Looking Back and Forward

If you've been following along recently, you'll know that several weeks ago I spent 9 days in the United Kingdom, split pretty evenly between getting home to Scotland and being at a conference in London. During those 9 days, I spent a decent amount of time in pubs, brewery tap rooms, and even the classic Highland hotel public bar. Since I got home to Virginia, I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about those spaces, the beers I drank, and the emotions that they inspired - and if you don't think pubs are emotional places then maybe I can change you mind by the end of this post.

The last few posts have not been a blow by blow account of my drinking whilst in the UK, as I mentioned in one of them, I haven't posted about drinking Tennents in the Station Hotel in Alness, or my afternoon pub crawl in Inverness. I've not discussed drinking London Pride and Guinness at Lords while the rain stopped play ad nauseum, meeting Phil Tufnell at the Danubius Hotel bar, or the Harvey's Sussex Best at The Washington in Hampstead. Not everything needs to be shared, and in some cases there are blanks in my memory...

As is probably evident, I was taken aback at how much I really enjoyed the kind of bitters that get roundly derided as being "boring" and "brown". I have mentioned several times that I am working on formulating a version of my best bitter that incorporates crystal malt, and indeed I have an ordinary bitter on keg right now that has some crystal 40 in it, but it is still rather paler than the beers I reveled in back in the UK, so I guess I need to buy some crystal 120, or maybe even some 260 if Murphy & Rude ever make that again. It is also a result of at least one bitter, in this case a strong bitter, that has me hunting for a supply of Admiral hops. I've played around with some of the newer British hops, especially Endeavour, and while Admiral isn't really all that modern, having been released in the 1990s, I feel like I need to explore beyond Goldings, Fuggles, and Challenger a bit more, especially given this autumn and winter could very easily become the season of Bitter.

The main thought that has pottered and re-pottered around my noggin is just what a fantastic place the British pub is, whether that incarnation is in Inverness or Westminster. Of course every serious beer drinking country has it's pubs, from Ireland to Czechia, and all stops in between, people love to drink in communal locations rather than just getting battered at home. Perhaps it's that there isn't an undercurrent of puritanical shame about going for a pint or two and just hanging out, there doesn't need to be a purpose or an excuse to go for a drink. Anyway, back to British pubs - and of course this is all just subjective - but being, still, even at nearly 51, a rather introverted person, I find it interesting that going into a British pub is the easiest thing in the world for me. Let me give you an example, a few years ago, back in the before times (you know when I mean), I went to Bamberg, and had several pints of magnificent beer at Schlenkerla. Before I could muster up the courage to enter those hallowed halls, I had walked past the door several times, scoping out the flow of patrons, the places to sit, and the general vibe. When I went to any pub in the UK, there was none of that, I would just go straight in the door, get my pint and worry about where to sit, or stand, when I got there.

I realise that actually says more about me not wanting to stand out as the obvious outsider with my rusty school boy German, which brings me back to the introvert within. I feel instantly at home in the British pub because I can so easily be anonymous, and I love being anonymous. Let me sit with my beer and just people watch, and when I am ready for another pint, I will address myself to the stout yeoman of the bar. I have got used to table service, you really have no other choice in the US, and most places in Europe to be honest, but I love going up to the bar to get my next pint. It's almost a diagnostic thing, it's easier to tell how tiddled you are if you have to walk to and from the bar, half way with a pint in your hand, hopefully one that you're not slopping all over the place. With table service you are insulated from that until it is time to leave and suddenly your head spins as you get to your feet.

It likewise struck me that for such a country so renowned for our reserve, the pub is the place we let our guard down and open up a little, and perhaps becomes a little more observant of, and for, our fellow human beings. For example, I was standing in the St James Tavern, tending a pint of London Pride, enjoying the buzz of an early Friday evening crowd. To my left a couple were standing at the bar, clearly wanting to find a table to sit at, being 6'4" (that's 1.93m in the modern world), I could see a table opening up on the other side of the bar, so I let the couple know and off they tottered to claim those seats. Again, I am not the kind of person to just point things out to people in the normal run of things, but put a pint in my hand in a pub, and that goes out the window a little - don't worry I don't turn into mister gregarious or anything crazy, and I am not sure the rumours of me smiling a little in the pub are true or not. So, yeah, I miss the pub.

The weird thing here is, I left the United Kingdom nearly three decades ago as a 23 year old, and since then I have probably been home fewer than a score times. I have drunk in hospody, bierhalle, brewery taprooms, and cafes far more regularly than I have a British pub, yet the sense of instant familiarity stays with me, like a well loved security blanket whenever I get back to the UK. I have been told in the dim and distant past that I am more "pub-centric" in my approach to beer than a craft beer fan, and there is a lot of truth to that. Pubs, regardless of where you find them, are special, almost liminal places and we fail to value them at our peril.

The Westminster Arms

I have something of a soft spot for Kent's Shepherd Neame. It was their Bishop's Finger that got me into better beer than the keg swill I would drink as a younger man after all, as well as a friend in Prague having been a barman in an SH pub. Whenever I get back to the UK, which is nowhere near as often as I would like, I will pick up a few bottles of Shepherd Neame beers, usually the aforementioned Bishop's Finger, but also their Double Stout and even <gasp> the India Pale Ale. However, and for obvious reasons, Shepherd Neame pubs are few and far between in the Highlands of Scotland, and I don't think I have ever seen a Shepherd Neame beer on a beer engine at any of the pubs I frequent when I go home. Having a few days then in London was the opportunity to find the nearest Shepherd Neame pub to my hotel and dive into their range a bit more.

Given that my hotel was just yards from Westminster Abbey, said nearest Shepherd Neame pub was The Westminster Arms. On arriving at my hotel, being given the key, and heading up to my room, I opened the door to discover that it was still in the throes of being cleaned. As such, I ditched my main case, slung the bag I use as a laptop bag over my shoulder and wandered off to locate the pub and catch up with work over a couple of pints.

Thankfully it was a mere 3 minute walk, and what a delightfully charming pub The Westminster Arms is (photo credit: the image is from the Westminster Arms website). Apparently the pub has recently undergone a refurbishment, and as I went through the door, I was presented with an archetypal British pub, as Tweedy Pubs would say, "a pubby pub". Everything was wooden, there were nooks and crannies with stools and ledges for drinking at, and on the bar a clutch of handpumps. I knew immediately what I was going to have, partly because there wasn't Bishop's Finger on the pumps, but also because I wanted to start with something a little more sessionable.

I took my pint, went downstairs to the basement bar, and found myself a perch at a table, set my laptop up, and took my first ever mouthful of Master Brew.

Master Brew is Shepherd Neame's ordinary bitter, with an ABV of 3.7%, and clearly it is in the tradition that naysayers often deride as "boring brown bitter". It is, though, anything but boring, at least in my opinion. It was moreish, deeply, deeply moreish in fact. I think that first pint was gone before I had even been able to hook into the wifi and log into my email. I had to head back upstairs to the main bar to get a second pint as Master Brew wasn't on the downstairs hand pumps. One of the many things that I loved about this, and to be fair most other bitters I had in and around London, was they were properly bitter, with dollops of hop bitterness to scrape away the crystal malt character - weirdly I was starting to become sure I needed to do some experimentation with my house bitter. What was going on? Had it been on the pumps downstairs I might never have ventured from it.

