There was a distinctly Scottish flavour to my drinking this weekend. A group of us travelled over to Fort William on Thursday evening and paid a quick visit to the town's 2 GBG entries. Cobbs at Nevisport had 4 beers on - Black Cuillin, Three Sisters, Northern Light and a 4.2% abv house ale called Tower Ridge, brewed for them by Isle of Skye.
Beers there were fine, but the place bears no real comparison to the famous Grog and Gruel, where there were 6 ales on - 2 from An Teallach (their Ale and Crofters' Pale Ale); 2 from Cairngorm (Red Mountain and Trade Winds), plus both Glenfinnan's and Williams' Gold ales.
On Friday morning, we took the train down to Bridge of Orchy to start our walk back along the latter part of the West Highland Way to FW. The Bridge of Orchy Hotel is fairly isolated but was displaying the Cask Marque sign and they had 3 beers on - Vital Spark and Avalanche from Fyne Ales, plus Deuchar's. It was a little early to sample them unfortunately.
We walked through to Glencoe and stayed at the King's House Hotel on Friday night, where we were pleasantly surprised to see 3 hand pumps, with two of them on, serving Northern Light and Stag. That was the good part - the bad bit was the poor appearance and taste of both - cloudy and warm.
On Saturday, we huffed and puffed our way up the Devil's Staircase and were met at the top by a book signing, of all things. The author, Richard Happer - there with his wife and young child -were set up at a trestle table selling signed copies of his novel entitled The Hills Are Stuffed With Swedish Girls, which is subtitled "Scale 1 beer to 1 mile" - how bizarre! For a fiver, we couldn't refuse to take a few - even if just to lighten his load on the way down!
We tramped down to Kinlochleven where we had booked in to the Tailrace Inn - it had been recommended to us early this year - but before the closure of the local Atlas Brewery. Despite large signs outside still advertising Atlas beers, it was no surprise to us to discover that it had since become an ale free zone. There's obviously still a bit of resentment locally - we thought it might possibly have resulted in some of Sinclair Brewery's competitors' products being put on sale there, but it wasn't to be.
A quick scour of the town revealed only one other ale outlet (serving Dark Island), but we decided to pass on this and instead I did a quick check on my CAMRA GBG app which advised me that we were only 4 miles from the renowned Clachaig Inn. Of course, that's 4 miles as the crow flies, but we managed to rustle up a nearby taxi firm who could take all 7 of us over there - and it took only 20-25 minutes - and all for just £20.
It was Saturday night and the place was mobbed - 13 hand pumps in the bar, with 8 of them serving Scottish ales, plus one Scrumpy:
Fabulous place and a great atmosphere. The taxi driver on the return leg told us that the former employees at Atlas were considering starting up again in the same premises in Kinlochleven, but apparently they have to wait until November at least, as the lease is still in Sinclair's name until then. This didn't seem entirely logical, as none of the brewing equipment has been left there anyway - it's all now in Orkney apparently. Perhaps it's just small town talk - time will tell.
On Sunday morning, it was back up from sea level over the hills and the 15 mile tramp back to Fort William. We were staying at the Nevisbank Hotel, at what used to be the end of the West Highland Way. The hotel has just been refurbished and now stocks Deuchar's on hand pull. A swift pint there, then the last bit of the walk up the High St to the new end of the WHW, then back to the Grog and Gruel.
Just across the street there is the Ben Nevis Hotel, which had Dark Island, Caley 80/- and Deuchar's on, but this was no competition for the G & G, where there were 4 new ales on, as well as both An Teallach Ale and Glenfinnan Gold, both of which had also been on on Thursday evening. The "new" ales were Cairngorm's Gold and Wildcat, An Teallach's Suilven and Glenfinnan's The Standard Ale, which was one I hadn't tried before, and most of us seemed to like it. Their web site says it is brewed "using a selection of North American aromatic hops".
So that was my weekend in the West Highlands - and here's the stats:
- 10 separate bars visited, with the Grog and Gruel getting a double dunt
- 9 separate breweries
- 26 different brews
- and every single one of them Scottish - and most of them would probably qualify as "LocAle".
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