Balloch and Drymen to Balmaha on Loch Lomond: 30th June 2012

It was promising to be dry this weekend for the first time in a couple of weeks so I decided to (reluctantly) give an additional trip to the Scottish Real Ale Festival in Edinburgh a miss and instead get out into the countryside for a walk. I hadn't been up around Loch Lomond way for a while so thought I could manage a trip out to the east side of the Loch via Balloch and Drymen.

View Balmaha in a larger map

Outward travel was as follows:-
  Train: Glasgow Westerton to Alexandria
  Bus: Balloch to Drymen (309, McColl's Buses - see timetable)

After a quick chat with the guys (& gal!) at the Loch Lomond Brewery in Alexandria I walked up the River Leven pathway to the marina/boatyard at Balloch - the gateway to the southern section of Loch Lomond.

I only had a short time before my bus connection at Balloch's main bus stance so went looking for a swift half at The Balloch House.

It's another Mitchells & Butlers Vintage Inn with a similar setup & decor as a number of other places I've been (Commodore in Helensburgh, Cambustay in Broughty Ferry). This doesn't make it bad - not at all, it's a really 'nice', classy place, friendly staff and excellent guest beer selection (today Ilkley Mary Jane, Fullers Summer Ale & Itchen Valley Calypso) - it's just that it really is very similar to all the others. Sit in one of the comfy bars or the restaurant and you really couldn't be sure which pub or town you were in.

Actually that's not fair - sit in the beer garden and you could be sure - the stunning views up to the Loch gives that all away. I had my half of Itchen Valley Calypso (a bit of a strange, earthy, bitter taste, but actually pretty good) and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of people walking along the shore and getting on and off Sweeney's Cruises around the Loch.

The bus service to Drymen & Balmaha is about every hour and a half, not bad at all given the fairly small towns & villages it connects. The bus did struggle up even the slightest gradient (the description 'a piece of s**t' was given by the driver) but we actually made the journey dead on time.

I got off the bus in the centre of Drymen, one of the many villages just off the main Balloch to Stirling road which skirts the north of the Campsie Hills. In the village itself are a number of craft shops, galleries, a great cafe/ice cream parlour (Skoosh) and quite a few eating places, including a surprisingly large selection of pubs & hotels. I decided on the Clachan Inn on the north side of the village square which claims to be the oldest registered licensed pub (1734) in Scotland (I guess 'registered' is the key word here in fighting off counter claims from The Sheep Heid Inn and the Kenmore Hotel).

I went into the bar on the left hand side (with the restaurant on the right) and immediately spied a pump-clip for Kelburn's excellent new Jaguar (their Pivo Estivo was the other choice). I then settled down with a pint of this (after being offered a taster - always good to see), chatted with the staff about how fast the Jaguar seemed to be selling (less than 24 hours for a cask) and perused the 3 menus (specials, lite-bites & main meals). Choice made I sat back and took in a bit more of the bar area - a fairly small place with the main bar at the back, pictures of old Drymen, Glasgow trams & Loch Lomond and a number of whisky & Whitbread Ale mirrors on the walls, an open fire and flashing puggy machine. There was a TV, but this was off (good!) with the only noise being the chatter of conversation between the locals and the great staff.

My Macaroni Cheese then arrived, was served with a smile and was just what I needed before my walk.

I was just finishing as a large Wedding party come in for pre-Wedding drinks and so made a hasty retreat to take a quick look at the alternative choices in Drymen. On the west side of the square is a large hotel, The Winnock.

It runs a number of 'interesting' events during the year including paranormal 'Spooky Scotland' nights and more light-hearted Murder Mystery weekends. The attached Ptmarmigan bar was fairly quiet when I popped in but did have Belhaven 80/- and Belhaven IPA on hand-pull.

And finally on the east side of the square is an interesting place, the Drymen Pottery, a cafe/shop, restaurant and bar.

I went upstairs to the bar and it's a really quite large, long place with lots of tables, a dart board and pool table. A great pint of Harviestoun Schiehallion could be had from the single hand-pull in the bar and the more intimate restaurant around the side seemed really busy.