It was during my second pint that a group of Americans made their way down to the basement, and proceeded to make me almost despair that real ale will ever be anything other than a niche in the US, so embedded is the collective ignorance of cask ale in the popular consciousness. Yeah, sorry folks, we writers can blather on as much as we want about places doing real ale, but it's not getting outside of our bubble. One of the group approached the bar and ordered a Spitfire, but a lady sat in the booth they had plonked in yelled across the bar to "make sure you get the Spitfire lager, not the cask, the cask is warm". Now, I prefer Master Brew and Bishop's Finger to Spitfire, but this notion that unless your beer is as cold as penguin feet it is "warm" really needs to be put to bed. I may have started ranting via text message to my long time collaborator, Mark. I had at this point moved on to Whitstable Bay Pale Ale for a palate reset, when across the bar I heard the most ridiculous thing I have heard in many years, and here I quote:

"don't tell the pastor we are in a pub drinking beer".

Admittedly I have some sympathy with this, given that when I was studying theology with a view to a religious calling, I would often go to the pub to unwind and the thought of being spotted gnawed away at my guilt riddled soul. But, you know, I don't recall ever announcing to the entire bar that I really shouldn't have been there, and to not share this information with the leadership of my church. It reminded me of folks I know who when in Prague moved their beer to the other side of the table for pictures, so their religious friends wouldn't think they were drinking when it hit social media. Thankfully, though painfully slowly as the group worked its way through their one pint of Spitfire lager for about 45 minutes, they eventually toddled off steeped in English sin, so I had another Master Brew, beautifully cask conditioned, at perfect cellar temperature, and everything a English bitter is at its best, or most ordinary, if you get my reference.

Having caught up with work, had a fantastic rambling chat with the lads behind the bar - top fellows! - it was time to find some food, maybe another couple of beers, which we'll get to, and get myself prepared for the conference I was in town for. Clearly though, if I ever find myself staying in Westminster again, the Westminster Arms will be top of my list for pubs to get back to, it was just a perfect afternoon of great beer in a proper pub.

A Little Help Goes A Long Way

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am heading to the UK in a few weeks, mainly for work, but with a little personal time chucked in as well. While I own the fact that I am a terrible beer tourist, I really don't plan my trips around breweries or beer cultures I want to visit - rather I go places and just see what is around. A key part of my planning process then, and maybe I a sad bandit for this, is to use Google Maps to find places in the locations that I will be, and then check out their websites to see if it is likely to be the kind of place I want to visit.

It is almost exactly 15 years that I wrote a post called "Do Pubs Help Themselves?" in which I lamented the standard of many a boozer website. My biggest beef was that many pub websites go to great lengths to tell you about their wine list, their cocktail list, their food options, but almost nothing about what beers are actually on draft, which is just as true for a tied house as it would be for a free house. So you would like to think that in our increasingly online world, pubs would have upped their game then, right?

Errr.....wrong. Sadly.

Maybe it is a product of the parts of the UK that I will be visiting, the north of Scotland, and London, with a minor detour to Windsor when I first arrive. Let's start with the positives though, the Windsor & Eton Brewery website is really useful, and as a result of reading that, and watching the Tweedy Pubs video on Windsor and Eton, I made the decision to spend my several hours between flights in and out of Heathrow by going west instead of east. I really like that they have their draft list in the taproom readily available, and so they will definitely be on the list of places to hit. Admittedly I'll probably go to their tied house, The George, as well, but they don't keep an up to date list of beers on their own website.

Also on the good side is the site for The Two Brewers, again for actually having a beer list on their website, but extra kudos for having the price of a pint on the list as well. I imagine I will be popping in for a pint of London Pride at some point in my day then.

My biggest challenge though, and I am sure there are reasons for this, but with so many tied houses in the English part of my trip, it does get really frustrating when there is a shared platform with generic information, and almost universally no list of what is on cask in a given pub - this goes for chains like Wetherspoons as well. Yes, the many Fullers pubs in the city have elegant, beautifully designed websites, but again I can't find out which beers of the Fullers Brewery range are available, making it pot luck to stumble across less regularly seen beers (at least from what I have been told) such as London Porter. I don't want to single out Fullers, as I have seen the same with Shepherd Neame, Greene King, and Nicholsons, though several Young's pubs tend to have at least a list, and occasionally pricing as well.

In the spirit of sharing around the opprobrium, places in Inverness and further north don't fare much better when it comes to an absence of useful information for the drinkers among us.

So, in the fifteen years since I first broached this issue, we seem to have gone from generally crap to being something of a curate's egg, which is progress I guess. Surely I am not alone in wanting to get a sense of what is on tap before I visit a boozer, whether this side or that side of the Pond?

Collecting Coins in the Pub

I am always fascinated by the social and political aspects of the pub, perhaps more so even that the beery ones. Pubs, beer halls, biergartens, are all inherently social and political spaces, because they are places where humans get together and talk about the things that are important to them, or at least on their minds. Sure, folks can prattle on about not talking about politics or religion in polite society, but the pub, beer hall, or biergarten are not necessarily polite spaces, and so it is no surprise when you dig into the role such places have played in history that you learn interesting things...such as this story from the "Kuryer Lwowski" - that's Lemberger Courier for the non Polish speakers amongst us...

As you can probably tell from the highlighted sections, I was doing a search on the legendary Prague beer hall, U Fleků, but this story from May 4th 1893 has nothing to do with black beer, or any other shade of booze, rather it comes from a story titled "How Czechs Collect Donations". For historical reference, at this point in time, the Polish people were divided between the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empire. There was no independent Polish state, Gdansk was in the German Empire, Krakow in Austro-Hungary, and Warsaw in the Russian Empire.

In the 45 years since the popular nationalist uprisings of 1848, many of the national minorities in the Austro-Hungarian empire has asserted their identities as distinct from their German or Hungarian speaking overlords, and none more so arguably that the Czechs. This assertion of national identity often took the form of civic society projects, such as the building of a national theatre dedicated to performing only in the Czech language - which the Czech had to do twice because the original building suffered a catastrophic fire just a couple of months are first opening. If I remember rightly, the Imperial crown refused to provide funds for such an independent Czech cultural institution, and so the money was raised from the people themselves.

How did they manage to raise the kind of money needed to buy the saltworks upon which the theatre was built, and then to actually build the thing? One way was that people asked for donations in places like U Fleků. People like the shoemaker, Mr Bílek in the story above, would collect small amounts in popular places, and where is more popular in Central Europe than the beer hall? By collecting loose change, Mr Bílek raised 14,000 Złoty (as Poles in the Empire referred to the Austro-Hungarian Krone), or about $90,000/£65,000/€75,000. According to the story in the Kuryer Lwowski, having done his rounds Mr Bílek would put the donations in a box, the keys to which were held by two other people, and thus he collected such a sizeable sum for the "People's School Society".

The writer of the Kuryer Lwowski article finishes off their piece recommending that the people of the province of Galicia, which included much of modern western Ukraine, take lessons from the Czechs and likewise raise their own money for similar projects.

I wonder what else I will find about U Fleků in the archives...

