Liver damage in the lakes

Me and the lovely Lisa had a fortnight's holiday in the lake district recently. We spent a week in Great Langdale and a week in Loweswater with our mate Paul. There was lots of trudging around in the sodding mist and lots of beer drunk.


Trudging around in the sodding mist

Highlights of the beer drinking included:

• The Three Shires in Little Langdale. Lisa is now mulling over whether to add Coniston Old Man to her Desert Island Beer list. It's a rich copper fruity beer.
• Tweedies Bar in Grasmere. Crap name but good bar, it had an excellent range of beers and friendly staff.
• Walking over from Great Langdale to the Wasdale Head Inn, a pub with its own brewery. The lovely Lisa like the Wasd'ale best and after five hours of trudging had several pints. I tried a few ranging from some god awful pale rauchbier (Smokey Joe's?) to the excellent strong mild Yewbarrow. 

In the Wasdale Head Inn

Mostly though we went to the Kirkstile Inn in Loweswater, as it's an excellent pub and the lovely Lisa had managed to find us accommodation within spitting distance of it. Sadly the brewery has gone from the pub as they bought another brewery in Hawkshead and now brew from there. Even more sadly for me my previous favourite from here, Loweswater Pale Ale (LPA), wasn't on for most of the week. The replacements weren't all bad though: Langdale at 4% was a cracking pale beer with good citrussy hop taste, Loweswater Gold at 4.3% went down very nicely but was a bit too thin in the body and Grasmore at 4.3% was a good dark beer to re-balance me when I'd had enough of drinking golden ales. Fortunately the LPA was back on towards the end of the week so I didn't miss out, it's rare I go for beers this weak (3.6%) but it's got loads of flavour packed into it despite its modest strength. 


Paul and the lovely Lisa at the Kirkstile Inn

And it wasn't always trudging around in the sodding mist on the hills. We had some sunny days with fantastic views too.


Crummock water from Melbreak

I was even in shorts and a T shirt at one point. Stripped off in the sun, did I get a tan? No, all I got was a tick attached to my leg.