The Brewdog

The Brewdog brewery in Fraserburgh, which has been brewing beer since 2007 has been picking up a bit of attention of late. Perhaps it's notoriety, but that's not a reason not to check them out. So when I heard that they had opened up a pub in Aberdeen I reckoned that was the perfect opportunity to pop round and see what's going on whenever I got a chance - which was last Sunday.

I decided I would go down the half pint line since you get to try a few more before you fall over that way (falling over was not the plan by the way). With 7 draft beers on one blackboard and about as many on another, I certainly wasn't going to go through the card but decided on a half of Punk Wit - it's a sturdy little number, fruity and something a bit peppery about it - I'm afraid I'm not much of a connoisseur, but either way it was really good. Brewdogs half pint glasses have a fill to the line mark, religiously ignored by the barmen - keep it up lads. Then I moved on to a halfish pint of 5am Saint which was not quite so much to my liking - quite palatable though and I'm sure I could pick out a slight essence of bicycle inner tube.

Brewdog last year hit the news, or at least with type of people inclined to report that sort of thing, when it produced the world's strongest and most expensive beer. It was a limited edition of 12 bottles of 55% alcohol beer presented inside stuffed animals - that is, stuffed mainly with a bottle of beer. 7 were in stoats at £500 pounds and 4 were in Squirrels at £700 and one was in a hare which was not for sale. They did have one of the squirrel bottles on a shelf behind the bar which they brought down for me to photograph - not the last photo of the night. The poor creature seems to spend a large lump of it's afterlife leaping back and forward between bar and customer for photographs.

They have a huge selection of bottled foreign beer behind the bar. Much, though not all, is, quite frankly expensive and I did feel the need for a drink after I'd read the beer menu - handy that I was in a pub. But if you fancy treating yourselves from time to time or are Norwegian and quite used to these kind of prices then you'll be hard pushed to find a better selection anywhere (perhaps, just perhaps, even in the Masonic in Kirkcudbright)

I plumped for a bottle of Black Chocolate Stout - if you like dark chocolate and beer, then this could be the beer for you. I say it's yummy but if you want a more in depth review, I recently read about it here

The barmen have been very well educated about their product, can tell you all about it and are quite happy to give you a wee taste before you buy. I tried a taste of their Punk IPA which was very fine but what I was more interested in was the range of single hop ales - this sounds like the stuff of purists to me. They make four and they had two here on draught so I had a taste of both - the Nelson Sauvin (a New Zealand hop) was a fruity little number and the Sorachi Ace tasted of coconut - coconut? hard to believe without any brewery tricks - I'll have a half pint (and a bit) of that please. The barman tells me it's a Japanese hop developed by the Saporo brewing company (they of the indestructible tin)

The bar was mainly filled with young people and not a one drinking Tennents lager. They appeared to be doing quite well considering this was a Sunday night. Another Bar is due to open in Edinburgh sometime this month and one is planned for Glasgow. Could this be a change in the Scottish drinking habit - I don't know but it definitely marks an improvement in one corner of it.

Finally, it seemed a bit irresponsible to leave without trying their Sink The Bismark, which rings in at a spectacular 41% alcohol. Not surprisingly, they don't sell it by the pint or half pint but by 25ml shorts. It's much easier drinking than you might imagine (no need to grit your teeth first) and to my surprise, still identifiable as a beer.

Brewdog website is here

Marmite chocolate returns

Way back in October I managed to lay my hands on a bar of Marmite chocolate. Was I impressed - no I wasn't. I managed to do a better job myself. You can read all about it here .

Mrs W of Edinburgh and a great many other places around the world, who went to school with me and has put up with my scribblings for a goodly number of years, has very kindly sent me a Red Cross parcel containing some very posh Earl Grey tea from the USA and, more pertinant to this blog, some marmite truffles from the Chocolate Tree in Edinburgh. They are rather lovely - gone is that curious salty taste of official marmite chocolate and in is some dark smooth marmitey overtone that blends with the chocolate perfectly. I managed to photograph some before I scoffed the lot.

Glasgow Cathedral - Glass

Here's a selection of stained glass for Glasgow Cathedral, mostly new but a little old. The only window I know anything about is Great West Window which is The Creation by Francis Spear in the first 3 photos. The picture of the whole window is not terribly in focus but it's such a mighty old thing it seems to be wrong not to include it. As for the rest, I have no information, so I present them without comment - enjoy.