Top Pubs - Let me Explain

Over the weekend, Ray and Jess of Boak and Bailey asked on their BlueSky account for a list of 3 pubs you must visit before you meet your demise. Thankfully they included the caveat that "You can do 10 if 3 is too hard". Yeah, 3 was way too hard, 10 was a challenge, but I trimmed my list down to just 10. Within the character limit of BlueSky, I couldn't elaborate much, but over here in Fuggled world, I can explain/justify my choices. There is no particular order in this list, so let's not get hung up on those kind of trivialities...

The Bon Accord - Glasgow

I have waxed lyrical about the Bon Accord several times, even though it has been about 9 years since I darkened the door of that most august of establishments. Not only is it a superb pub to get a pint or several of well kept real ale, it has a whisky list to die for, including 25 year old Talisker which was the perfect ending to the last trip Mrs V and I made to the Bon Accord in 2016. Oh and did I mention they do an all-day fried breakfast that would keep the Royal Navy running.

Beim Gloser - Windischeschenbach

If I have one regret from my life in central Europe it's that I never took the train from Prague to Schwandorf, and from thence to Windischeschenbach in order to delve into Zoigl world. I still have it on my bucket list of things to do eventually, maybe next time I get to Europe for a conference and have a couple of days spare to do a little personal side trip. Of the various Zoiglstuben in the remaining villages with a communal brewhouse, why do I want to visit Beim Gloser in particular - well it's simple really, it looks like the archetypal Wirtshaus as written about by Franz over on Tempest in a Tankard. Take a look at the pictures on their website and you'll see what I mean.

Brauerei Spezial, Bamberg

I spent a grand total of about 18 hours in Bamberg back in 2019, in between conferences, one in Prague and then another in Hannover. While drinking Urbock in Schlenkerla was a near religious experience, the sheer delight of several hours nursing beer after beer in one of the coziest pubs I have ever sat in was the highlight of my few short hours in the city. I love the picture above, taken sneakily for sure, simply because when Mrs V and I are in that stage of life, I would love us to be able to just sit with a superb beer and chill. And superb the beer undoubtedly was. I was not really expecting something to challenge for Schlenkerla's affections in this rauchbier loving soul, but Spezial did, and then some. Here, have another...

U Slovanské lipy, Prague

If you know me in the slightest, this one takes no explaining whatsoever. For the final couple of years that Mrs V and I spent in Prague, U Slovanské lipy was high on our list of regular haunts. It was less than 20 minutes from our apartment, it was the only pub in Prague, at the time, to have Kout na Šumavě's entire range of beers on tap, and after several pints the walk home was all down hill. I loved that place, nay, I love that place. Sure, it now has a rotating set of taps, and Kout na Šumavě are no more, but it still has the same, local, non-touristy, vibe that I always loved. Every time I have been back to the city in the last few years I organise a meet up with friends there largely because it is one of the models of perfection in my beery universe.

Pivovarský klub, Prague

Another place that means so much to me, so much so that I remember the exact date I first walked through its doors and went down the stairs into the cellar bar area. It was October 14th, 2005 when Mrs V walked down the same stairs and took the seat next to me at the table, we've been together ever since - with the 20th anniversary of that day being this year. If there was one place that we went to more often than U Slovanské lipy is was Pivovarský klub. We were such regulars that the staff knew what Mrs V would usually want to drink, Primátor English Pale Ale, and have it ready before she had her coat off. Pretty often I could just ask Klara, Karel, or Ambroz to just bring me something and it would be fantastic. It was here that I had my first rauchbier, Schlenkerla Märzen, it was here that Mrs V and I had our wedding reception in 2008, it was here most weekends were spent. It was our Cheers.

Hostomická nalévárna, Prague

If I were reasonably handy when it comes to these things, I feel like I could re-construct Hostomická nalévárna in one half of my garage, it is that small. But don't let outward appearances deceive you, while it may be small, it has everything that a proper boozer should: superb beer; efficient staff; well worn sturdy furniture; cracking Czech beer snacks. It's the kind of community boozer that is unassuming and down to earth, a place for the serious business of drinking world class lagers without the distractions of run clubs, yoga, or ill mannered parents letting their kids run wild (it is ALWAYS the parents that are the problem). Sorry Evan to sing your local's praises again...

The King's Arms, Oxford

Every trip I have taken to Oxford has been an absolute joy, whether going for a day when I was a student in Birmingham and sitting in cavernous dark pubs, whose names escape me right now, drinking mass produced smooth ales, if you were a drinker in the UK in the 90s you know the ones I mean or sitting around with your brother and friends while Mrs V attends an education conference, drinking pints of Young's Original. That last drinking session was at the King's Arms, just a short walk from the Radcliffe Camera, and in so many ways the epitome of a great English pub. There are many rooms in which you can find the perfect space for a pint and a feed, watch the world go by, and eavesdrop on conversations. Oh and from memory they kept their ales damned well, so that's good too.

The Westford Inn, North Uist

It seems weird to admit that I grew up in the Hebrides, including North Uist for a time, and I have never darkened the door of the Westford Inn. In my defense, I was still a Christian back then, as we say in the islands, I had the cúram, and so lived in fear of being outed as an apostate backslider because on the mainland I enjoyed a pint, or 2, or more likely 4 after a morning of studying theology and gradually realising you needed to try harder with this believing malarky. Eventually you get to a point of saying "sod it" and you give up, sorry Calvin no perseverance here. Any way, back to the Westford, next time I get home I will darken its door with abandon, and hopefully Mrs V will drink her fiddle/guitar/bodhrán/whatever freaking instrument she is learning this week, just in case there is an open session in flight at the time. Take a moment to look at their photo gallery and you'll get the appeal.

The Anderson, Fortrose

For a while after college and before moving to Prague, I lived with my brother and his wife in Fortrose, a small town on the Black Isle just north of Inverness - unrelated fact, the 11 mile walk from Fortrose into Inverness is a fantastic way to spend a morning, I jest not. While there, I worked in the local shop across from the chippy we initially lived above, and would wander into the public bar at the Anderson for a pint from time to time, oh and the occasional drop of something stronger. It was in the Anderson that I got used to the idea of putting a drop of water into my whisky, not ice, a drop of room temperature water from the ceramic jug on the bar. The Anderson was the first drinking den where I felt truly comfortable sitting at the bar rather than hiding my shy, introverted arse behind a wall or a curtain somewhere - might have had something to do with the cute barmaid, whose name I never learned, because well, shy and introverted me had struggled just to sit in full view of people. Thinking back on it, and this is some 25 years ago now, I was an awkward person, usually with my nose in a book, terrified of speaking to people, but a pint and a dram at the Anderson was probably the beginning of opening me up.

Karlsberger Pub, Svalbard

I have a thing for the North Atlantic world. When I took my family to Iceland a couple of years ago for our summer holiday, I was in my element. I love the ocean, the feel of the wind coming off the sea, the sounds of the ocean crashing against rocks, and the bare emptiness of the northern lands. Several of my friends and family on seeing pictures we posted on our socials commented on how relaxed, happy, and at home I looked. Yeah, the barren wilds of the north are a salve to my soul, and can you get more barren and wild than Svalbard? Watching the Craft Beer Channel's fantastic video about Svalbard, the Svalbard Bryggeri, and the Karlsberger Pub just made me want to visit, one day perhaps.

