Red Dwarf real ale and Runrig

Skull Splitter, Dragonhead Stout, Devil’s Advocate and Stone the Crows. Just a few of the beers on offer last week at the 13th Ayrshire Real Ale Festival in Troon town hall. Straight after work, on Friday night, I jumped in the car and headed out to Barassie to meet up with Dad and Dougie at Tom and Linda’s house. The plan was to get a quick dinner in the Barassie Reid’s house before heading out to the annual beer festival, staying the night with my Aunt and Uncle and the two dogs, Sally and Jake.
Dougie and Dad, who’d been at last year’s beer swilling event, had the spare rooms and I had the luxurious splendour of the living room floor, so whilst the two Dad’s were out getting everyone a fish supper, or a steak pie supper, in my case, Tom and myself pulled the couch cushion in from the mobile home, parked outside in the side driveway, ready for another trip the next Sunday morning.
Four giant portions of fish and chips and a steak pie supper later, we were ready to go. I knew agreeing to the chippie was a mistake as soon as I agreed to it. Eating that amount of food with the intention of then drinking a copious amount of beer could not be a good idea, surely?
Leaving Linda indoors with the dugs, Tom, Dougie, Dad and myself piled into the car and drove down to the Troon town centre, heading straight for the large concert hall after a brief stop off at the seafront Morrisons for a quick visit to the cash machine.
Once parked and disembarked outside one of the small, cosy looking bungalows on Academy Street we followed the few passers by up towards the Troon Concert hall, where, according to the notice board standing outside, Donnie Munro was to be playing at the beginning of November.
One of Mum’s favourites, Donnie Munro is the former lead singer of Runrig, the Scottish, gaelic speaking, celtic rock band. Donnie left to be a politician back in 1997. He’d played his last gig with Runrig at Stirling Castle on August 29th. I know because I was there, along with Colin, Chaz and Adie. Shazz was also there with relations, somewhere in the crowd. Colin had always been into Runrig and I wasn’t unfamiliar with them after hearing more than a few of Mum’s albums, not to mention my Uncle Laurence’s tapes. The 1988 live video ‘City of Lights’ was also a favourite of Mum’s. The live video began with lots of sweaty, eager looking Runrig fans trampling over one another to get through the front doors of the Barrowlands whilst Radio Clyde reported from the Eye in the Sky, circling the gloomy towers and rooftops of Glasgow as the opening drums of Dance Called America boomed through the echoing ballroom. At the time of the farewell gig in Stirling we must have been going through a particularly patriotic musical phase and had even cajoled Adie and Chaz into liking them, although I think that was down to the fact a few of the songs had rather loud drums which sounded good emanating from a bass tube.
I’ll never forget that Farewell Donnie Concert. Not because the singer officially left the band that night, or because we met the man himself and Runrig guitarist, Rory MacDonald straight after, but because suffering a slight hangover, Dad woke me up the next morning and told me Princess Diana had been in a car crash earlier that morning and died soon after.
Anyway, Donnie’s political career obviously didn’t work out fabulously so he’s back at the music, much to Uncle Tom’s vexation (“Runrig? They’re rubbish - Name one good tune?!”) but the night of the 13th Ayrshire Real Ale Festival was going to have a very different kind of music.
Paying our £4 each and receiving our pint glasses and programmes in the process we ventured forth into Troon’s crowded concert hall. A bar took up the whole of the right side of the large hall, barrel’s piled up behind, all with A4 paper labels displaying the many wonderful varied names of the sweet nectar stored inside, all colour coded indicating which kind of category they each fell into. A bitter, a best bitter, a golden ale, a strong bitter, an IPA, a mild, a stout or a Speciality ale. Over 120 beers were being served over the bar, £3 a pint or if you wanted to drink quicker, and taste more, £1.50 a half pint. The bar was run by a large bunch of volunteers from the organisers, Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale organisation whose posters adorned the walls shouting about petitions to George Osborne whose apparently taking over two thirds of the cost of our pint as we drink.
After visiting the Real Ale festival with Tom last year, Dad and Dougie, had told stories ever since of great beer and good music so I was curious to see what kind of music this occasion was going to serve up. As we shuffled through the crowd for our first beers, guys moved around on the stage at he end of the hall with wires and instruments.
