While we were at the Edinburgh book festival a few months ago, I picked up a copy of renowned beer writer Pete Brown's (http://www.petebrown.blogspot.com/) last book, Hops and Glory - one man's search for the beer that built the British Empire. No prizes for guessing that it's a travel story about the old days of the Raj and the journey that IPA took from Burton to India.
I finally got round to starting to read it last week and was instantly intrigued by one of the paragraphs in Chapter 2:
Instant empathy! Bridgeport's bottle conditioned IPA is my immediate go-to on our annual visit to our daughter and grandchildren in Oregon each year.
Of course, the very subject of traipsing ale round the oceans brought to mind our local, controversial brewery, who've been creating a lot of traffic on the Yahoo site recently. Didn't they try a similar experiment a year or so ago? Mmm - quick check of Brewdog web site to refresh the old memory buds - found it - Atlantic IPA (http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article.php?id=119) it was called - whatever happened to it anyway? The web site says
"After two tempestuous months aging aboard BrewDog founder James Watt's mackerel trawler on the North Atlantic, Atlantic IPA will be the first commercially available, genuine sea-aged IPA in two centuries - a project which is typical of the scale, audacity and boldness characteristic of BrewDog in its quest to take the UK beer industry by storm."No further comment.
Moving on, Deeside Brewery's newest ale, LAF, is on sale in both the Douglas and the Stag in Banchory - and it seems it's been going down very well with the locals. The cask in the Douglas was finished by the time I got round to trying it this afternoon, but the one in the Stag was sparkling. Rob could be on to something here, because the Stag is primarily a younger lager-lover's haunt and the "fusion" concept seems to have been well accepted so far.
GK's Gangly Ghoul was the other non-standard ale in the Douglas when I was dropping off some Nor-Sea Ales today, and other out of the ordinary local beers recently have included Play On and Wolvers Ale (golf club) and Okells Red and Marstons Wicked Witch (Legion).
I even tried to pop in to Scott Skinner's for my annual check on their beer quality, but forgot they're now closed on midweek afternoons - winter hours. A quick peep through the window revealed nothing more exciting than Deuchar's and Directors on the 2 remaining handpumps, however.
Away from Deeside, I was in Shepherd's Rest last week - same time as DoD, judging by his recent posting - and was a little disappointed by their selection of well known national brands, with nothing remotely exotic on display.
The Redgarth on Friday had Thrappledouser, Ossian and Trade Winds - all in good nick as usual. Just up the road in Meldrum House Hotel - where our son was getting wed - it was no surprise to note the absence of cask ale, but they did at least stock a range of Cairngorm bottled beers, including Trade Winds and Stag, so we settled for that.
Next week it's all a bit downhill - cheap yellow p**s in southern Spain - hope it's sunny at least.
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