Top Pubs & Top of the Hops down Ayrshire way: 27th February 2016

With the 6 Nations rugby, some family matters to attend to and the generally seriously wet winter weather, I don't get about too much in February. However, with a bright, crisp and clear day promised (and an early start), I thought I would be able head down to Ayrshire for a walk along the coast, find some food & some beer and also visit a new beer/homebrew shop in Kilmarnock before watching the Scotland rugby game from the Italian capitol.

Outward travel was as follows:-
  Train: Glasgow Central to Irvine (00, 05, 30, 35 on the hour)

Irvine on the Ayrshire coast is a place I know quite well, having worked there for a good number of years, although I'd have to qualify that in that I know the industrial estates and the shopping centre, but not the harbourside area. So instead of joining the majority of people who headed off the train and into the sprawling Rivergate Centre and nearby retail outlets I headed in the opposite direction towards Irvine's historic harbourside area. This is where the rivers Garnock & Irvine come together to empty into the Firth of Clyde and where ships have landed cargo and supplies for hundreds of years. The port declined rapidly in the 20th Century when the upper Clyde ports came into prominence and now there are only a few older vessels moored upstream from the smaller leisure vessels in the newer marina.

I'd seen a strange bridge over the river quite a few times from the train and had always thought it was some sort of unfinished or storm damaged grain/aggregate conveyor bridge but as I came closer something started to click in my memory. This was the sliding Bridge of Scottish Invention walk/cycleway which linked across to now closed The Big Idea science centre on the Ardeer Peninsula. The sides of the bridge are festooned with the names & inventions of various Scottish scientists down the ages and it also had an intriguing slide-in/slide-out docking mechanism to allow access for tall ships to/from Irvine harbour. With the closure of The Big Idea in 2003 the bridge is always open nowadays with the entrance to the bridge completely boarded up but Ayrshire Creative Corridor have plans to turn the sand dune-like structure of The Big Idea into a hub for high-tech ventures although this is still in the very early planning stages.

The walk along the river to the coast isn't too long and really is quite a lovely stroll on a bright, sunny day and as I came to the end of it I found another intriguing structure, the multi-level Pilot House. This is by no means the most architecturally stunning building about, but it had a life-saving practical use to automatically signal the depth and state of the tide in the river to ships, both during the day (by use of a selection of large black balls) and at night (by using a sequence of lights). There aren't too many structures like still standing in the UK and it's great to come across them.

Ayrshire has a lot of great breaches, Troon, West Kilbride and the long sands of Ayr itself, but I hadn't realised the beach at Irvine was so spectacular, with miles of silver sands and high dunes in front of the raised beach; today these were sparely populated with walkers, scampering dogs and even a couple of horses & riders.

I could have quite happily walked for ages along the beach but the winter sun had just about reached high-noon and so I back-tracked towards the town centre. There are a number of pubs, coffee shops and the Harbour Arts Centre opposite the river walkway but today The Ship Inn was my intended destination although I wasn't quite sure about which entrance to use - either through the sunken conservatory at the front left or what seemed to be as separate-ish pub at the right-hand side (the Wee Catch).

Since I was looking for some food I went for the central front door and was rewarded by the sight a dark wooden panelled rectangular bar with a number of shiny keg fonts but also 2 hand-pulls. There wasn't anything on the first but the 2nd had something I wasn't expecting, a house beer called Auld Ship 1567.

I obviously asked which brewery provided this and was told it was told it was a Caledonian beer. This was a bit surprising since I didn't think Caley did that type of thing but when I tried it I could well believe it - very malty sweet, some red berries, and not a lot of hoppy bitterness - it was OK but could have been a lot better. I sat down at one of the tables in the many nooks of the sunken conservatory area and although this new part probably doesn't date back to 1567 it's very nicely decked out - the sloping roof has charcoal drawings of the old riverside of Irvine and there lots of Burns quotes dotted around the walls - I'm a sucker for this type of stuff.

Food-wise they do all sorts of stuff in here, from breakfast (10-12am only), to sandwiches, their famous fish-and-chips and other pub mains & specials. I was going to plump for the soup-and-sandwich deal (quelle surprise) but found out that the soup-of-the-day contained sweetcorn (arghhh...) and so on the advice of the waitress I went for the pasta special instead. This was spicy Italian sausage & rocket in a cream sauce & quite, quite outstanding. The thick creamy, slightly herby sauce in particular was superb and I really had to force myself not to lick the plate clean.