First up, I tried the Kelburn Jaguar, a smooth, fullbodied ale with undertones of grapefruit and citrus with a hoppy aftertaste. No, I have not turned into the beer version of Jilly Goolden, I am merely reading from the programme, though I do remember this being the best beer of the night. As the crowd of drinkers got busier, a few of Tom’s mates introduced themselves, each with their own flagon of ale, and the band took to the stage.
Big Licks’ surprisingly good loud cover versions soon had Troon Concert Hall rocking with hits from the likes of the Goo Goo Dolls, Tom Petty, the Stones, Lenny Kravitz, Primal Scream and a whole lot of others. Three guitarists, one a bassist, a drummer and a lead vocalist who immediately reminded me of Bill Nighy from “Love Actually”. He was around the same age with a similar hairstyle, except a little longer at the back and a bit balder on front, with similar Bill Nighy glasses.

He made very decent attempts at the cover versions’ vocals, and jumped around the stage flinging the microphone stand around rather well, considering his age, smiling and laughing through his rather pronounced teeth excitedly. The bass guitarist looked on a little bored in his dark T-shirt and jeans, nodded emphatically to the beat, as most bass guitarists do, whilst the two other guitarists worked hard over their fretboards, spinning off into the occasional impressive solo between pints delivered to the top of a local amp by their wives.
Second beer of the night was the Golden Plover, a light, golden ale that was exceedingly easy to drink as we hummed along to the music. A beer named Red Dwarf followed as the third beverage of the night. I seen the name in the book and thought that since the new series had now started back I owed it to Doug Naylor himself to give it a bash. Another good choice.
Losing track of my beers, though taking it a little easier following the steak pie supper, I’m not sure what was drunk after the Red Dwarf but last of the night was by far, the worst. Merry Maiden’s Mild was this particular tipple’s title and it was in no way merry or mild. It was like drinking watery, alcohol imbued syrup.
Pretty horrible. Especially as I had to drink this one rather quickly.
The witching hour had swiftly come around and Tom informed us we’d have to run for the free train journey home to Barrassie. Dad, Dougie and myself followed Tom and his pal, a short running pal of my Uncle’s, up Academy Street towards the train station. Unfortunately we were travelling upwind.
As we walked there were some distinctive noises from one of the arses walking ahead of us and unfortunately we walked straight into some clouds of definite noxious nitrogen mixed with carbon dioxide with what tasted like the Merry Maiden’s Mild.
Up ahead, the train [ulled up at the station at the top of the hill. Tom and his pal arrived at the train station just as the doors slid open to the waiting crowds of beer swillers and other Friday night travellers. We had to run up the last hill behind them, after having deliberately fallen a safe distance behind whilst debating which of the guys the putrid gases were exiting from. Just as we ran up behind, gasping after the short jog, Tom’s short pal gave another loud frump. Our timing for arriving at their rear, out of breath, could not have been worse and as we suffered in another cloud of rectum gases.
After two minutes on the crowded train the five of us disembarked at Barassie, where Tom’s short pal left us with one last fart, propelling himself up Barassie station’s cross platform stairway behind some chattering girls. Tom had invited him back for some toasted cheese but I wasn’t too keen on the consequences of some more beer being introduced to the guys system, not to mention the cheese. Sally and Jake would have been packing their bags, never mind the rest of us.
Although Sally did almost get a rather more comfortable bunk for the night before we all headed off to bed. Just as we all parted from the living room following our toasted cheese, and Tom’s trip through his concert ticket memory box, I visited the bathroom to clean the old gnashers. Whilst I was brushing everyone else had a good laugh as, the now elderly, Sally made herself comfortable in my cosy mobile home couch cushion and sleeping bag set up on the living room floor.
She looked so comfortable.
I kicked her out.

Go West

Colin waved up from Templeton Street, his tall, dark form looking a little bedraggled in the rain that was descending over Glasgow Green and it’s surroundings on Saturday afternoon. My Dad and I had arrived five minutes earlier, disembarking the number 18 bus round the corner on London Road just after the rain had started to pour and Colin had called to say he’d made it as far as Trongate.