I now started on my walk to Balmaha, about four miles down a decent path on the side of the road. To be honest there's not too much of interest in the first few miles - some large houses & B&Bs (one with it's own pitch-and-putt mini-golf course) and a lot of curious sheep before the views of Loch Lomond start to appear, so I think next time it might make more sense to walk the Conic Hill above Balmaha instead.

Coming into Balmaha I passed a new development of Lodges, Loch Lomond Waterfront, but there didn't seem to be anything in the way of public facilities there so I continued on my way past the main car park until the lochside. I'm pretty sure that marina/moorings seem to have increased since the last time I was here, but there's still a great view up the Loch from this location taking in a lot of the islands.

I continued further on along the Loch until a path which leads to a small jetty. Here the Water Ferry to Luss & Inchcailloch Island operates in the summer - £7.50 one way or £10.50 return, see here for more details.

I then back-tracked to the car park where the fairly new Village Shop sells groceries, snacks, ice cream and a lot of walking & foot-care products (not too surprising!), but there is also a pretty decent beer selection for such an out-of-the-way place.

Next to this, and probably the focal place for Balmaha, is the Oak Tree Inn - the eponymous Oak Tree is now so big you can't take a photo without it being in shot.

The Oak Tree has been a travel destination for day trippers from Glasgow and the surrounding area for some time now and is also a stopping off point for walkers on the West Highland Way and it's not hard to see why. There's a bar (today full of diners), a tea room, a conservatory restaurant with views out to the Loch and a number of large tables in the beer garden (again facing the Loch). The bar is choc-full of some quite interesting bric-a-brac - six large grandfather clocks (which thankfully don't chime) & some other carriage clocks, old pictures of Balmaha & the Loch, fishing nets & photos of fishing catches and a huge slate fireplace with brass companion set and a large brass dinner gong. There are also a few rather more 'bizarre' items - a number of huge metal tree saws on the wooden beams, at least 2 pairs of old fashioned wooden skis, a stuffed heron (I think) and alongside the collection of books I spied an old fashioned analog ammeter (which I seriously thought about 'borrowing'). It's certainly one of the most eclectic and individual bars I've ever been into and I liked it a lot.

On at the bar was the usual selection of draught beer, but there was also Balmaha 70/- and Balmaha Cider, both on hand-pull, and a very nice surprise! I obviously asked the barman where they were from and he answered Bridge of Allan, so they're definitely TinPot brews, but he did mention that their own microbrewery would be up and running before the end of the summer - very interesting. There's some further information in their newsletter but the picture in there is of the same TinPot kit I saw in January, so it'll be interesting to find out what they end up building or installing. A return visit will definitely be called for at some point soon!

Returning to the drinks, the Balmaha 70/- was more of a golden bitter than a traditional, malty 70/- but it was more than decent (and could well have been the Tinpot Hoppy 70/-) and the Balmaha Cider was excellent - quite dry and intense.

I left by the new reception area (very swish) and managed to get a picture of the adjoining tea room - the conservatory restaurant is just off to the side of this. There's obviously been a fair amount of money spent on the whole place and it definitely shows.

I then needed to head back on the bus and this time stayed on it all the way to the main stance at Balloch. As I made my way back to the train station I caught sight of this traditional West of Scotland delicacy being advertised in one of Balloch's chippies - definite cholesterol overload, especially with the additional breadcrumbs!

Perfectly positioned for the station is the almost mock-Tudoresque Tullie Inn and I couldn't leave without a final beer.

This is a Maclays Inn with a separate restaurant area (well managed service here) and a fantastic beer garden with seating both at the side and around the back of the building. There shouldn't be a problem getting a seat outside if you want it.

