Cycling for Beer, Part 17- the Bridges of Almond.

Went on a wee jaunt on the old velocipede with the Lady Arlenka on Sunday following the River Almond upstream from the brewery. Our name, Inveralmond, means the confluence of the Almond and another river, in our case, the mighty Tay only 500 metres downstream. So after doing the FV gravity checks it was on the bikes and Westwards Ho!

The Old Inverness Road bridge, where Mr. Heron likes to gather lunch for his family.

The Railway Bridge

The Auld Brig at South Ardittie

Same bridge but from the South looking towards the Sma' Glen, where lies Ossian's Stone and Grave.

That well known spot most looked for on an ordnance survey map, PH - for Public House. In this case, the Chapelhill Inn, with Don the Landlord who serves great beer (Perth 800 in the glasses) and cooks up really fine dining. We could have spent all afternoon there soaking up the sun from the south looking over Strathalmond. But there was more cycling to do...

The Brig at Buchanty Spout -where there are cataracts which give rise to a huge spout of water when the river is in spate.

The view upstream from the brig westwards to the Spout. It's a lovely spot, great for picnics, but for us it meant a brew up on the camping kettle and a sausage sizzle. Yum yum.

On the homeward run now, looking back towards the Sma' Glen. There's an old Roman signal station on the hill on the left. This was the route in 84BC the Legions under Agricola took to head north to do battle with the Calgacus and his Caledonians at Mons Graupius in the Grampians.

40 minutes later, mostly downhill, with bikes back in the hoose, over the road and into Greyfriars enjoying the fruits of our labours. Arlenka on the Thrappledouser and me on the Perth 800. Yum yum again!

Slainte, Ken

Tanks for the beer!

Our first tanker being filled with Lia Fail for bottling on Tuesday last week. One big long hose from the FVs (3 of them) and one pump going for 75 mins to fill the shiny tanker. Up to now we have used transportable 5 barrel tanks loaded on to a flatbed lorry taking a whole day, but this breakthrough in beer transfer size, made possible by our bigger brewlength and fermenter capacity, means it's a lot simpler and better for the beer to get the beer by this size of tanker off to the bottling hall. Enough for 29,000 bottles!

Below is your humble correspondent enjoying the view from another tank, an old ex-army 432APC near Alford in Aberdeenshire recently.

Ok then, off to the pub. Forward!

Slainte! Ken

Ossian wins again!

Had some fabulous news on Thursday when we visited the Aberdeen Beerfest - Ossian had been crowned the CAMRA Champion Golden Ale of Scotland 2010. Tremendous news, which Fergus and I had to celebrate by having a pint of the golden wonder. I can report that the Ossian did live up to its new-found glory - which is what I would expect and demand, since I brew it!

Here's a shot of M.D. Fergus with extreme marathon runner Mark Raffan, one of Ossian's champions, at the Beerfest, toasting the win.

Mark is going to do the Caledonian Challenge this weekend, which involves a forced march from Fort William to Milngavie along the West Highland Way. He doesn't think that's strenuous enough, so he is going to run the 54 miles up on the Friday from Milngavie to Fort Wlliam and then on run all the way back. Wow! As you can see he's getting in some protein-carbs energy drink to get him on his way!
Slàinte
Ken