On bladders and pig halfheads.

A couple of winters back, when I was but a callow youth, I and a few accomplices had reason to visit Castle Douglas, a surprisingly picturesque Tesco town in deepest darkest Galloway. There were several purposes for this trip, but chief amongst these was a desire to imbibe freely for a weekend, liberated of womanly shackles. Now it so happened that the majority of us were less than affluent at that stage in the circle of life, and the time of year dictated that fizzy lager pop was about 30p a pint in all self respecting supermarkets. This meant that while I am no lager snob, I found myself itching- nae, gagging- for a pint of something a little less fizzy, a little more opaque and a whole lot tastier as the number of consumed Coronaburgs escalated well into double figures.

Now apparently no matter how dark and deep Galloway may be, it is effectively impossible to find a half decent pint at 4.30am in mid January- so much for those rural lock-ins so cruelly hinted at in a deluge of TV-borne colloquial codswallop. In the face of such unflappable opposition I took the only course open to me, and passed out in my chair.

Fortunately the following morning I was able to persuade my Philistine-esque companions to join me in a visit to the tap shop of the local Sulwath brewery ( http://www.sulwathbrewers.co.uk/ ). Now I’d had numerous Sulwath beers previously -occasionally excellent, always inconsistent (if you’ll pardon the oxymoron)- and was interested to see if their flightiness was attributable to nature or nurture. After all, a pint in a heaving Wetherspoons at 12.30am surrounded by L-plate wearing nun-hookers is, despite the best intentions of the resident cellarman/kitchen porter, unlikely to match a well cared for couple in Thomsons or the Bow Bar for quality.

So, intrigued was I as we ventured into the tap room, off a small yard and refereshingly friendly and unadorned, bar a vaguely disturbing historical diorama in the corner which seemed very popular with a group of visiting sassenach CAMRA types. Eager to whet the old whistle (the sun was certainly approaching if not quite over the yard arm) I hastily ordered up a few Criffels (O.G. 1044 – ABV 4.6% , fairly unmemorable, if I remember correctly) and some Galloway Gold (O.G. 1049 – ABV 5.0% , keg lager) for The Abstainer. My enthusiastic urging to try a single pint of something that a) had been brewed 10 yards away and b)hadn’t been near a SodaStream fell on disappointingly deaf ears. Against all my rock instincts I avoided the John Paul Jones, as previous attempts to drink the stuff had resulted in fairly extreme disgust. At this point we were visited by a somewhat incongruous pig’s head, sliced in half so as to reveal its inner workings in perfect profile. Poor bugger.

The Criffel had killed the previously baw shaking hangover, and set me up nicely for some Knockendoch (O.G. 1047 – ABV 5.0% ) – a wholly different beast. This was cracking stuff- rich and full, and fairly complex early on. There were some condtitioning issues though- half way down and the lovely mouthfeel had disappeared, as had a lot of the complexity. Kest lah vye thought I, if I buy another one then it’ll be tasty again, and so it was. So much so that I left with a bladder full. An actual plastic bladder, in a box, filled with a fair few pints of the stuff. The drunken adventure back along Castle Douglas high street did nothing to keep the ale in tip top shape, but none the less it was sufficient to help me stave off the Coronaburgs for another hour or two. Which is a success in anyones book.