It was the jolly boys outing and Colin, Dad and myself were attending a tour at the West Brewery in Glasgow’s Templeton building, a building that was formerly a carpet factory and designed by Scottish architect William Leiper, who apparently based his architectural designs on the Doges Palace on St. Mark’s Square over in Venice, a building Ka and myself visited whilst on our honeymoon in the spectacular city. Leiper apparently based his designs on the building following the Venetian design craze at the time being forced to keep in mind the City Council, and Mr Templeton himself, who had wanted the building to have an attractive exterior considering it was on the verge of one of Glasgow’s biggest parks. The whole building now houses many different companies ranging from crèches and dance studios to offices and breweries.
The brewery was the part we were interested in.
As we awaited Colin’s arrival, Dad ordered up the first pint, a crisp, cold, golden coloured mug of St. Mungo’s, the West Brewery’s only beer currently being brewed for the off-trade. Whilst the bartender served us, another, bearded, bartender introduced himself as our future tour guide. Taking my first taste of a St. Mungos pint, Dad confidently informed me that you didn’t get hangovers with this kind of beer. He’d visited only a few months back with friends and had woke up the next morning feeling unaffected by the previous night’s pint intake.
Definitely a good thing as the St. Mungos was delicious and we ordered up a second pint, this time of St. Mungo’s stronger brother, Hefeweizen. Unfortunately, as we did so, the tour guide started shouting from one end of the bar and the small gathered crowd ambled off to start the tour we had booked on.
We were still waiting on our Hefeweizen. As soon as we grabbed the tall glasses from the bar we strode off to find our tour party, finding the door at the back of the large bar that we’d spotted them crowd through and then a descending staircase in a echoing brick walled corridor on the other side. When we got to the bottom on the twisting stairs we discovered only one black door marked ‘Private’, locked.
“Er, hello?!” Colin knocked on the door and laughter was heard from the other side. We waited for an apologetic tour guide to open the door but instead found ourselves still standing waiting in the corridor. Colin knocked again. “Hello? Are you letting us in?” Colin knocked again and again, each knock echoing and being greeted with more laughter and a few indistinguishable comments for the other side.
“B*stards!” I thought to myself, before some bloke from the tour eventually opened the door for us, allowing us to join the party. The bearded tour guide himself sat perched on some silver barrels in the middle of the large fermenting room we now found ourselves in, talking away, waving his hands around enthusiastically.
So as we supped away at our hefeweizen, the tour guide took us through his well practised speeches, telling us all about the West Brewery and it’s produce. From the building’s humble beginnings as the carpet factory all the way up West’s inception within the building and the establishment of the Brewery itself. The first UK brewery to produce it’s beers in accordance with the German Beer Purity Law, or the Reinheitsgebot, which originated in Bavaria around 1516. A Bavarian Duke, of some description, decided to take it all upon himself to make an official proclamation of how beer should be made. Apparently people used to make beer out of all sorts of stuff, usually other ingredients to substitute hops. Nuts, berries, poisonous ivies, dandelions and bits of old oak. Basically anything that was lying about the garden after a good weeding session. Presumably it wasn’t until the Duke’s mates actually started falling over due to food poisoning, rather than drunkenness, that he decided to make a law.
The Reinheitsgebot states that beer should only be made by it’s four key ingredients, hops, yeast, malt and water and the West Brewery follow these guidelines in their beer production mirroring the great breweries of Europe, and Germany in particular.
After the main fermenting room the small tour crowded into the large malt cupboards where we passed round plastic cups full of the various malts, giving each a good, hard sniff and tasting the various malt grains, like some alcoholic version of a Nescafe commercial. The bearded tour guide then took us up into another open roofed room, down below the actual bar area, to the giant copper chimneys in which the malts and waters are mixed.

Using the copper chimney’s one small porthole like window in the angular top section we where allowed to stick our head in and once again give it all a good sniff. According to Colin, the dormant, pasty looking mixture lying inside the copper vault had the stench not wholly unlike that of cannabis. Of course, being unaware of such smells I shrugged. My Dad would probably recognise it better than I would as he uses cannabis air fresheners in his car. For a good while he had felt cannabis leaves hanging from his rear view mirror. Everyone else has magic trees but Dad has magic leaves.
