USA
We did a tour of the south in July, which took in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Misissippi. Starting in Atlanta, we stayed in the city centre and did the usual touristy things by foot, which meant we didn't travel to the outlying areas of the city where many of the new breweries and brewpubs were situated. We did come across Max Lager's Wood Fired Grill and Brewery and it had a good selection of beers:
On Thursdays, upstairs, they feature a different cask ale each week.
The next stop on our Southern Sojourn was beautiful Savannah. We tried one of the World of Beers outlets, which wasn't bad, but we timed our visit to the Moon River Brewing Company badly as it was the day before their Cask Night - bummer.
Our next two stops - on Hilton Head Island, SC and Pigeon Forge, TN - were unexciting from a beer point of view, but Nashville was much better. Our first - and favourite - stop was at Acme Feed and Seed. Not a brewpub as such but a great selection of beers and good food, plus a wonderful location on the corner of Broadway, overlooking the Cumberland River. Try the rooftop bar.
We tested two of the local brewpubs - Yazoo and Jackalope. The former is definitely a beer only place - no food, other than snacks:
Both brewpubs were worth a visit and the local Rock Bottom outlet also had a nice rooftop bar and some interesting beers.
Like Nashville, Memphis has many attractions and beer isn't exactly at the top of the list, but, like all big US cities, there's always plenty of outlets to try the local brews. We found ourselves returning to the Flying Saucer a couple of times - it's not too far from the craziness of Beale St, but it's just a little more - dare we say, civilised? They had an interesting concept/contest there:
The beers are anonymous and the idea is to rate them online after sampling.
We spent the last month of our US vacation with family over in Oregon. It's familiar ground for us so we tend only to repeat visit to places we really like. The local supermarkets have an excellent choice of bottled - and, increasingly, canned - beers, but, as cask is hard to find in fairly rural areas, the next best option is to drink draught (draft) keg, and the easiest way of doing that is by using growlers. Apart from all the pubs who are more than happy to refill growlers, there are both specialist and grocery outlets set up to do the same. The nearest to us and the ones I used most regularly were http://monstergrowlers.com/ and http://www.cartwrightsmarket.com/tap-list/. Getting there was fairly easy - particularly when the bike I use is fitted with the right equipment:
The newest local brewpub was http://www.theram.com/beer/ in Medford:
Their "Happy Hour" runs from 3pm to 9pm!
We also returned to http://calderabrewing.com/brews.html in Ashland:
They usually have one beer on cask - normally a pretty strong "exotic" one.
EDINBURGH
We got back home from our US trip mid-August - just enough time to reacclimatise, recover from the jetlag and then head down to Edinburgh to catch the last weekend of the Fringe. We didn't have time to do any exploring of new (to us) pubs, so stuck to the tried and tested - the Guildford Arms and Cafe Royal were well up to their usual standard.
BRAEMAR
I'll slip in a quick mention here for http://www.moorfieldhousehotel.com/, which I reckon is probably the best pub for beer on Deeside nowadays. The Banchory pubs all seem to be going downhill, but we've found those further up Deeside - like most of the Ballater ones and, particularly the Moorfield in Braemar - are much better. The latter had 4 interesting cask beers on, all in great condition, when we visited recently.
DEESIDE BREWERY TRIP
Early in September, I had arranged with the MD, Steve Crossland for a visit to the brewery by local CAMRA members. Steve showed us round the brewery operations and also introduced us to the new sister operation Twin Rivers Distillery. Here's Steve (4th from left) addressing some of the group of 16 members:
After the brewery visit, we all travelled round to the Ravenswood British Legion for a branch meeting, held outside in the bright sunshine:
YORKSHIRE DALES
Most recently. I spent a long weekend with our walking group in the Dales. Our accommodation was in Kettlewell at http://www.racehorseshotel.co.uk/, which had 4 Timothy Taylor beers on. There are two other thriving pubs in the village:
- http://www.thekingsheadkettlewell.co.uk/ - bit of a gastro pub - excellent food and 3 decent ales, but hardly any space to sit/stand at the bar.
- http://bluebellkettlewell.co.uk/ - as many as 8 ales available, but the food is decidedly at the lower end of the good pub food scale.
During our trip, we also sampled ales in:
- Green Dragon, Hardraw
- Queen's Arms, Litton
- The Falcon, Arncliffe
- White Lion, Cray
- The Fountaine Inn, Linton in Craven
- The Foresters Arms, Grassington
- Fox and Hounds, Starbotton
It was a virtually unanimous vote for the beer of the weekend - Buckden Pike, brewed by Yorkshire Dales of Leyburn. Lovely pub too - and great food.
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