So there you go, a little delve into the pubs I chose and why I would love to visit them either for the first time or again. 

Where would you go?

Pubs in AI

For those that don't know, my day job is as a Product Manager in the world of academic publishing. As with any other software based industry, artificial intelligence is becoming part and parcel of the work we do, so I spend a decent amount of time playing with various tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and DALL-E.

I had been messing about with Bing's DALL-E powered Image Creator for a few hours when I hit upon the idea of using it and ChatGPT in tandem, basically having ChatGPT to summarise a body of text into a prompt of fewer than 50 words to enter into Image Creator.

I decided to take the text of my post back in August describing my dream pub, and initially ChatGPT gave me the following prompt:

Imagine a North Atlantic dream pub with church-like simplicity, perched by the ocean. Picture a cozy interior featuring a great hall structure, discrete spaces, and a roaring fireplace. Capture the North Atlantic ambiance with clouds, sea bird cries, and the scent of the ocean. Envision a community-friendly space, welcoming children responsibly, with a wall of books and a local-focused drink and food selection. Embrace the comfort, camaraderie, and North Atlantic charm of this dream pub.

Image Creator then generated 4 images based on the prompt, of which this one I felt was closest to the prompt.

My initial thought with this particular image was that the church was too ornate for what I was thinking off when I described the simple Calvinist architecture of many a North Atlantic church, so I asked ChatGPT to refine the prompt further, resulting in:

Imagine a serene North Atlantic dream pub, its simple coastal church design nestled by the ocean. Picture a warm interior with a great hall layout, inviting spaces, and a crackling fireplace. Feel the North Atlantic ambiance with clouds, sea bird sounds, and the scent of the ocean. Visualize a welcoming community space, children embraced responsibly, featuring books, local drinks, and hearty food. Sense the comfort, camaraderie, and pure charm of this dream pub.

The best of the resulting images was this one, and it was definitely closer.

I still felt that the building was too grand, and too obviously a church, so I asked ChatGPT to target the kind of very simple churches you see in rural Iceland.

Envision a serene North Atlantic dream pub, mirroring the simplicity of Hellnar, Iceland's church. By the ocean, it offers a humble layout with cozy spaces, a crackling fireplace, and the North Atlantic's natural charm. A warm community space welcomes all, featuring books, local drinks, and hearty food. Embrace the comfort and camaraderie of this unpretentious dream pub.

Finally I felt as though the best image of the 4 provided got to the heart of the kind of pub I had in mind when I wrote my post.

I shared this image on several of my socials, and the reaction has been mostly positive, that this kind of pub would appeal to people that follow me.

Not wanting to rest on my laurels, I decided I would see if AI could give me an accurate image of a real pub I have described in a post, starting with a post from my last trip to Scotland in 2019, when I had a night out with Mrs V in the public bar of the Station Hotel in Alness. The text based prompt that ChatGPT spat out was:

Generate a nostalgic image of a traditional Scottish pub: teal blue doors, worn wooden interior, patrons enjoying Tennent's lager. Capture the lively atmosphere, groups of working men, and the couple at the bar. Emphasize the charm, gaming machine, and the essence of camaraderie in this Highland pub scene.

Bing's closest response was this.

Whilst not an absolute match, if you have spent any time drinking in a Highland hotel's public bar, you will definitely recognise the scene, and it actually makes me feel nostalgic for home.

With so many pubs visited over the years, I think that this kind of fun will be something I do pretty often. and see how the technology, and my ability to create prompts improves.

Taking Up the Alworth #MyDreamBrewery Baton

We've all done it I am sure, dreamt about what our ideal brewery or pub would look like. I have done it many times, whether sat in a taproom with a drink or sat at a desk letting the mind wander, I may even have written about it once or twice in various media. Jeff Alworth over at Beervana wrote a great post a few days ago about his dream brewery, which in a stunning turn of events turned into a dream pub - his dream after all. The thing with dreams, even the nighttime type, is that they evolve and change with new inputs from our waking lives, and so while I recognise much of my dream pub in 2016, I have an additional 7 years of lived experience to integrate.

In keeping with Jeff's post, I am not going to attempt to name my pub, though in the various business plans I have written over the years (yes, I have got to the point of writing business plans several times) there have been names, but they all seem cheesy to me now.

Location

Given this is, now, my dream I find that as I grow steadily older, the grey in my beard is migrating beyond just my chin, I have a deep longing to "go home". That's not to say that I am unhappy in central Virginia, far from it, I love living here and it would genuinely grieve me to leave behind the couple of acres of land that I have planted fruit trees on. However, my family holiday to Iceland earlier this summer reminded me of the deeper magic. I am not Icelandic, obviously, but I am a child of the North Atlantic. I grew up mostly in the Hebrides, my ancestry is overwhelmingly from the coastal communities that ring the North Sea, and this summer again I remembered just how much that world resonates with me. I am not talking here about being a beach bum, I hate sand with a passion, but being by the North Atlantic for an extended period of time again just made me feel reconnected in a way that is hard to explain.

One afternoon in Iceland we were sat at the local cafe, watching the twins play among the rocks and pools of the inlet, much like my little brother and I did when we were their age, when a group of Icelandic women joined us at our table as we had space and they needed it - I love that aspect of European social life. We got speaking with them, Mrs V about knitting, me about mythology and the shared worldview of Northern Atlantic people - one where we don't see a barrier in the ocean but a highway, we share stories, the names may be different but the themes are common, much like the stories of the Carpathian Mountains as they wend their way through Central Europe.

So my dream pub would be by the North Atlantic ocean, whether clinging to a vík or sitting just off the machair, the ocean is an all pervading presence, the smell of the sea permeating everything, the cry of sea birds echoing, low clouds scuttling across the gun metal sea, both broody in its darkness, and enervating in its lightness.

As to the building itself, the apostate in me loves the simple architecture of churches, whether presbyterian of some degree of freeness, continuity, or associatedness (IYKYK) or Lutheran. Simple, solid, battered by storms, defiant, a comfort, seemingly hewn from the very rock of the islands themselves, reminders of the great halls of old. My pub is a place of community, a place where all are welcome, and welcomed, my pub is not truly mine, it is the community's, I am the custodian.

This will no doubt come to the horror of many, but kids will be fine, assuming that they have parents who are responsible and considerate of the place they are in. In my experience the problem is rarely the children but invariably the parents deciding to use the pub as a nursery with booze for the adults. So, your kids will be welcome, they are part of the community after all, and how will they learn how to behave in a pub if they are excluded? However, you will be asked to leave if you are not managing them well, and if it becomes a regular thing, you will be asked to only come without them in future.

In the 2016 post on this theme, I mentioned that I would want my pub to have rooms so that people could find a place that suits them. Given my great hall style architecture though, discrete spaces would be created through furniture and furnishings rather than walls. You will be able to find a place to hide as much as a place to be seen. I also mentioned that the day's newspapers would be available, which is something I would maintain, but expand to have a wall of books available for reading, many of my favourite drinking sessions have involved me losing myself in a book. I would hand pick many of the authors on the shelves, Seamus Heaney, Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Umberto Eco, Iain Banks, there would be non-fiction as well as novels, poetry, and sagas.

