Nora McGunnigle

YOU GUYS. I love cask and bottled conditioned bitters SO MUCH. And this one is so very tasty. Tom found it at Martin's Wine Cellar on Magazine Street earlier this week and I have been gleefully anticipating drinking it ever since. The whole concept of the "ordinary" bitter is what session beer is all about. It's traditionally a low ABV (this particular beer is 4.2%, but the bitters over in England tend to be around 3%.), meant to be enjoyed through the day and/or night while socializing at the pub. It's delicious and easy drinking. Bluebell has a fresh grassy quality in the maltiness, and the Challenger hops definitely add a gentle bite  Super smooth. In my semi-professional opinion, YUM. The fact that the bitter is bottle conditioned really does make it taste and feel like a cask ale. I just love it and would drink it all the time if it weren't for the fact that it was around $5 for a 25 oz bottle.  I salute Shelton Brothers for bringing this wonderfu...

Well, I had some difficulty continuing with my cask ale blogging because it turns out that 50mb of data goes pretty fast when posting pictures and blog posts and the like, and that's all the data I had available to me over there.  Plus, we got sucked into serious family stuff, which made drinking more like a medical necessity rather than the pleasure that I like to reflect in this blog! To sum up: we drank awesome cask ale not only in Edinburgh and St. Andrews in Scotland, but also Chippenham and Bath in England as well.  Hooray!  Man, there was one place in Bath called The Hobgoblin, that I *loved*. They had a great variety of real ale, and it was just grungy and divey and awesome. Note: I was unable to get any other pictures of the interior because it was too dark and dank for my (non-flash having) camera phone to capture.  Just think: dark, dingy, and rough in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE.  See some reviews here and here to get a better feel for the atmo...

After our swift pint at the Whey Pat, we checked in to our hotel and chilled for a bit, watching crazy British tv and/or napping. When we got up, we headed to the Central Bar for a pre-dinner pint or two. I haf something called Hop Scotch and.Tom had a Harvistoun's Bitter & Twisted. I liked his B&T so much that I got one myself the next round while Tom had a Fuller's London Pride. After dinner, we stopped back at the Central for a half pint before turning in. I had been looking forward to having a Theakson's Old Peculiar for a post dinner, pre-bed treat, but it was not how I remembered it. It was much thinner and weaker and less flavorful than the dark, roasty, chewy, dark beer I had in my memory so I swapped with Tom 's Peter's Well (previously still conditioning but became available while we were at dinner)  and enjoyed that quite a bit.

The pub in St. Andrews I love with an unholy fervor is the Whey Pat. It's the closest pub to where Tom's mum lived and they have 7 cask engines, 6 currently pouring. I have a pint of Abbot Ale and Tom has a pint of Landlord. UNHOLY LOVE. I will likely be posting from here a lot over the next few days. I'll create a Whey Pat tag even!