After that full-on carbohydrate intake I needed a bit of a walk and so headed back towards the centre of Irvine. Just before the train station I came across a small shop that had been boarded up when I went past earlier, Vanilla Joe's. This bills itself as 'The Best Gelateria in Scotland', a lofty & ambitious title, and although the cold-tray of ice creams seemed impreasive, I was way too full of creamy pasta sauce to attempt one of their confections - I will definitely have to come back.

As I walked past the sprawling Rivergate Centre I did think about popping into the relatively new Wetherspoons, The Auld Brig, but decided that my rugby-based schedule didn't really allow me this liberty and so skirted this complex and found the footpath along the River Irvine just to the north & east of the centre.

I didn't stay on this too long but instead followed another path through the mass of industrial units, roundabouts and swooping seagulls that make up the central part of Irvine. This merges into the smaller community of Dreghorn with a large TA Barracks on the outskirts and an ultra-modern glass, concrete & steel Primary School. As I continued through Dreghorn Main Street I came across the old Primary School building, alma mater of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, which has been bought by Arran Brewery.

The plan for this Victorian building (and the whole site) is to become Scotland's first Sake brewery, a visitor centre and the bottling & distribution centre for all of Arran's beers - definitely an ambitious undertaking. This has been hampered by a number of break-ins in the last 18 months, and when I went past there wasn't too much in the way of outward progress, but anything that brings jobs (and beer/Sake) into the area has got to be welcomed.
I think it is possible to walk all of the way into Kilmarnock from Irvine but I wasn't going to try that today. Instead I got on one of the frequent Ardrossan-Kilmarnock buses and stayed on until the terminus at Kilmarnock bus station. From here it was only a few minutes to the Foregate area of Kilmarnock where Top of the Hops is located.

This is a fairly new venture, having been opened in September of last year by local man John Mullen. Inside is a great array of bottled beer both Scottish (Ayr, Arran, Black Metal, Alechemy, Fallen and others), UK wide (Wiper and True, Kernel, Weird, Wild, Wold Top) as well as a diverse Belgian & German selection. As befits modern tastes there is also an craft can collection on the shelves with Beaverton, Four Pure, Adnams & Magic Rock all present and correct.

The other side of the shop is given over to homebrew supplies with a choice from basic kits up to all grain and a eclectic selection of yeast types.

From talking to the engaging owner it seems he took inspiration from Hippo Beers in Glasgow, and after a bit of a shaky time after the Christmas & New Year period, sales are heading in the right direction again. He plans to introduce a growler station, hopefully in the next few months, with key-kegs from both a local brewery (possibly Ethical Ales) and one from further afield, and also has further plans for a sit-down and drink-in-the-shop section, although that would seem to require a lot more in the way of planning permission.

It's great to see such a shop (in Kilmarnock as well, quite amazing) and I'm hoping he does really well. I bought a good number of bottles (bubble-wrapped against the world) and headed off to find somewhere to watch the rugby. As far as I know the place in Kilmarnock for this (and decent beer) is Fanny By Gaslight, a traditional Victorian Saloon Bar that I've been to a number of times in recent visits down this way and which has evolved into a great pub.

The place has been recently awarded CAMRA East Ayrshire Pub of the Year and I'm not that surprised. The full island bar is fantastic, there was a mini beer festival on today (a fairly safe, but good range of local Scottish beers from Harviestoun, Drygate, Orkney and some new bottled beer from Keith Brewery), and the staff are great, chatty & helpful (I was offered a high-backed chair to watch the rugby simply because I'm tall, a complete first for me). Scotland even won their 6-Nations game against Italy which I watched to the end in Fanny's with some more than decent beer - a welcome end to an afternoon out in Ayrshire.