The tour ended with a long chat in which the tour guide, on more than one occasion, slagged off a popular Scottish lager, which he refused to name, but illustrated by use of forming his hands into a blatant T shape. All of West’s true German influenced lagers and beers are all given, at the very least, months to ferment. Apparently the Scottish lager, whose ingredients were also brought into question, only allow their lager to settle for a couple of hours, at most. Perhaps a reason why hangovers and more prolific with the ales we usually partake in. The bearded guide then started defending the price of The west brews and why it was dearer than the usual lagers on the street to which I decided to pipe up and argue that some of the ‘usual’ lagers were just as dear, or dearer, than that in some places, to which the tour guide replied by refusing me my beer samples at the end of the tour?! I was sticking up for his beer and he reprimanded me? What was all that about?
Colin then piped up to defend my comment to which the tour guide insisted that he wasn’t to get any tasters either?! The guy obviously misheard us or was still in a huff for us turning up late for his wonderful talk.
As it happened he was only joking, even if he had misheard, misunderstood or just hadn’t listened, and delivered all our beers to our reserved table where we spent the following hours, chatting drinking and eating whilst the rain continued to pour outside and Wedding guests started gathering outside in the main pub hall, where an evening reception was being set up in the crowded bar.
We tried the majority of the west’s beers including the Red Munich, the caramel flavoured malt beer, the West lager and another St.Mungo before heading off for homewards.
We strolled up the dark London Road to Trongate and then onwards to Glassford Street where we decided to go for a night cap before jumping on the bus home and Colin, the last train home.
We strolled up Glassford Street heading for the Blane Valley, a quiet wee pub on a corner Dad recommended where Mum and him have been known to go for bar lunches on shopping trips. Bacchus was the next bar along the street but as that is the warm up bar for the gay club further along we thought it would be safer to opt for the Blane. Shrugging we opened the Blane Valley door to find the place heaving, a bald, cheery looking karaoke singer roaring into his mike, almost directly before us as we pulled the door open. Deciding against the Blane we headed back down the street and ended up stepping through a set of ancient black, double doors into The Steps Bar.
A small, black window, between the clean, lunch friendly Blane Valley and the opulent Mansion House, we entered the The Steps Bar through the double black doorway into a small, dingy, dusty old dive that looked like the Phoenix Club after the fire.
The few occupants all turned and eyed us suspiciously as we entered, trying to look casual. In a corner two middle aged couples eyed us up and down, a flirting older couple looked round at us from a darker, grimmer looking, corner and various other elder folk glowered at us from the bar, including the barman who looked like an older version of Gregor Fisher’s Baldy Man character, without the smile and the cigar. He spilt our pints as he delivered them to us at the bar and claimed he was ‘just learnin’.
As we sat trying to enjoy our last drinks of the day, eighties music playing on the tv up on the heavily stained wall, the two middle aged couples to my right start waving papers around in my direction, laughing and guffawing in my general direction. Turning I asked what was wrong to which they all laughed even louder asking what I’d been eating. Outraged and insulted I insisted I had not farted, in anyway, shape or form, to which the two couples argued, and continued to insist, that I had. As Colin and my Dad joined in, waving beer mats around and laughing, I eventually gave up and turned back to my drink.
Around ten minutes later a definite stench started circulating the dark little pub from the couples’ corner and this time I think the culprit was found out. The wife sitting closest to me of the two couples was distinctly quieter as a similar carry on involving papers and beermats ensued and indeed that wife soon disappeared to the loo for a good fifteen minutes during which the three remaining drinkers had to admit that they no longer reckoned it had been me that had suffered the flatulence.
Shortly after, we finished our drinks and headed back out through the black double doors, back out into Glassford Street and within ten minutes my Dad and myself were on the last 21 home. Arriving at home 12 hours after leaving we were greeted by Ka who immediately went to the kitchen and produced us a nice cup of tea and a slice of toast. Dad jumped in a taxi quite happy and Ka and myself went to bed.
The next morning I awoke to the familiar pounding head of a hangover. It must have been that last pint in the Steps bar.