Inside there's also a large bar area with split level seating areas, a sort of an open, light porch area at the front, some comfy sofas dotted about, lots of TVs (it can be really busy when the football is on) and a few interesting tiled sections amongst the normal Maclay's decor. When I arrived Batman, the Village People and sundry others seemed to be getting ready for a night out in Glasgow but there wasn't a problem at all in getting to the bar for a drink. Thankfully they still have some leeway with regards to local ale and there was a great selection from Loch Lomond (Ale of Leven & Kessog) and Fyne Ales (Hurricane Jack & Pipers Gold) - I could probably drink these beers all day.

So an interesting day out visiting some outstanding pubs, quaffing some great beer and taking in the stunning scenery - getting out and about in Scotland is most definitely worth it (well - almost all the time!).

Return Travel:-
  Bus: Balmaha to Balloch (309, McColl's Buses)
  Train: Balloch Central to Glasgow Westerton

Haymarket to the Scottish Real Ale Festival: 27th June 2012

This was to be my first visit to the Scottish Real Ale Festival (SRAF) for a number of years. I'd given it a miss in recent times because on the last occasion I attended when I got in at ~2pm on the Saturday (my normal visiting time), all the new and interesting Scottish beers had gone (although I did get a cool beer-geek T-shirt). Normally at Festivals such as Paisley or Troon this isn't a problem since there are always some of the more 'obscure' English or Foreign beers to be had, but at that particular SRAF this led to only Belhaven or Caledonian beers being available - not really my 'cup-of-tea'/beer, so I left after half an hour. However this year I'd been invited by Alan Lawson from Angus Ales to go along to the SRAF Trade Session on Wednesday evening and this seemed a good opportunity to (hopefully) try a few new beers, have a chat with some of the brewers & bloggers, and see how the SRAF had improved and grown (now to over 180 beers) at its new home in the Edinburgh Corn Exchange in the west of the city.


View SRAF in a larger map

Outward travel was as follows:-
  Train: Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh Haymarket

At this current time when you leave Haymarket Station you basically enter a building site for the long awaited Edinburgh trams - this does seem to have been going on for a long, long time.

The most direct route to the Corn Exchange is to turn right out of Haymarket and then head down the A70 (Dalry Road continuing to Slateford Road) until Slateford Station and the New Market complex which includes the Corn Exchange. On the way there are a couple of great pubs, Athletic Arms (Diggers) and the Caley Sample Room, both of which I had visited fairly recently on the May Day holiday (see blog here). I thus decided on a slightly more circuitous route involving Fountainbridge and Colinton Road before heading back to the Caley Sample Room to meet Alan. This meant I headed past the Haymarket building site and towards the the City Centre for a couple of hundred yards to Thompson's Bar on Morrison Street.

It doesn't hint at it too much from the outside, but inside is an impressive traditional bar with decor based on Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's work including a fantastic bar gantry, decorative carvings in the bar top and numerous detailings in the pillars & beams. Dotted around the walls are Younger's, Muir's & Whitelaw's brewery mirrors and lots of beer & whisky prints all adding to the traditional feel, although there is a single TV for the news and the football - it's really all been very well designed and maintained.

There were 5 real ales on today, 4 from hand-pull, only 1 from those great tall fonts (a shame), with Deuchars IPA, Landlord, Pictish Brewers Gold, and Fyne Avalanche & Lismore Red available - a more than acceptable selection. I chose the Lismore Red and had a great chat with the barman about the whole Fyne Ales IPA Project before letting him return to his day job of serving drinks to the many walk-in customers and also prepare the great steak pies that are available here (toasties as well).

Next I headed along Grove Street until the junction with Fountainbridge. In the midst of the Fountainbridge leisure complex (part of the site of the long closed McEwans/S&N Brewery) is a pub/bar called McCowans Brewhouse. It's trying a bit too hard to be a faux American diner, but there's still a number of Caledonian, Inveralmond & Stewart beers to be had here. True to its 'Brewhouse' name there is a real gleaming micro-brewery here, visible from the long windows, with the equipment just begging to be used, but I don't think there's been a beer brewed here in the last 5 years. I believe that a number of Lothians-based brewers have tried to buy/lease the equipment over the last few years to no avail (for some inexplicable reason).

On the other side of the road the demolition of the reminder of the old Brewery site seems complete and *something* is being built in its place.

