First blog post for a month - it's been a fairly quiet time recently. One footy trip to Glasgow, when I managed a couple of swift pints in the Counting House, and a rare Friday night excursion in to Aberdeen for a few beers at Simpson's, P.o.W. and Ma's, are about all the excursions I've managed recently - until this week.
In preparation for the GBG selection meeting next Wednesday, I've been completing the remaining Deeside pub surveys this week. Banchory's easy enough - the Legion, Douglas, Burnett and Stag are all regular haunts, and I even managed a brief stop at Scott Skinner's - sad to say, it hasn't changed - the beer taste is still tainted and I'd be in no rush to return. Skinner's is down to just one operational handpump in winter - Everard's Tiger this week.
The Stag had one I hadn't tried before - Hancock's Penned In, apparently one of the Hancock's Humorous Ales range, according to the Molson Coors web site, where it's described as an August/September seasonal ale - so what's it doing in Banchory in February?
The Learney Arms at Torphins has dramatically improved the quality and reliability of its ales over the last year or so and I no longer walk in there not knowing what to expect - I haven't had a bad pint there for a long while, and they always seem to have beer on, even in winter when they're down to one pump. There's talk that they will at last be trying out some of the Deeside ales - the Learney has almost always been Inveralmond and Cairngorm until now.
I had my first ever beer in the Macbeth Arms, Lumphanan this week. It hadn't been somewhere that was on my rota - or wish list - but it had been pointed out to me recently that they had two handpumps on the bar, and it had also, I think, been added to the local real ale pubs list in Nor-Sea Ale? However, within seconds of ordering a half of Cairngorm Gold, saying I was doing a survey for CAMRA, I was told it wasn't real ale as CO2 was used - they didn't have the custom to keep real ale.
Misleading dispense? Both handpumps were serving Cairngorm beers, so does the brewery have some kind of moral responsibility here as they set up the system for the pub?
Ballater was a much better proposition. I handed over the car keys at this stage to my better half and sampled the fare in the Balmoral, Alexandra and Glenaden. (The Deeside Hotel is always closed at this time of year and it was in darkness when we passed.) The Balmoral's regulars like Deuchar's and Thrappledouser - and that's what they get - all the time, never changing.
I got a very pleasant surprise when I discovered two Burnside ales in the Glenaden Hotel - Black Katz and Golden X, but the best pub in Ballater for me is still the Alexandra. Despite being a bit "loungey" in feel, they actually had more regulars propping up the bar than the other 2 pubs in the village - and they've still got 2 of their 3 handpumps on in the middle of winter in what is a low population area - a good sign.
The Alexandra Hotel is very proud to have made the GBG for the first time this year and they have a large CAMRA banner outside announcing this fact, and I was told this had been very effective at attracting custom over the last year. They take their beers exclusively from Scottish micros - mostly Cairngorm, Inveralmond and now also Orkney. Chiel's Ale is their house beer, brewed by Inveralmond - a blend of Ossian and Thrappledouser. The pub donates 10p from every pint of Chiel's Ale sold to the local charity of the same name at the end of the year.
From there it was back to the Boat Inn, Aboyne - still on the market, with the owners looking for a seven figure sum and in no rush to accept much less than this. They've had a couple of tentative offers, but taxation appears to have been an issue with the sellers looking to maximise the proportion of the selling price deemed to be heritable property (as opposed to fixtures, goodwill etc) and potential buyers wanting to do the complete opposite. It's unlikely, given the capital sum involved, to be acquired by a younger couple starting off in the trade - more likely to go to somebody who's on their 3rd or 4th business. The pub is always busy and I imagine it could be a bit of a cash cow for somebody who can raise the capital - and that's also why the owners don't need to rush the sale.
As regards beer, the Boat had 2 of its 3 handpumps on, one of which was serving Foxy Blonde from Scottish Borders. They had been in touch with Deeside Brewery after they re-opened last month and had ordered some beer, but it hadn't arrived yet.
The penultimate stop on the way home was the Potarch. We arrived there bang on 9pm to find the staff shutting up shop and about to drive home, so we moved on round the back road to the Feughside, which is pretty remote, and doesn't have much of a local community to draw on and therefore struggles through the winter each year. It was no surprise that there was no ale on - in fact, it's been a long while since I was in there and the handpump was actually operating.
The general air of all the publicans I spoke to was pretty gloomy about the state of the trade - especially in the more rural areas.
I had a long chat with Mike Bain, the new owner of Deeside Brewery (which has now been "re-branded") and I've arranged to go out to the brewery tomorrow morning, so I'll get more news then about their plans for the future.
To close, this piece from last week's Sunday Times about the mini-controversy in the House of Commons over the name of a beer amused me:
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