There will be no television.

Did I mention the fireplace? It will be large, and when the weather requires it will be roaring, fed a steady stream of wood and peat - you will have to love the smell of peat smoke to really enjoy the place in winter when the North Atlantic roils and crashes on the rocks. I imagine the Scottish deerhound of my dreams (he'd be called Wulver) stretched out on the stone hearth.

The Offer

This is my pub, so what will be on the taps? In common with the last time I pondered on my dream pub, I will not be having a bank of dozens of taps lined up on the wall. For a long time now I have thought that the optimum number of taps is 6, pure coincidence I am sure that 6 taps is how many there are at Pivovarský klub...

Of those 6 taps I would be keeping 4 within defined characteristics, not given over to any particular brewery, my pub is resolutely a free house. The remaining pair of taps would be split between a seasonal style and whatever special one-offs I feel like putting on. With this being a pub in dreamland, there are no dumbass three tier distribution systems in play, I can buy directly from the brewery, oh and the notion of tariffs and import customs have been consigned to the dung heap of history, so I can get exactly what I want, when I want it.

My pub is primarily a session pub, a fact reflected in the 4 regular taps, with strong beers being reserved for seasonals, specialties, or the range of bottled beers. Tap 1 is pale lagers with starting gravities below 14°, so an ABV of 5.5% or less. Tap 2 is for bitter, regardless of colour or strength, so a rotating tap of ordinary, best, and extra special. Tap 3 again sticks to an ABV below 5.5%, but this time features amber, red, or brown beers, top or bottom fermented, it will have the most range, sometimes with Vienna lager, sometimes mild, sometimes Oud Bruin. The 4th tap is for the truly dark beers, and here the ABV ceiling is a bit higher at 6.5%, get ready for tmavé pivo, American porter, Export Stout, night cap beers.

My bottle cellar would be well stocked in the rarer and stronger beers, Fullers Vintage Ale would feature, as would North Coast Old Stock Ale, Samichlaus, and Sierra Nevada's Narwahl. It would be fun to find a local brewery to contract specialty brews specifically for the pub, my current fascination, as a result of an article by Lars Marius Garshol, is Danish skibsøl, or "ship's beer", a low gravity smoked beer that was an essential part of the daily ration in the 19th century Danish navy. 

Cider would also feature, though here I get particularly snooty as my preferences in cider veer very strongly to the traditional. I would keep a healthy stock of Albemarle Ciderworks, Big Fish Cider, and Castle Hill Cider products in the cellar. Cider has long been my summer booze of choice, going back to my early drinking days when I wanted something lighter and more refreshing than beer. Traditional, artisanal, cider and perry will always find a place in my offerings, and in the case of Albemarle Ciderworks, I would be buying as much of their Harrison and Dabinett blend as I can lay hands upon.

This will likely sound contradictory given the stated aim of tap 1 and the previous paragraph, but my pub will always give precedence to local products, not just those made locally, but those using local inputs in their creations. If I were able to source a great pilsner, made with locally grown barley that was malted locally, and then hopped with locally grown hops, then I will have that on tap regularly as supporting fellow local businesses would be important to me.

It is in this spirit that I would be sourcing food for the pub. My interest is in booze, I have no ambition to own and run a restaurant, but brought in pub grub, sure. Fun fact, my first ever paying job was making hot water crust pie shells for the bakery in the village I lived in. Said cases were filled with minced lamb to form the traditional Scottish meat pie, but also chicken curry, and the ever popular sausage, beans, and mash. Assuming such a place was within striking distance of the pub, I'd be selling a range of hot water crust pies, sausage rolls, and pasties. I might consider a daily pot of soup or stew, bringing in fresh bread from the bakery as well. You might see a bit of a theme here, I like simple hearty food, nothing fancy with juliennes of this or gastriques of that, peasant food. I once had this daft notion that a peasant focused restaurant called "The Hearty Peasant" would be fun, but then remembered I have no ambition to run a restaurant.

My hope is that my pub would be a place of solace, a place of joy, a place of intellectual stimulation, a place of discovery, a place where people of good faith find community. And in the heart of it all, you will find me, behind the bar serving great beer.

* Yes that is me in the last picture, my youngest son was messing with my phone in a restaurant in Arnarstapi, Iceland while I was lost in thought. I think he has a good eye for one so wee.

To a T

I spent my formative teenage years living in the Outer Hebrides, in particular for the geographically challenged the bit in the red box in the picture:

The blue bit to the west of the islands is, obviously, the Atlantic Ocean. That blue bit stretches all the way to Canada with nothing between. It is not for nothing that the islands are often referred to as being on the edge of the world. I loved living there, and there are still times when I have moments where I think it would be good to go home and raise my boys the relative peace and safety.

Like most teenage kids growing up in isolated communities drinking started at a relatively early age, I think I was 14 when I had my first sneaky can of beer, nicked from a fridge at someone's house during a party at which parents were free to bring their kids along. I am not counting here the cider my parents would give us as younger kids, or my dad's homebrew that we would drink from time to time. There is something about that first illicit beer, as I say taken from the fridge when the adults weren't looking, that means more than all your parents' enlightened attitudes toward booze.

Most definitely among those first ill-gotten cans of nectar was Tennent's Lager, at a time when the cans still featured the Tennent's Lager Lovelies, scantily glad models that were probably many a teenage beer filcher's first crush. With said cans safely hidden in coat pockets we would head out to the garden and sit behind a dry stone wall, in the lee of the wind, and pretend like we knew anything about beer.

Such memories came flooding back when Boak and Bailey posted a story about them drinking Tennents when in Scotland recently, and so I resolved that on my trip home in July to do likewise. Thus it was that on the first Friday night in the Highlands, Mrs V and I left the bairns with their grandparents and wandered up to one of my favourite institutions, the public bar of a Highland hotel, the Station Hotel in Alness.

Entering through the hefty, weather beaten, teal blue doors you land practically on the bar. In keeping with public bar tradition there is no carpet, old school wooden floorboards are the order of the day. There is no fancy furniture, a few barstools, well used wooden tables around the periphery of the room, and equally well used wooden chairs. My kind of bar.

Dotted around the bar are groups of working men, ignoring the barstools entirely, standing just shy of an arm's length from their pints. At a table in the corner, a mixed group of Polish seasonal workers, in many a Highland public bar when there are ladies present in your group, you sit at a table rather than stand at the bar. Mrs V and I took up station at the short end of the bar itself, I like to be at a bar when I am drinking, next to the gaming machine, flashing with promises of paying your drinks bill for the night if you are lucky enough.

The Station doesn't do craft beer, doesn't really do local beer either if I remember rightly. I am not sure it would matter anyway, basically everyone was drinking Tennent's, which apparently accounts for 50% of all lager drunk in Scotland. I didn't bother with pictures of my pints, perhaps for fear of being called out as the metropolitan middle class softie I have become, or because it was irrelevant to being out with my wife on a rare trip sans enfants.

The first thing that strikes me is just how fizzy the pint is, though given the laser etched nucleation points on the base of the branded glassware, is it always that carbonated? Given the never ending stream of bubbles, the head pretty much stayed put, it was actually a rather alluring sight, and possibly the first time I had drunk Tennents and been able to see it.