Glasgow Cathedral

After arriving into Glasgow by train, I usually dash across to Central Station to get a train down to Dumfries, from where I can get a bus to Kirkcudbright, but Monday was a rather lovely day, there was no hope of getting to Kirkcudbright in time for tea and there's plenty to see in Glasgow, so I decided to catch a later train and go for a wander.

I found my way down to Glasgow Cathedral, which is one mighty lump of medieval gothicness. It is actually not a cathedral any more since it is not the seat of a bishop - the Church of Scotland doesn't have any.

According to the information sheet, the church is sited on a piece of ground blessed by St. Ninian for burial in 397. Sometime round about 550 St. Mungo, or St Kentigan as he's sometimes known, built a church on the sight, probably made of wood.  The first stone built church on the site dates from 1136 and as with most church has continued to evolve since then.

The large open area here, where you enter, is the knave. looking down towards the quire screen and beyond, the upper church. Much of the timber in the knave's roof is thought to date back to the 14th century - there must have been a fair dose of Ronseal painted on it in that time. Way down at the far end, the upper church's wooden roof, that you can just see, is much later (1910 - 1912)

The cathedral has a particularly fine collection of stained glass windows, most of which date from 1947 and after. There's more than enough stained glass to cover one blog so I'll have a complete blog of stained glass at a later date but here's a bit to keep you going in the mean time. This is the Millennium Window by John Clark, unveiled in 1999, and is thought to be one of the most technically demanding stained glass windows ever made.

It's quite wonderful - have a closer look at a bit.

On the way down to the lower church you pass the Blacader Aisle. It was built when Bishop Blacader was boss in around 1500.

Judging by the amount of construction going on round about him, I suspect that this is Bishop Blacader.

This chap doesn't look all that comfortable.

A piece of old and no longer required masonry out on display

At the end of the lower church and the upper church there are a number of small chapels on a small walkway which the leaflet I picked up calls an ambulatory. The chapel below is the Nurses Chapel (Chapel of St Andrew).

I think that this might be the Lower Chapter house (some clues might have been nice). This set table and chairs were in a room barred off by a heavy iron gate.

This is the slightly out of focus tomb of St Mungo.

Part of a tapestry screen in the lower church.

Back outside and the sky is still blue. There's not many gargoyles on the cathedral but there is this little chap.

Out side the graveyard is effectively paved with gravestones on their sides and covered in moss.

This gravestone was uncovered though. Probably because the Robert Stevenson mentioned at the bottom was one of the famous lighthouse Stevensons. He was the engineer of the Bell Rock lighthouse and Robert Louis Stevensons' grandfather as it happened.

From a railway carriage

On Sunday I managed to get off the boat but arrived in Aberdeen too late to travel down that evening, so the next morning I had a nice relaxed breakfast and wandered off  to the station to catch a train just before 10 o'clock. I always feel that a few hours on the train should be a good time to do a bit of reading but it never seems to happen that way. I find I spend more time looking around at the goings on around the carriage or looking out of the window. Train windows are tricky old things to take pictures out of, what with being reflective, at least double glazed and not particularly clean but that's not to stop me trying. It was a lovely sunny day out there, so come and join me for a cup of railway tea and we'll have a wee look out the window together as we make our way from Aberdeen to Glasgow.

Just couple of miles outside Stonehaven there's an old graveyard clinging to the edge of a cliff. There's the barest remains of what was probably the church and no real sign of any village round about it. The future is unstoppable and sooner or later it'll be over the edge and forgotten.

A nice sandy beach - the entire journey is shooting into the sun I'm afraid.

An unknown castle. If you keep your eyes open, the Scottish country side is absolutely litter in the remains of castles - most of them much smaller than this.

Two men ruin a good walk at Carnoustie.

A drilling rig undergoing a bit of work at Dundee.

I was trying to take a picture of a castle on the other side of the loch but, when you're travelling along at 70 miles and hour, sometimes things get in the road. I hadn't actually notice the weather vane until it appeared in
the picture.

At first I thought it was fog and then perhaps that it was something on fire but it transpired that it was some sort of trail following a tractor (which I completely missed), be it something he was spreading or some serious attention needing paid to his exhaust emmissions.

A fancy church spire - in Perth I think.

The Wallace monument just outside Stirling

And again but with some surrounding countryside this time.

Not all lovely - in the distance you can see BPs huge refinery and chemical plant at Grangemouth. I made my living there for 14 years before I went offshore.

Glasgow's Queen Street station and the end of our journey.