Mostly drinking in Coniston

Last week the lovely Lisa and I were mostly drinking in Coniston. Mainly we stuck to the two pubs in the good book, particularly as the dreaded word 'Robinsons' was displayed on the outside of the others.

Our favourite was the Sun Inn, it has a fine range of reasonably priced ales, a beer garden with a great view, and good food. Generally we went with Cumbrian Legendary Ales Loweswater Gold. It's not our favourite of the brewery's beers but still good stuff and in the absence of Langdale and Grasmore we had to make do.

The other tick in Coniston in the Black Bull, home of Coniston Brewery. It's only a short walk from the Sun but is on the main drag so looked busier. They had a good range of beers here which we did our best to work our way through. The cask beers weren't always on top form and the first time we tried Old Man ale it was definitely not right, which was a shame as we climbed the mountain on this trip. We weren't taken with their (proper real?) keg lager either, it had less flavour compared to its bottled form. I suppose it's no real surprise that keg lager isn't up to much. But having said all that the Black Bull is a nice pub and we had more than a few pints in it so it definitely has its good points.

We did also trek a bit further to continue our researches. On a damp day we called in at The Church Inn in Torver, I think we had more Loweswater Gold in here.It's a pub with an excellent old fashioned look that I approve of, complete with a much needed log fire to dry us out.