Taking a first mouthful, my initial reaction was that if I was served this at an American craft brewery, either as a pilsner or helles, I would be pretty happy. Sure it is no Port City Downright Pilsner, but it is not a bad pale lager by any stretch of the imagination. The flavour is mostly a grainy crackeriness, somewhat similar to a Jacob's Cream Cracker, with a similar subtle sweetness as well. Am I allowed to say that it actually tasted of barley? That's a thing right? Hops are not a major component of the brew seemingly, but what was there gave enough of a clean bitterness to snap the malt to attention, as well as wisps of floral lemoniness that reeks of classic noble hops, you know, the ones from Central Europe.

Four mouthfuls in and the pint was gone, a fresh one on its way, then another, and another as we settled into the buzz and banter of the bar. At some point a pair of young girls came in, one with ID and one without, dolled up for a night on the town and pre-gaming before heading into Inverness. The gathered older folks, which Mrs V and I have accepted we are now part of, shared looks of recognition of days gone by, while the barman gave the IDless girl short shrift, and soon they were gone, while hands reached out for pints and the drinking continued.

I don't recall how many pints I had, maybe 8, but I did wonder, perhaps out loud and a tad overly loud as Mrs V and I walked back to my parents' place whether an avowedly craft bar is capable of such an atmosphere? Merrily buzzed and with no regret whatsoever for drinking Tennent's all night, I fell into a happy slumber that thankfully the twins didn't disturb until about seven thirty the next morning. I would drink Tennents again several times on the trip, each time knowing that I would miss it when I got back to Virginia.

Maybe it is the Tennents I miss, maybe it's public bars in Highland Hotels. Either way, that session will live on in the memory, despite no pictures.

Try Offering Dry

A friend on Facebook posted this interesting little article in the Morning Advertiser today, which basically states that Dry January will "be the death" of the British pub.

The article goes on to state that 5 million British drinkers have signed up for the "official" Dry January project run by those tireless, puritanical, temperance folks of Alcohol Concern. The number of people completing the challenge in previous years is not mentioned. If my own observations of friends who, like me, attempt to take 31 days off the bevvy can be extrapolated out, I would not be surprised if fewer than 2 million people actually succeed.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I have little truck with either the official Dry January brigade or the plucky rebellious sorts advocating for Tryanuary, which encourages folks to break out from their normal drinking, preferably at some craft beer, leave your wallet with the barman, type place.

Now forgive me I am being cynical but could someone please just decide what exactly it is that is killing the British pub? Is it the smoking ban? Brexit? Climate change? It seems at times that anything that diverges from the image of Blighty as basically The Shire writ large is the greatest harbinger of doom for the pub industry.

Now forgive me if as a mere punter I am missing something, but haven't we just had the Christmas and Hogmanay period, when pubs are slammed to the gunwales pretty much for the entirety of December? Why was no one complaining that all these people out on the piss were putting too much money in the boozers' coffers?

It seems to me that rather than whining to the media about how a dip in custom is affecting their business's profitability, landlords would be better served taking on board the ethos of Tryanuary and give the Dry January folks an actual alternative to booze. I know too many places that only have some crap like lime soda as a non booze option.

How about offering traditionally made soft drinks, ditching the post-mix swill from Pepsi or Coke, like those made by Dalston's or Lovely Soft Drinks? Thankfully here in central Virginia most of my favourite places to drink also make their own ginger beer, and in the case of Three Notch'd it's bloody delicious.

Running a business means adapting to market forces and the capricious whimsy of the consumer, pubs are no different.

Faux Boozers for the Instagram Generation

This may come as something of a surprise, but I really don't mind folks who don't drink, horses for courses and all that jazz. I have even been known to go on extended booze free stints, beyond my annual January break - for the record, I find advocates  for both "Dryanuary" and "Tryanuary" tedious and smug in equal measure - if I fancy a break from the booze it is none of their business, in support or otherwise.

One thing though that is really guaranteed to get my goat is people who claim their don't go to the pub because of some particular thing, and if that thing wasn't there, they would go. Take smoking for example, now I am not, never have been, and never will be, a smoker, but I think the smoking ban is a piece of officious nonsense handed down from a government pandering to puritans. If we believe in the free market, then businesses should have been free to decide if they wanted to ban smoking in their establishments, or to introduce a smoking room. There are solutions that don't require total bans, though campaigners are rarely likely to opt for sensible compromise in this extremist day and age. From a purely anecdotal standpoint, many of the people I know who said they would go to the pub more if smoking were not allowed don't actually go to the pub any more than they used to. I should also point out that I don't hanker for the days of having to air out my coat from an open window after a night in a smoky pub, but I think the ban is heavy handed and a contributing factor to the crisis of the pub trade.

Anyway, this morning on Twitter The Pub Curmudgeon tweeted a article from the Morning Advertiser about people looking for a booze free pub like environment. I find myself asking the question, what is the point of having a "pub" that doesn't serve alcohol? After all, the dictionary definition of a pub is:

a building with a bar and one or more public rooms licensed for the sale and consumption of alcoholic drink, often also providing light meals

The English language does have several perfectly good words, and the occasional one nicked from French, for places that sell non-intoxicating drinks, and maybe even light meals, but for which a license to sell booze is not required, here is a select sample:

• teashop
• tearoom
• coffee shop
• coffeehouse (though somewhat sketchy places in the 18th century, what with the political intrigue and gambling that went on)
• café (I guess for those cosmopolitan types for whom a solid English word isn't good enough)

For the non-drinker there are plenty of options of places to go, is it the pub's fault that they don't stay open until 11pm? Is it the pub's fault that they don't have an atmosphere to rival the local boozer on a Friday night? Nope, and so the pub need not be impacted because people who have no desire to do what happens in pubs by virtue of them being pubs want to go elsewhere.

Rather than lobbying pub owners to make spaces more appealing to them, how about frequenting the types of places already available and advocate for them to open later, have a broader range of drinks suitable for non-drinkers, and encourage a kind of pub like atmosphere to make them slightly less joyless holes of puritanical face pinching?

Coming back to the original Morning Advertiser article, I think this quote from perhaps the most puritanically named sober bar imaginable is very telling:

"Young people don't want to get drunk anymore...They care about how they look on Instagram"

Favourite Watering Holes

The inestimable pairing that is Boak and Bailey have a list of what look like wonderful pubs over on their blog today, and so in the spirit of shameless plagiarism I figured I would make a similar list. My list, by virtue of bouncing round the world for the last couple of decades needs to have the addition of dates for some places, as they have either closed down, or gone to shit from what friends have told me. In no particular order then, in we dive...