Outward travel was as follows:-
  Train: Kilmarnock to Glasgow Central (27, 57 on the hour)

Ethical Ales in the land of Honest Men: 15th August 2015

A new Scottish brewery is always an interesting event (there's 'only' ~110 of them), so I was intrigued to see that fledgling brewery Ethical Ales were operating out of East Ayrshire where there is a definite dearth of decent (well, progressive, shall we say) pubs. I'd spent a number of years on the Ayrshire coast and made quite a few trips out to the long-lamented Windie Goat Brewery in the East Ayrshire hamlet of Failford (brewster Michelle is now operating the Offbeat Brewery in Crewe), so this was a welcome chance to head down that way again (into the land of Honest Men, according to Robbie Burns) to visit Ethical Ales on their Brewery Open Day.

Outward travel was as follows:-
  Train: Glasgow Central to Newton-on-Ayr (often)
  Bus: Newton-on-Ayr to Mossblown (Stagecoach West 43/43A, 08, 21, 38, 51 on the hour)

The way the trains had worked out I'd just managed to miss the bus from Newton-on-Ayr out to the centre of Annbank so instead I had to wait for the next bus out to the not quite so handy village of Mossblown (I've always though this is a great name, it should really be in the American mid-west!). I walked down the hill, past a church & a school before reaching the 3-way junction before Annbank proper. Instead of entering the village I kept on walking further down the hill and within 5 minutes I had come to the narrow bridge over the River Ayr which connects into the River Ayr Way. Even from here I could see the arches of the long Enterkine Railway Viaduct slightly upriver.

This line takes used coal to the nearby Killoch Disposal Point and as I got closer I could see the huge length & height of the viaduct as it spans the River Ayr and its wide flood plain.

I headed east on the narrow River Ayr Way which is really just a footpath, and certainly not a cyclepath, at this point. I'd worn shorts that morning (thankfully long-shorts, not short-shorts), but even so managed to get my knee-regions quite impressively red with a number of scrapes/stings from various brambles, thistles and other stingy plants & insects. The narrow path of the River Ayr Way eventually opened up into the edge of a huge field of golden wheat that had just been harvested - I did think about hitching a ride on the combine harvester but decided against it.

The path along the field took me took me past a small farm and then onto a narrow road at a stone bridge over the River Ayr at Stair.

Just up a slight incline from here I came across the welcoming sight of the Stair Inn with a large car park at the rear and tables out front.

I went inside, ordered a glass of water and a beer (Strathaven Summer Glow was the only choice, with the other hand-pull turned around) and contemplated the food choice. They don't do light-bites (sandwiches, paninis etc...) at lunchtime so I decided on the soup of the day (Cream of Mushroom) and some chips; it wasn't a problem at all to order these rather than a main course. I had these outside on one of the tables at the front and they were very good indeed (and really hot-very-hot).

It was outside at the table where one of the strangest things that had ever happened to me around-abouts a pub/bar occurred. I was waiting for my soup & chips when I noted that a car had pulled up outside The Stair. I thought it was a bit strange that the car had parked immediately outside the front of the pub rather than in the car park at the rear but later found out that that is supposedly a normal thing-to-do by some of the locals. A few people got out of the car, entered the pub and (I assume) ordered some lunch. A good few minutes later I heard a bit of a creaking sound (I was facing the Stair and so had my back the car to block out the sun) but didn't think anything of it. About 30 seconds later I heard another loud creak and decided that it could be that something was wrong with the car's handbrake. I got up, walked into the pub and went to find the owner of the car. This must of taken all of about 10 seconds, but when I eventually got the guy off his mobile phone and told him about the creaking sound, we looked outside the window of the pub to see his car starting to trundle down the hill! Cue absolute panic and 'where the f**k are the keys'. By the time we got out of the pub the car was half way down the small hill and there was no way it was stopping... except when it ploughed into a wall before a bridge over a small burn. The left front wheel of the car was totally buckled and I'm guessing it had to be towed back to a garage. Thankfully no-none was hurt, but maybe if I'd only been a bit quicker in going to find the guy... it really was just one of those bizarre occurrences.

After the drama at the Stair Inn I headed out into the countryside almost due east on a narrow single track road (with passing places) taking a curved route around Stairhill Farm until reaching a number of crossroads. It was here that I spied a laser-printed notice for a Brewery Open Day; this was definitely promising. As I took the road downhill even more promising was the sight of an Ethical Ales sign in front of a collection of buildings called Roddenloft House (the official name of the actual brewery is Roddenloft Brewery).

