Back to Braithwaite

The lovely Lisa and I were back in the Lake District last week. We heroically struggled up mountains and drank heroic quantities of beer.

Crossing the white spider

The excellent Open All Hours shop was one of the beery highlights of the trip. We were able to stock up on a fine selection of lake district beers, at very reasonable prices. The Hardknott Infra Red was only half the price I'd paid for a bottle from Utobeer, but then everything in Borough market seems overpriced.

If you're wondering which one of these was my favourite the answer is this one:

That's right, cask beer beats bottled yet again. We found this in the the very posh Middle Ruddings. And it was only £2.70 a pint, considerably cheaper than the prices for Jennings beers in the nearby Royal Oak.

The other beery highlight of the trip was a meet the brewer night at the Dog and Gun in Keswick. There were people from four breweries scattered around the pub for a speed dating style meet the brewers event. We chatted to people from the Keswick, Hawkshead and Cumbrian Legendary Ales breweries. The first two offered nibbles to go with the beer which the lovely Lisa seemed very taken with the beer and food pairing thing. Perhaps a beer and cheese night is needed? Though come to think of it the chocolate and beer seemed a popular pairing too.

We missed out on seeing the bods from Tirril but I did have some of their beer and Old Faithful was very drinkable.

The people from Cumbrian Legendary Ales were kind enough to give me a couple of their jigsaw beer mat sets and on my return home I was able to entertain, and I hope indoctrinate, my favourite niece.

I take my duties as a Beer Father seriously.