Pivovarský klub, Křižíkova 17, Prague

It really is inevitable that Pivovarský klub is on this list, it was there that 13 years ago on Sunday I met Mrs V after all, and for the next four years before moving to the US it was our local. We lived about a 5 minute walk from the place, got to know the staff really well, had our wedding reception there, and still recommend friends that are visiting Prague to pop in. I remember how revolutionary the idea of 6 taps, 5 of which rotated, and at least 200 bottled beers seemed at the time, opening up a whole new world of Czech beer to me. Most of the time I drank in the cellar bar, sorry my American friends "basement" just doesn't cut it as a description for their subterranean space, sat at the bar, in the corner under the spiral staircase. From my perch I could happily engage in my favourite, well second favourite, pub pastime - people watching. I often tell this story, but one of the things we loved about PK was that we were such regulars that the staff knew exactly what Mrs V wanted to drink without having to ask (Primátor English Pale Ale), and usually had it ready as she sat down. In many ways the feel of the place was Craft™ before it became a thing, you know, stripped brick and shiny metal, with paler wooden furniture than many a traditional boozer.

Zlatá hvězda, Prague, 1999-2009

Comically poor beer, toilets that would disgrace a refugee camp, and an owner that was known to physically throw people out of his pub that were being arseholes shouldn't really make for a place that I loved and frequented regularly, but love Zlatá I did. It was the place that for all 10 years of my stay in Prague I watched football, mostly Liverpool obviously, but not exclusively. With a group of fellow Liverpool fans, as well as a revolving cast of English teachers, teachers at one of Prague's international schools, Finnish chefs on disability who supported Chelsea, this place could generate an atmosphere unlike any other sports bar I have known. Similar to PK, I lived just a 5 minute walk from the place for the last four years of my stay in Prague, and was known to pop in even when there was no football, the cavernous, cool, dark space being perfect for reading the international edition of the Guardian. Shame they never learnt to spell my name for my reservations, but I got used to being "All" instead of "Al".

The Bon Accord, 153 North Street, Glasgow

Only been here a couple of times, but both have been fantastic. A good range of well kept real ales, 25 year old Talisker just one of the superb whiskies available, and an all day breakfast that will keep you going for several days. Both of our visits have ended up with us sitting with owner getting bevvied, and remarkably he remembered us the second time we turned up, some 2 years after the first, so gets additional kudos points for that. During that second trip, on a Friday night, I mentioned to Mrs V that one of the things I miss about British life was Friday nights in the pub, without the need to worry about driving home, sadly in central Virginia regional public transport is non-existant and taxis cost several appendages.

Devils Backbone Basecamp, 200 Mosbys Run, Roseland, Virginia

Some places are worth the hour it takes to drive there, said places are often also a factor in deciding where to go hiking of a weekend, the original Devils Backbone brewpub is one such place. When we landed in Virginia back in 2009, Devils Backbone was just coming up to its first birthday, and our first visit was on a tour of local brewpubs with a friend from the Prague days who was now living in Pittsburgh. That first visit was a bit underwhelming, mainly because the server got our flight all mixed up and let's just say expectations went all awry until we worked out the correct order from the menu notes. In those early years we would pretty often jump in the car to spend Sunday afternoon sat at the bar, surrounded by the taxidermy, reclaimed wood, and superb lagers. It was that commitment to quality lager that pulled me into Devils Backbone's orbit, and I have been a happy lager drinker because of them ever since. Some might baulk at spending money at an AB-InBev owned brewery, but Devils Backbone really looks after their people well, many of the wait staff having been there for almost ten years, and the fact that the beer keep improving as they invest in new shiny toys means I will always be able to get my lager kick satisfied at what I still think of as Virginia's best craft brewery.

Kardinal Hall, 722 Preston Avenue, Charlottesville, Virginia

As close to a German style beer hall as we are likely to get in this part of Virginia, and a pretty damned good stab it is too. Any place where I can get a litre of Rothaus Pils on draft has got to be a good place, add to that the excellent food, and this is somewhere my friends and I pretty often end up after a morning of hiking in the mountains. Admittedly I have to get used to the fact that "bratwurst" in America means something different than in Nuremburg or Thuringia, and so I avoid them so as to not be disappointed, but their Belgian fries are phenomenal. One of the great things about Kardinal is they actually have a decent sized and pleasant outdoor space that when the trees grow to maturity is going to make a really nice beer garden.

The Castle Tavern, 1 View Place, Inverness

The first time Mrs V and I wandered into the Castle Tavern was in 2014 when I took her for her first trip to Scotland, and the first time I had been home in almost a decade. It was Sunday lunchtime and my parents were at church, being good heathen folks my wife and I had wandered along the River Ness and decided it was time for a pint. Said pint was Cromarty Brewing's majestic Atlantic Drift, and in that moment I had found two new loves, a brewery and a real ale pub. Whenever I am home, the Castle Tavern is an essential port of call, anywhere that gets Timothy Taylor Landlord on cask is going to be a place I want to be at. If Mrs V and I move to the Inverness area in the future, it will be a regular haunt.

Photo credits

• Pivovarský klub: Mark Stewart

The Irish Pub

The pub is probably my favourite institution on earth. Whenever I am off on my travels I spend more time researching places I want to have a drink than I do what beers are available in a particular drinking hole. I guess that's what makes me an awful beer tourist, you'll not find me visiting places just because of the breweries that are there.

The kind of pub I like doesn't have to have a stellar beer selection of the latest, greatest, trendiest IPAs and the like. Some of my favourite places to drink when I lived in Prague sold the near ubiquitous range of Prazdroj, Gambrinus, and Kozel Černý, but I loved them all the same. Beer is not the point of the pub, community is, conversation is, comfort is, consolation is.

As I have got older, my taste in pubs has tended more and more to the simple pleasures of a well cared for pint enjoyed with good company. If I wish to get rat-arsed and listen to the greatest cheesey hits of the 90s, I can do that in the comfort of my front room.

Any way, all this thinking about pubs is because last night I came across a wonderful documentary film on Netflix called 'The Irish Pub' and spent the hour and a bit of it in a fog of nostalgia, there being so many similarities between pubs in Ireland and those in the north west of Scotland where I grew up.

Here's the trailer, and if you have Netflix look it up for the whole thing.

Idyllic Pubcentricity

The Pub Curmudgeon posted yesterday about the elements of a perfect pub, itself a commentary on an article in the Sunday Telegraph, and so I decided to think a bit more about what the perfect Velky Al boozer would look/be like.

Mismatched Furniture

Generally speaking I like the furniture in a pub to be wooden, preferably a bit battered, somewhat rickety, and occasionally wobbly. I don't want to feel like I am drinking in an IKEA showroom, unless said drinking hole has just undergone a renovation of course, if it still feels like IKEA a few months later something is wrong. I don't want every table to look the same, have the same chairs, and be entirely interchangeable. I want to pick a table, and even a chair, because I just happen to like that combination in it's location. I may be odd on this front, but that's ok.

Newspapers

This may be a tad controversial, but I like pubs that have newspapers available. They should be today's papers obviously, and there needs to be a selection from across the political spectrum and formats. If my ideal pub is back home in Scotland I want to see, at least, The Guardian, The Scotsman, The Daily Record, The Daily Telegraph, and whatever the local paper is. The only paper I would object to is The S*n, for obvious reasons. I don't want a pub to be a place where people of only one political persuasion go, I love pubs for the random conversations with different people that you have, if I wanted a focal point for homogeneous thought I'd sit at home and surf Facebook.

Outside Seating

Whether it's a beer garden, a patio, or a balcony I am a big fan of outdoor seating, mainly because when the weather is nice that's where the pub equivalent of day trippers go, leaving the rickety furniture and the bar safe for me. Sure there are times when I brave the bright lights of the outdoor seating area, usually when I am part of a group and the general consensus is to sit outside, but I am more often than not a creature of habit, and I like my seat at the bar.