Fountainbridge marks the end of the Union Canal and as I headed down to the canal path I came to the Golden Rule, part of the same pub group (The Shilling Group) as Thomson's Bar.

This is another great traditional pub, quiet in the early afternoon and a fine place for a pint & some papers. It's split over 2 levels, with the main bar at the top and the lounge (almost a reading & games room, complete with Battleships to play) on the lower level. The decor is dark wood and subdued lighting, with brewery mirrors & canal prints on the walls and pump-clips above the bar. On hand-pull were Deuchars IPA, Thrappledouser, Killellan & Tempest Emanation - a great mellow, but still definitely bitter pale ale. I took a pint of this and a packet of Bacon Flavour Fries and relaxed (a bit) for the first time that day whilst watching the tennis on the TV.

I had a great time with barman discussing Cyprus towns & bars but finally I had to leave my deeply padded seat and head further west along Polwath Terrace, parallel to the canal. When I got to Colinton Road it wasn't far to the Kilted Pig situated in the midst of a number of local shops.

Inside it was bedecked with the flags of the Euro semi-final teams (and the Irish tricolour - I'm assuming due to the Irish bartender) with a huge TV on the side wall. I liked the exposed brickwork, with a number of interesting Guinness/beer prints on the walls, and someone obviously has a thing about piggy banks - there were rows of them along the shelves! Sadly the beer selection was fairly Glasgow 'standard' (in Edinburgh!) with Tennents x2, Stella, San Miguel, McEwans 80/-, Guinness x2 & Caledonian Best and no interesting bottles at all - not so good, but I certainly couldn't fault the friendly service.

From here it's only a 10 minute walk through the Meggetland Estate to the Corn Exchange, but I needed to back-track slightly to meet Alan at the Caley Sample Room. As normal there was a great choice of cask and keg beers here and after sampling a few of the interesting ones (albeit perhaps a tad warm ?) we headed out in the rain past the Caledonian Brewery in Slateford Road to the Corn Exchange. I have memories of seeing Spiritualised and Garbage (Shirley Manson et al) here, and I certainly didn't think the next time I'd be back would be for a beer festival, but initial impressions were that the venue seems an excellent fit for the Scottish Real Ale Festival.

We arrived just as the SIBA Scottish Awards were being handed out and it was really good to see Fyne Ales Jarl win as bottled champion and Highland Brewing Pale Ale as cask champion - both are great beers and up there with the best Scotland can produce.

The Trade Session is obviously a great meeting point for the industry and it was interesting to chat to publicans (Athletic Arms, Ericht Ale House), brewers (Alechemy, Loch Ness, Ayr, DemonBrew, Loch Lomond) and fellow bloggers (Richard & Paul from the Beercast). I think the general consensus is that it's a certainly a boom time for innovative Scottish brewing, but there's no doubt that there's still a definite worry for the livelihood of independent pubs outwith the main cities .

Since it was a school night I couldn't try too many beers but I liked the Tinpot Raspberry Pot (masses of slightly sour raspberries), but not the Prune Pot (too slight in body), thought the Alechemy Cockleroy Black IPA was great (almost like a bitter, soft stout), but that the extra Simcoe hops in the Cairnpapple XH gave it far too much of a medicinal taste. I also liked Broughton's new Willacade - light, bitter and full of soft fruit flavours for a 3.6% beer and Royston's Hoppy Handful from new brewery Spey Valley, but it perhaps needed to sit for a while longer in the cask. Unfortunately I missed Stewart Brewing make use a Hopinator on their Pentland IPA, but from what I could gather this gave an almost undrinkable bitterness to the beer.

The central/island location of the 'bar' is definitely a good idea, allowing easier access to all the required pythons & other cooling equipment and also allows more seating around the walls. It all seemed extremely well organised & staffed (plus there was even decent WiFi - hooray!) and hopefully the event will break all records showcasing Scottish brewing at its best (and still not sell out early on the Saturday).