Out in the courtyard between the various buildings the Ethical Ales mobile bar had been setup (it does look a bit like a double-glazing stand with fold-out glass windows & advertising signs), and in front of it there was a scattering of tables, chairs and additional bales of hay to sit on. There were 2 sets of double-keg fonts connected up on the bar with all 3 beers that they currently brew (future beers are listed on their website) available to try-and-buy, these being Horny Cow classic IPA (with 3 new-world varieties of hops), Hoppy Daze pilsner (with Saaz hops) and Stag Do stout (with Willamette hops). I'd had the Horny Cow in the Allison Arms in Glasgow's south-side a few weeks earlier so went for the Hoppy Daze pilsner (slightly sweet, but then loads of smooth, earthy bitterness, not bad at all), for the special thanks-for-getting-here first pint price of £1 - can't say better than that.

I sat down on one of the hay bales, grabbed a sausage roll to nibble on, and chatted away to the brewery owner (and owner of Roddenloft House), George Hammersley. It seems that after starting up in April of this year they will be initially targeting the outdoor event & show market (such as the Doune & Dunblane Show and the Moffat International Sheep Dog Trials) but in this first year of operation are finding a bit of resistance from supplier tie-in from the 'big' breweries, however they are also supplying their beer to a number of 'local' pubs that have the correct keg lines, currently the Allison Arms (this was the IPA but is now the pilsner), the Quarter Gill on Dumbarton Road (pilsner), the Foxbar Hotel in Kilmarnock (IPA), and (when the keg line gets fixed) the nearby Stair Inn that I'd just visited. I also asked George about the name itself, Ethical Ales, and it seems they want to be as environmentally friendly as possible, with a carbon-neutral brewery and an Ethical Fund whereby 15p in every pint goes to support good causes connected with wildlife & the countryside (this is their 'mission statement' on the side of the mobile bar).

There was a steady flow of people into the courtyard and so the guys decided to run a tour of the brewery with head brewer Michael Sullivan (he also owns part of the company) taking the lead. The brewery building itself used to be a cottage but was converted into a 2-level brewery in 2014-2015. Inside there's a brand new 4 barrel system with hot-liquor-tank and mush tun...

...and also a copper and heat exchanger close to which Michael had placed various types of malt & and hops for us to try. From the choice of these there's no doubt that Michael prefers the more intense flavours & aromas of new world hops from the US and Australia/New Zealand.

In a separate section of the ground floor are the 2 fermenting vessels and some filtration equipment which lightly filters the beer...

...and also the 4 conditioning tanks; since they're brewing a 'real' pilsner in Hoppy Daze, this takes a significant time to lager/condition and so the tanks are well used.

Once finished the beers end up in the bright beer tank where they are carbonated and dispensed into to kegs (and mini-casks/kegs which can be picked up from the brewery or bought at the mobile bar).

Michael indicated that currently Ethical Ales don't plan to produce real ale in cask form (although bottled beer is still a possibility); Michael's personal preference is for a cooler, slightly carbonated style of beer and they're happy to go down that route at the moment, perhaps to distinguish themselves from a number of nearby West of Scotland real ale breweries. I thanked Michael for the tour and headed back into the courtyard for a pint of the Stag Do stout, full of dark chocolate, spicy blackcurrant and with a bitter-fruit finish (a lovely hoppy stout). On a fairly hot afternoon outside in the courtyard these were all great - good luck indeed to Ethical Ales in the future. I next had to find my way into Mauchline itself and walked north along some more narrow roads for 45 minutes of so before reaching the town limits. Due to the vagaries of the Stagecoach bus service I didn't have time to visit a number of interesting Burns-related places in Mauchline, the Burns House Museum or the turret-like Mauchline Castle where Burns was married, but I did at least pass Poosie Nancie's Inn where the Bard was meant to 'socialise'.

Instead I took the bus into Kilmarnock bus station where I got off and walked through the town centre towards the train station. Immediately opposite this is the magnificent restored 19th Century façade of Fanny by Gaslight, a 'Victorian Saloon Bar'.

Since I was first here back in early 2013 the interior seems to have become even more cluttered (in a good way) but they've also introduced a couple of hand-pulls on the fantastic island bar as well as a selection of bottled (mostly Drygate) beers. Even better this week they were celebrating Kilmarnock Food and Drink week with a number of additional real ales and so I took a pint of Deeside Swift and, before having to cross the road for the train back, contemplated a very interesting day out in East Ayrshire.