Fireplace

Few things are as comforting in any room as a fireplace, the bigger the better. In the depths of winter, having trudged through cold and snow to get to a hostelry, the twin delights of a roaring fire and a pint of something dark and roasty just can't be beaten. If there are a couple of tables near the fire then the bar seat might even be sacrificed for the delights of scanning the papers whilst bathing in the warming glow of a well stoked fire.

5-7 Taps

I am not a fan of the rage for pubs to have banks of taps hanging out on the back wall, neither yet an endless bronzed barricade of handles on the front of the bar. I actually like brass fonts and tap gantries, just don't want then consuming the length of the bar. I don't go to the pub to be intimidated by endless tap handles for breweries I have barely even heard of, and whose brewing ability is entirely unknown to me. The first thing that goes through my mind when I enter a pub with dozens of taps is do they actually have the custom to keep the stock rotating at a reasonable rate?

Genuine Choice

It may seem a little strange to not want infinite taps and then ask for a good choice of beer, but what choice is there in 50 taps of IPA, a solitary mass produced lager, and Guinness? Give me a pub with 7 taps and 7 different styles on those taps each and every day of the week. At least 3 of those taps should be permanently filled with excellent examples of, preferably locally brewed, best bitter, dry Irish stout, and Bohemian Pilsner. This is my ideal pub after all.

Rooms

I love pubs with a range of rooms to chose from, each with it's own character and regulars. A common feature of many a hotel in the Highlands is the public bar, a rougher environment than the lounge. Sometimes you want a quiet drink, sometimes you want to be somewhere a bit rowdier, if you can do both in the same pub then all the better. If a pub doesn't have multiple rooms then nooks and crannies can serve a similar purpose.

More than Beer

I am an unabashed beer drinker, it is rare than I choose wine, cider, mead, or any other alcoholic drink over beer, but not all my friends are enthusiastic takers of the malt and hops. Mrs V prefers wine these days, some of my friends don't drink at all, but I still enjoy hanging out with them, and so a pub needs to cater for a range of drinking options. Many pubs do a decent enough line in wine, cider, and spirits, but are lamentably piss poor when it comes to soft drinks, invariably the usual mass produced post mix swill of Coca-Cola or PepsiCo products. Stocking Fentiman's range of sodas would be infinitely preferable.

I'd like to think this such a pub would be fairly well liked by a wide swathe of folks, heck there may even be a business plan in there somewhere...

Where Good Fellowship Reigns

It was a glorious day, as many of the preceding 20 had been. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and we were sat on the early morning bus from Inverness to Glasgow. It was time to make the long trek back to our little corner of Virginia, and after 4 hours of beautiful Scottish countryside drifting past the window we were in Glasgow. Minor side note, while the A9 has an atrocious, and thoroughly deserved, reputation as something of a death trap, it is also one of the most stunningly beautiful roads I have ever travelled on.

I have always had something of a soft spot for Glasgow, I love the architecture, the vibrant city centre, and I have loads of Glaswegian friends. Although I have never spent more than a few days in the city at a time, I have enjoyed many an excellent drinking session in the city's pubs. When we were planning our few hours in Glasgow city centre, I tweeted for advice on the best places near Buchanan Street bus station for a feed and a drink. I had originally wanted to make it out to WEST, but decided that I would rather spend the time downing pints of real ale. Several answers came back, but I knew pretty much straight off where we would be spending our afternoon. We wandered to the edge of the city centre, through the crowds for the Commonwealth Games, under the M8, and having proven again that navigation by pub is a universal, into pub heaven.

The  Bon Accord is unassuming, unpretentious, wood laden, and clearly a place for serious drinkers, who know their onions when it comes to the delights of malted barley, whether as beer or whisky. Mrs V and I found a couple of seats at the bar, and got our first drinks in, Cromarty's Hit the Lip for me, and Kronenburg 1664 for her, in her defense she hadn't noticed the Budvar in the fridge, once the Kronenburg was done she was Czech for the afternoon. I would have stuck quite happily with Hit the Lip had I not polished off the last of the cask, did I mention yet that there we 10 hand pulls arrayed on the bar? With no more Cromarty beer to keep me company, a Caledonian Brewery Summer Valley filled the gap while I pondered what to have next.

One of the things I love about pubs is the people you meet, the random conversations with folk you are unlikely to ever meet again, whether the older gent doing the crossword next to Mrs V, the Patrick Thistle fan with whom I discussed the upcoming independence referendum (a conversation I pointedly avoided with my family), and most of all, with Paul, the owner. It's difficult, if not impossible, to describe Paul as anything other than a man of the world, urbane, sophisticated, and a mine of knowledge of whisky and beer. It was fantastic to just sit and chat the many pleasures of the demon drink. It was Paul that recommended I try the Kelburn Dark Moor. Oh. My. Goodness. What a beer Dark Moor is, served in tip top condition, a wonderfully complex, irresistible mild.

We ended up spending the best part of 5 hours at the Bon Accord before heading back to the bus station to pick up our bags and head out to Renfrew and our hotel for the night. 5 hours of superb, well kept, beer, supreme service, stimulating conversation, and an all day breakfast to die for. The Bon Accord is a must visit when in Glasgow, and the kind of pub that if I ever had my own, would be the role model.

To The Castle!

After our little sojourn in the realms of Virginia beer, time to head back to Scotland, and wandering along the banks of the River Ness. If you've never been to Inverness, and I thoroughly recommend you do, spending a Sunday morning strolling along the Ness toward Bught Park, through the Ness Islands, and back up the other bank, culminating in reaching the pub at opening time, is pretty much as good as it gets. Especially when the pub in question is the Castle Tavern.

Located behind Inverness Castle, the Castle Tavern was one of the places that I had researched before our trip. The primary attraction was simple, real ale. While I am not a member of the Campaign for Real Ale, you could happily describe me as a fellow traveller. The time we went by, it was still an hour to opening time, and we had to be elsewhere. So the next time, we got there right at opening time.

Walking past the rather fetching collection of tables and benches outside, Mrs V and I decided to grab a seat at the bar and I ordered a pint of Cromarty Atlantic Drift, a 3.5% pale ale which was moreish beyond words, and Mrs V had a cider. As you can see from the pictures, the bar is in many ways, classic British pub, it was love at first sight as far as I was concerned, especially as the beer was in fine fettle. One thing I particularly appreciated was the option to have three thirds of a pint, to try multiple beers, for the price of a pint. I took the offer, but decided to stick with the Cromarty, which was a theme in many a pub we went to on our trip.

A few days later we were back, this time with my nephew in tow, and to my consternation the Atlantic Drift had kicked, as had all the casks from the previous visit. Ah well, Windswept Blonde more than filled the gap, and I discovered that a double dark rum and ginger ale is rather nice, strange things these youngsters drink.

With a good selection of real ales, staff that clearly knew their stuff, and an atmosphere that was friendly, laid back, and generally welcoming, the Castle Tavern would be a regular haunt if I lived in the Invernes area, and probably my local in Inverness itself. A great place.