Return travel:-
  Train: Slateford to Edinburgh Haymarket (~35 on the hour)
            Edinburgh Haymarket to Glasgow Queen Street

Bowling Basin to the Auchentoshan Festival: 16th June 2012

This Saturday heralded the welcome return after a 2 year absence of the Auchentoshan Whisky Festival, see my blog earlier in the year regarding some beer related aspects of this from the last time it was held, and of my 'association' whisky in general. Instead of going directly to the Festival this year I decided to walk along the start of the Forth-Clyde canal from Bowling until Old Kilpatrick and then head up to enjoy the Festival in the Auchentoshan Distillery site situated just before the Erskine Bridge.


View Auchentoshan in a larger map

Outward transport was as follows:-
  Train: Glasgow Westerton to Bowling

I left the train at Bowling station and immediately came across an interesting view down the Clyde to the old Bowling Harbour and the Erskine Bridge. Truth to be told the harbour is a bit of a mess, muddy with some rusting, derelict ships - I think there are plans ongoing to regenerate this but nothing seems to be happening at the moment.

Within a stone's throw of the station is a pub, The Railway Inn, but I'd been in fairly recently and although it's a decent enough place for something to eat (the conservatory is pretty good) this time I didn't really have time to stop.

I therefore turned into Dumbarton Road and after a couple of hundred yards came across an establishment I hadn't been in before, the Bay Inn - with the distinctive pub sign indicating that it had been around since 1790.

I hadn't found any recent reviews about the place so I was expecting a fairly dark, old fashioned place, but it was nothing like that all. Instead it was bright, modern & welcoming and full of flags for the Euro2012 football and the Jubilee (and the Bowling Gala Day) as well as lots of pictures of ships and other nautical memorabilia.

The beer choice was pretty well as I'd expected - lots of Tennents, Stella and Guinness so I went for a 1/2 of the Caledonian Best since I hadn't tried it before (cold & fizzy, not tasting of much), but I managed to overlook the fact that bottles of Spitfire were available. The owner indicated that he sells a lot of them (served cold and at room temperature), but not enough to justify a cask of real ale - a definite shame. As I chatted away with the owner and one of the locals I noticed that on one of the columns at the bar a Ship's Figurehead looks down over the rest of the pub - I don't know if this is meant to ward away evil spirits but it's certainly very distinctive (and honest - it's not an apparition in the photo!)

It's always good to find a place which exceeds your expectations so I left this really friendly local with a bit a spring in my step and headed further along Dumbarton Road to the entrance of Bowling Basin and the start of the Forth-Clyde canal. There are quite a few moorings available both at the entrance of the River Clyde and slightly further up the canal.

There's also a cycle hire ship here under the arches of the old railway bridge, Magic Cycles, which I always seem to forget about on the (very) infrequent times when I need to hire a bike - I normally use the cycle hire at Loch Lomond Shores. At the first lock gate there's a huge old canal house which is now a private house (or 3) and I remember it well from being used in an episode of Taggart.

I walked along the canal path for a while passing the entrance to the Saltings - an inland water nature reserve for birds and other wildlife, before heading back onto Dumbarton Road for The Ettrick, a large detached building with what seemed to be very separate bar and lounge areas.

I went into the large bar and found an eerily similar selection of draught beer - Tennents (x2), Stella, Guinness etc..., but also a tap for McEwans Export which I hadn't tried for some time (I did spy a couple of hand-pulls (and I'm sure I'd had a Deuchars IPA here before), but they were only being used to hang charity collection boxes from!). The Export was OK (and certainly a lot more interesting than the Best) but still had that almost artificial smoothness which was one of my reasons for starting to drink real ale in the first place. Whilst I was drinking this a lot of the 'older' gentlemen were ordering their 1/2 and 1/2's - so there's definitely still a market for this.

The place has more of an old fashioned look to it than the Bay Inn with some great dark orange lanterns hanging from the ceiling, nautical prints on the walls and (strangely) a cuckoo clock above the door into the Gents. There were also a couple of impressive mirrors - a huge Johnnie Walker one (no pic - too many people sitting below it), and the other a great Bass 'Our Finest Ale' one (although possibly a reproduction).

