfoundland kept the kids out of the photo to the left. It was taken at the Grizzly Paw Brewpub in Canmore Alberta.

Next, Jeff Alworth of Portland, Oregon has sent in some photos from the scene there. I have no idea how he got to put in 8 entries but never having been to Oregon I can’t be sure this is not some sort of cultural thing, some sort of secret message to us all. Maybe he can’t count. Better not mess with the photo set just in case:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Tim Connelly of Cambridge Massachusetts sent in these pictures which are entitled “Inside Cantillon,” “In a Galway pub,” “Outside of a Galway pub,” “The Franciscan Well Brewery Pub, Cork’ and “Brooklyn Brewery”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four more great entries. I better starting beating the bush for more prizes. Here I go. Off to email brewers until all I have are bloody stumps for hands. Why? I don’t do it for you. I do it for Santa.

“BrewDog Go Bonkers” by Roger Protz, 30 November 2009

[Stored for cross referencing…]

BrewDog have surpassed themselves with their over-inflated egos and naked ambition. They chose — deliberately, of course — to launch on the very day the Scottish Parliament was discussing a minimum price for alcohol a “beer” with a strength of 32%. Naturally, the wild buckeroos in Fraserburgh claim this is the world’s strongest beer, even though technically it’s not beer at all, as brewer’s yeast cannot work beyond a strength of 12 or 13 degrees. Clearly the new product, called Tactical Nuclear Penguin (what were you smoking last night, chaps?), was finished with a wine or champagne yeast. James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog, said the beer was “completely pushing the boundaries”. Indeed, and it’s also pushing beyond breaking point what sensible beer writers and connoisseurs will take from this bunch of ego-maniacs. Those of us who attempt to paint an image of beer as a fine drink enjoyed in moderation by sensible people have the ground cut from beneath our feet by BrewDog, which just plays in to the hands of the yellow press, ever anxious to give beer a bad name. I don’t often agree with the likes of Alcohol Concern but I think Jack Law, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, hit the soft spile on the head when he said BrewDog was guilty of “childlike attention-seeking”. He added that the fact that the beer, priced at £30 a bottle, had achieved a new record was not admirable. “It’s a product with a lot of alcohol in it, that’s all. To dress it up as anything else is cynical.”

Scotland: Paradox Springbank, BrewDog, Fraserburgh

1208“It smells like the granary when it’s filled.” I think that is what I was told but it makes sense.

It pours – imagine – rather deep brownish and has a rich mocha froth and foam. The nose in delightful. Fig and chocolate, milk and bread crust. Like a rich child’s breakfast in 1710. The mouth expands with both smooth and whisky sharp. Not Lowland, Campbelltown. Barely a “hodge yer whisht” from the land of my forefathers off the far eastern side of Arran. An amazing swishy mouthful of softness, grain, roast and shadow of burn. Batch 17 in the Paradox series. “Awfy braw” were Oor Wullie asked.

BAers don’t do subtle. The lips tingle from the water of life.

Hail To The New Sponsor – Scotland’s BrewDog!

771It was an intense stretch of negotiations. I begged. They were repulsed. I whined. Then…they pitied and came on board. We of A Good Beer Blog are always thrilled when a new sponsor signs up and we like to explore all sorts of ways to get along all in the cause of what might be thought of an alternative take on craft lagers and ales. The fine folk at BrewDog cover a few bases – they make incredibly good and innovative beer while meeting a sensitivity to the emotional needs of a North American bound fan of the Greenock Morton. It’s good to be in such a relationship. I’m all a giggle at the idea of them joining people like the hoteliers of Prague and, of course, the good good people at Ontario Craft Brewers. I think we’ll float the ad in the tops stories for a while. See how that works. Click on it and you will no longer even be here.

And this is part of a big plan we call the big plan. We are always looking for these sorts of new pals. It’s kind of like a support group for this one beer fan with a writing problem who finds himself bearing the full weight of a jurisdiction with monopolistic beer practices of limited variety, overly taxed price structures and friends who ask “can I have another one of those?”. Proceeds go to beer travel by car and beer acquisition by hand picked selection at some of the nicest stores in Quebec and the US north-east. That’s right: cash = stash. Simple math. And we dicker and we try to figure out a bazillion ways for you to join in whether by an ad or a sample or just by that Google ad cheque in the mail. Why? Because we love what you the beer hound, beer maker, beer writer, beer vendor and beer bar owner do. All proceeds include the tax man’s share (at least five ways if I was to think about it) and acquisitions go in part to the local beer nerds I am cultivating…though in larger part to me. Gotta be honest.

Do you have what it takes to sponsor or otherwise the support the program of good works we are undertaking at A Good Beer Blog? I bet you do. I do.

Great Summing Up Of The Shadowy Portman Group

The news last week of the shadowy Portman Group‘s abandonment of its efforts to “remove interestingness caused by the more clever smaller competition”¹ from beer shelves of Britain at least in relation to one beer, Orkney’s Skull Splitter, is neatly summarized by Roy Beers in The Publican today, including this telling passage:

It mattered nothing to the Portman Group that (“Mr, to you”) Skull Splitter – nickname for Thorfinn Hausacluif – was historically the 7th Viking jarl of Orkney; or that he has as much right to have a beer named after him as, say, Harald Godwinson or Hereward the Wake. Or William the Bastard. It didn’t signify, either, that the typical Skull Splitter drinker is over 35, possibly a member of CAMRA, and has exceedingly good taste in the matter of high quality strong beer. Of the sort you can savour by a great log fire. Exactly why it has taken the Portman Group so many years to discover this potentially havoc-wreaking brand is a mystery, but perhaps what’s most encouraging about the story is the overwhelming support for the brewery and its beer, with prominent politicians joining the clamour for Skull Splitter’s survival.

I would also add this: why did it take the shadowy Portman group that many years to discover Britain has a Viking history. I am an immigrant’s kid over here in Canada and I – by my name and the village of my mother’s birth – was well aware that Skull Splitter was a reference to the actual Viking history of the actual people in the actual land. That is the thing about your self-appointed betters – if they were actually your betters, you wouldn’t need the self-appointment because they would carry the authority that comes with making good sense.

¹Not quite the actual charge laid in the case.