Return travel:-
  Bus: Mauchline to Kilmarnock (Stagecoach X76, 08 on the hour)
  Train: Kilmarnock to Glasgow Central (27, 57 on the hour)

Kilmaurs to Kilmarnock: 12th January 2013

During the winter months it can be somewhat more difficult to get out-and-about due to the weather and the shortened daylight hours, so I normally try to minimise travelling time and walk about around pubs which are closer to home. Today I decided to travel to Kilmaurs & Kilmarnock in East Ayrshire, both well served by a frequent train service to Glasgow, and also visit an historical piece of industrial infrastructure.


View Kilmarnock in a larger map

Outward travel was as follows:-
  Train: Glasgow Central to Kilmaurs (12, 42 on hour)

It had turned out to be a lovely bright, crisp winter's day when I took the short walk up the hill from Kilmaurs train station to the small selection of shops on the High Street and Kilmaurs Cross. At this junction of the two main roads in & out of the village are the old Toll Booth (now a Chinese Restaurant/Take-away!) and the Town Jail (or 'Jouggs'), complete with sets of 'irons' on the walls.

Adjacent to these buildings is the Weston Tavern, which was originally the Kilmaurs Manse (so, basically church, jail & toll-booth all in close proximity !).

At the front is the bar area, effectively split into two - a long modern grey/granite bar-top & standing area on the left and a more traditional sitting area on the right, complete with lots of bare brick-work, a wood burning fire and musical instruments hanging on the wall. I could only see one hand-pull on the bar with Sulwath Brewery's Burn's Night beer, The Grace, available - very sweet, with lots of toffee & caramel flavours and just a slight citrus bitterness, but I've actually started to like these a lot more recently so I was happy to take a pint of this. Looking around the bar area it was most definitely a 'beer and crisps only' environment so I headed through to the back of the building to the restaurant for some lunch. Here a very polite young lad showed me to a table, took my coat and let me order the soup of the day (Tomato & Basil). It's a classy restaurant, with a number of Jack Vettriano prints, more exposed brickwork, another fire, lots of Daily Specials and it also doubles as a Coffee Shop early in the morning (lots of diet-breaking scones & cakes were on display which I managed to resist).

The soup was more than fine and after paying the bill (how much do you tip for a £3.25 soup ?) I headed outside. A couple of years ago another pub selling real ale opened (or was re-opened) across the road from the Weston Tavern, The Wheatsheaf. This started off really well (I remember 3 or 4 hand-pulls available on a Saturday afternoon), but with a long-established pub so close-by I think The Wheatsheaf only lasted 18 months or so and is now most certainly closed & boarded-up - a definite shame.

My plan was now to walk along the path of the main road to Crosshouse. This involved walking over the Irvine to Kilmarnock cycle-path and into the village of Knockentiber where a fairly sizeable crowd were watching the local football team play in a cup match. In the centre of the Knockentiber I came across an interesting pair of conjoined premises - the Tiber Tavern and Tiber Store

The building has had a bit of a chequered past, but today it's been redeveloped with new signage, seats at the front & side and a nice modern look. The Tiber Store is part village convenience store, part hot & cold food take-away (selling bacon rolls, sandwiches etc... at decent prices) whilst the Tiber Tavern is most definitely the village local. I headed in without too much expectation and was quite pleasantly surprised. A nice comfy seating area at the front with a couple of sofas & magazines on hand to read, a couple of TVs, a decent juke-box, a long sweeping (albeit sparsely populated) bar-top and some tables and chairs at the back along with an area for live music or karaoke.

Even more surprisingly, in addition to the standard Tennents, Guinness, John Smiths & McEwans fonts were bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale & Deuchars IPA - not too bad at all (there was also Amstel on tap, but at £2/pint I assume it wasn't going to be around for too much longer). I took a bottle of Nookie Broon, got chatting to friendly landlady and found out that she & her family also run the Tiber Store, and that they hope to start offering bar lunches later on this year now that the front and sides of the building have been completed. It seems to be a really great community local and there was a nice moment when one of the more elderly gents at the bar was given his 'Joker' - i.e. a free entry or two into the raffle.