It was then time to find my final pub before heading up to the Distillery. Still further along Dumbarton Road (which eventually leads almost all the way into the centre of Glasgow) is The Glen Lusset.

It really is situated in the shadow of the Erskine Bridge and I don't think I'd realised what a height the road platform actually is at - it definitely is a bit disconcerting.

The Glen Lusset also has 2 separate sections - a bar/lounge and a Steak House restaurant. The large bar is setup almost like an American diner with long benches, lots of neon and a pool table area with a great view over the canal. I didn't find any real ale but there were bottles of Furstenburg and Erdinger which were a significant improvement on anything I'd had so far this afternoon.

Somewhat to my surprise there was the occasional screeching noise coming from near the entrance. This was the house parrot Jakey, who, it was explained to me, actually has a Twitter page and *tweets* - double ouch!

Immediately opposite the Glen Lusset is a short expanse of woodland called Lussett Glen which follows the path of a burn coming off the Kilpatrick Hills - it was really quite tranquil and unexpected after the noise of Dumbarton Road.

The Lusset Glen path led me to the main A82 and Erskine Bridge intersection and I then followed this past Dunottar Cemetery to the Auchentoshan Distillery

By now it had started to rain (a lot), so it became a necessity to get my entrance ticket and then leg it to the Ale Bar as quickly as possible.

On at the bar was Williams Brothers Draught from keg and also bottles of the Auchentoshan Festival Ale 2012 - hooray! This was the new batch of Williams Brothers pine/spruce-based Christmas ale Nollaig matured in Burbon Casks at Auchenoshan for 3 months with the alcohol going from 7.1% to over 9% and then being pared down to 4.5% for bottling. Quite surprisingly the pine taste from the Nollaig had almost completely disappeared - what was left was a slightly sweet vanilla and rye malt taste - very nice, with a slight bitter aftertaste, but quite light bodied and very drinkable - although I really would love to have tried the pre-bottled version(s).

By now I needed some food and went in search of something non-burger related at the Farmer's Market. I managed to get a quite fantastic pot of spicy beef chilli from one of the vendors and ate this under the cover of one of the spare market stalls as the rain poured down.

I then had a quick look around the rest of the festival site - there were a number of marquees with cooking/drink mixing demonstrations and talks, a band playing, someone with a chainsaw 'sculpting' from wood and you could 'fill' your own bottle of whisky from a couple of special casks, but the weather was really putting on downer on things - a real shame given all the time and effort involved in setting things up. Thankfully I'd manage to time things fairly well and didn't have long to wait for the only Whisky & Ale Masterclass of the day in one of the many warehouses. This was really well attended (I ended up chatting away to Frank Murphy from The Pot Still) and was being taken by Jeremy Stephens, formerly of Fuller's Brewery, and now Head Blender at Auchentoshan.

Just about managing to give a talk and presentation above the noise of the rain on the warehouse roof, Jeremy went through the different processes for brewing and distillation in a brief but very informative way. He also had various examples of light & dark malted barley to sample and hops (Bramling Cross) to rub & inhale. He ended up with leading us through a couple of whisky and beer matchings. The first being Auchentoshan Classic with the Auchentoshan Festival Ale that I'd just tried - both very light and they seemed to enhance the vanilla tones in each other. The second was Auchentoshan 3 Wood with Williams Brothers March of the Penguins - this time both were heavier and the smoky sweetness from the 3 Wood seemed to bring out more of the dark malt and chocolate flavours of the beer - or so it seemed anyway. It was certainly very interesting to try but I think my own personal preferences lean to only beer or only whisky (with the latter only on very special occasions).

I managed to get a few words with Jeremy before he had to shoot off to another part of the Festival but he indicated that the proposed in-house Auchentoshan brewery was still 'On the 5-year Plan' so hopefully there still the possibility of another (almost) Glasgow-based brewery in the next few years.

Return travel:-
  Train: Kilpatrick to Partick (for the Three Judges and some Ilkley beers!)