Of course Scotland is more famous for their Scotch, and I'll blog about that tomorrow....but they also have some good beers!
Our beer experience started off in Edinburgh, where did a "Beer Tour". We ended up tasting about 14 different beers at 3 different pubs. 14 beers sounds like alot, but it was just a small sample of each...and it was over a couple of hours.
Some of the more interesting beers were... Manual- Singing and Dancing Fierce- Cranachan Killer Pilot- Mochaccino Stout Fierce- Moose Mouse
6 Degrees North- Brevet and Wander Beyond- Raspberry Crash.
Not only did we do the beer tour in Edinburgh, we also hit a few brewpubs....including the St. Andrews Brewing company.
Notice how BIG the samplers are? Thankfully we hit the brewpub before we played our golf (see Scotland Blog 1).
We also went to a restaurant/bar that was OWNED by a brewery. Funny thing is, we selected the the place because we liked the name.
They were owned by the Cairngorm Brewery. (Note Cairngorm was the name of the National Park in the area).
So...we got a sampler
Do you see the winking owl on the sampler tray?
Another brewpub we tried some beer at was the Drygate Brewery. (Which was part owned by a bigger brewery)
Though....we didn't just go to brewpubs.....we actually stayed at a hotel that was also a brewery! Yes....we chose to stay there because they had a brewery in the hotel.
Of course I got the Braveheart beer there....and it was quite good.
We also did a beer tour at our last city....Glasgow. Though instead of doing a tour of the brewery, we did the brewery's city history tour. We started at the main cathedral and hit some historic spots, learning the cities history....in fact too much history if you ask me. I thought it would be a little history and more sights.....but it was 3 locations and almost 2 hours of history. Thankfully the tour ended with a pint of their beer
Tennents from the Wellpark brewery is one of the biggest beers in Scotland. It seemed like a Bud vs Miler situation with Tennents and Belhaven. Often in pubs around the country we would see Tennents beer signs, clocks, and other decorations.
Inside the Tennents brewery, they have a free mini arcade, with a couple of foos ball tables, and some video games.
I played a game that was kinda like rootbeer tapper
One other thing that gave me chuckle at the Tennents brewery was the sign on one of their bathrooms.
Fun stuff..... Not only we did we visit a brewery and several brew pubs, we also hit some regular pubs....although some we hit because we liked the name.
We also went to a historic pub in Edinburgh, which was named because it was located near the Gallows, where they would hang people way back in the day...
Another interesting thing we saw in the pubs....was a different Guinness beer.
I had to ask the bartender what Guinness Extra Cold was....and they said it was just 13 degrees cooler than regular Guinness. It was odd, there were more taps for Guinness Extra Cold than there were for Guinness regular.
We also picked up a few bottles of beer for in the hotel room. (though only our hotel rooms in Edinburgh & Glasgow had refrigerators....so beers we bought on day 1, we didn't drink until the last day)
Here's one of the more interesting bottles
As for my top 3 favorite beers on the trip I hadn't never tried before...
#3 Belhaven's Best
Number 2.....Skye Red (from the the Isle of Skye, where we had some of the most beautiful scenery which I'll blog about later)
And my favorite beer on the trip.....Caledonia's Best
It's funny, the Caledonia's Best was created about 5 years ago by the same folks who make Tennents Beer to compete with the #3 on my list. (Belhavens Best)
We didn't know that till I asked on the Tennents history tour. It's an English Bitter Beer, but it wasn't bitter tasting (why I liked it)
All and all a fun trip of trying new beers. Tomorrow I'll blog about the Scotch we tried.
K.C.-ya!