I next walked down to the slightly larger village of Crosshouse, where the huge expanse of Crosshouse Hospital can be glimpsed at various places. I did go past a pub in the centre of the village, Bridges Bar...

...but decided to give this a miss and instead took the back road out of Crosshouse under the A71 dual carriageway linking Irvine & Kilmarnock. Soon I came to a sign for the Laigh Milton Viaduct, opened in 1812 and which crosses the River Irvine. It may not be the highest, or the most spectacular, but that 1812 date means that it is the oldest surviving public railway viaduct on the planet.

There's a path from the road to the viaduct but at the end of the path, as it rises to the viaduct level, this was extremely muddy & slippery with only a wooden fence to hang onto in some places. The viaduct is in a bit of a nowhere spot today, it leads to a farm road and that's about it, but it's certainly well enough maintained to wander across to the other side. I do like all the old industrial heritage & architecture that's still around in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire.

I could have walked back the way I came but decided to follow a boundary fence up to & through a working farm for a short distance until coming to Gatehead and The Cochrane Inn, a really pretty Country Pub and Restuarant - look at all that ivy!

This is a venture by the Ayrshire-based Costley group, and is most definitely food orientated, in fact that horrific label of 'Gastropub' immediately springs to springs here. The main restaurant is on the larger left side of the building, with a smaller bar (basically an overflow for the main restaurant) on the right. The bar does have a few seats, low beams, a gleaming grey/granite bar-top, some hanging tankards, glass cabinets and a lot of brass farm stuff, but there's nothing remotely interesting to drink and why I decided to take that bottle of Birra Moretti I don't know. It's a more than acceptable place for something to eat with the staff really polite & courteous, but I don't think I would ever contemplate going back just for something to drink and for a chat, whereas I would do so for the Tiber Tavern.

It is possible to walk into Kilmarnock from Gatehead but I decided to catch the hourly bus and get off before the main bus station in John Finnie St. This meant it was only a short distance along Portland Road to Grange St and the Brass & Granite, one of a surprisingly large number of pubs in the street (I think there's four).

This is large, interesting place that I've always quite liked - part American diner complete with TVs & pool table at the back, part pub with a nice long bar, and part almost Dutch Café with lots of sofas, tables, bookcases and bric-a-brac at the front.

There are also lots of faded olde-fashioned food, drink & household signs & prints for such diverse products as Frys Chocolate, Swifts Borax Soap and a number advertising Jack Daniels, but I really liked the sign warning 'No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons' (probably stolen from a Hard Rock Café)! Normally they have 3 hand-pulls available with a decent selection, but today there was only Houston Killellan (a decent citrusy bitter in good condition) or Greene King IPA, although I could have taken the Bacchus Fromboise if I had noticed it earlier.

I was going to head back to Glasgow but decided to see what was happening to the Diaego complex on Hill St, and the founding home of Johnnie Walker blended whisky. This closed in March 2012 and meant that there was no Johnnie Walker presence left in the town of Kilmarnock. Some of the land will be used used by Kilmarnock College, but most of the site is still owned by Diageo, although the buildings do look for the most part set for full demolition (the striding Johnnie Walker logo can still just about be made out).

By now I had just missed my train so I popped into the Kilmarnock JD Wetherspoon's, The Wheatsheaf Inn

This was packed, almost oppressively so, and with only Cotleigh Snowy as an interesting choice of beer I decided to head to the railway station. The large gardens on the approach to the station do have a prominent and colourful feature - a large scale floral clock.

Whilst trying work out the time from the clock (about 3:15) I noticed a pub across the road, Fanny By Gaslight, which was proclaiming itself as a Victorian Saloon Bar dating back to 1846.

It's recently been re-developed as part of the Kilmarnock Townscape Heritage Initiative and really does have a fantastic island bar (albeit somewhat covered in drinks promotion fliers), some great high pillars, an outside balustrade and walls covered in old pictures, Singer sewing machines and other bric-a-brac. There wasn't anything interesting to drink, but I was happy to sit at the long table/bench which runs the complete length of the front windows and drink my Irn Bru whilst waiting for the train to come in.

Return travel:-
  Bus: Gatehead to Kilmarnock (10 Stagecoach, 41 on hour)
  Train: Kilmarnock to Glasgow Central (27, 57 on hour)