Greetings from Idaho. Before we travelled over here for our annual trip to see grandchildren, I had a weekend's golf down in South West Scotland, an area I'd never golfed nor drunk in before. Time was limited, but we did manage a couple of GBG entries. Firstly, the Waverly Bar in Dumfries - not the prettiest of establishments, but they did have LocAle signs up and Sulwath's Criffel was excellent.
J. M. Barrie lived nearby for a few years and one of the picture windows at the Waverly was named the J.M. Barrie View.
On Sunday, we were playing down near Annan and popped in to the Bluebell Inn there to watch the Wimbledon final. Four ales available of which the most driver-friendly was McEwan's 70/-. Nice setting but not sure about some of the clientele there.
Next stop was Seattle - like Portland in neighbouring Oregon, this area of Washington was at the forefront of the craft beer revolution in USA a couple of decades ago and there are abundant opportunities to try different local and national beers. Time was a bit limited, but we made a point of visiting Pike Brewing (http://www.pikebrewing.com/) adjacent to the famous Pike St. Market.
Great brewpub - interesting and atmospheric layout - and they had a cask ale on - their Pale Ale. This is a view of part of the interior:
Really good selection of bottled, as well as keg, beers - including a variety of bottle conditioned Trappist ales and 3 Lambic beers, described as "Wild Ales":
The other local favourites we tried at various hotels and bars included Manny's (http://georgetownbeer.com/), Somersault from New Belgium Brewing, and the seemingly ubiquitous Mac and Jack's (http://www.macandjacks.com/).
The only other brewpub we visited was Queen Anne, part of the McMenamin's chain (http://www.mcmenamins.com/).
Over now in Idaho, we travelled north yesterday to a vibrant and pretty town/city, Sandpoint, not far from the Canadian border. They had 2 brewpubs there, the first of which, Laughing Dog (http://www.laughingdogbrewing.com/ did not admit anyone under 21, so we just sat outside and did their sampler tray, which was very good value - 8 beers totalling 2 pints, for just $5, and they threw in a doggie bowl of chips/crisps etc:
They also had a poster of North West microbreweries:
Back in the centre of the town, Mick Duff's (http://www.mickduffs.com/) was much more child friendly and we had lunch there. We liked the fact that their beer menu provided more than just the abv's - the style, colouring, hops used, IBU's and pricing were all displayed:
A good start to the holiday - hopefully more beers to come.
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