Scotland Ale, "Now We Are Talking!"

Edinburgh Ale

One of the first things we did when we got to Edinburgh was go to a pub. We ordered an ale... oh my, slurp slurp slurp and then it was gone.

Never had we drank anything quite like it... creamy, smooth, velvety yum. We had heard that Ale was something special - dang it if the rumors weren’t spot on.

The reason we heard is that ale is brewed locally, usually within a few miles of the pub and always kept in a keg. I guess it keeps fermenting in the keg until it is all gone...

But being thorough researchers Gary and I tried Ale throughout the city - each ale turned out to be spectacular and each so very different. However we still were not totally satisfied that all ales were great so we continued to sample this brew where ever we went. Here is a sampling of the great pubs we found through out Scotland.

If there would be one conclusion from our research it would be a wish that someone would brew ale  near our house :)

This was one of our funniest experiences.  We were just wandering around the streets of Inverness when we saw this building and it's door.  We both love architecture and take a lot of pictures of strange things, so when we saw that it was a pub we just had to try out the door.  Once inside we ordered a pint. A short time later Lee and a few of his friends sat down with us - he was quite friendly however was very perplexed at why we were drinking at a local bar. When I answered it was because of the door, he thought I was just goofing with him... so finally I said it was because the beer was cheaper than the tourist bar.  With that he laughed and said we were all right!

The travel pattern Gary and I feel most comfortable with is to spend two nights in a city and then move on. What we usually do is on the day we drive to the new city we tour on the way and arrive in late afternoon or early evening.

Once checked in we walk the city - checking everything out. It is at this time we try the local pubs. Our favorite pubs have been the oldest or ones with very unusual names or stories. In Dumfries it turned out to be the Globe Inn... we had no idea what was in store for us when we entered... Jane Brown.

She was amazing. She was an authority on Robert Burns, she saw that we were new to the bar, so she gave us a guided tour - showed us where he drank, the windows he wrote his poetry on and where he sat. Then she recited some of his poems, told us to go to the bar while she changed clothes and then proceeded to teach Gary how to pull a proper pint of ale.

What a marvelous greeting and we hadn't been in Dumfries more than 20 minutes - some days are so very special!