Recipe for success

Planning the Brewers & Suppliers evening following the success of last years event was always going to be a challenge however, like all successful recipes if you start off with the very best ingredients you can't go far wrong. 

Recipe for success

• Fill a cellar full of the best from Scotlands ale & cider brewers
• Add a generous helping of the freshest local seafood
• Blend together with the finest collection of local musicians
• Assemble a hand picked selection of brewers, distillers & food producers. 
• Serve with a smile & warm hospitality from the cream of Clachaig staff 

 

Shiny new casks

Ales & Ciders were arriving all week from all over Scotland with deliveries coming as far as Orkney & Shetland.

Cellar preparation

As well as our regular local brewers we invited some new faces from Fyne Ales,
Lerwick Brewery and Alechemy Brewing
 

Fresh from the sea

Fresh seafood & the best of Lochaber produce from Letterfinlay Specialist Foods
helped our chefs prepare some tasty offerings. Well done to Garry and our kitchen team for the excellent buffet.

Hungry Brewers

The gathering tucked in before their evenings 'work'. A blind tasting of all 10 ales. Great fun reading all the comments & scores -  some of the best however, are unfit to repeat here.

leave room for pudding

 

The Wurzels enjoying a cider...or two

Tony from Strathearn Distillery was busy doing the rounds sharing copious drams of his own whisky, rum & gin during the ale tasting, apparantly it all helped cleanse the palate.

Merlin from Cairngorm, he's a real wizard you know

 

Filling up before the ale tasting

Congratulations to Harry from River Leven Ales for being voted the best beer on the night by his fellow brewers with his River Leven Dark Ale.

Raffle swag

Huge thanks to all the brewers & suppliers for their generous raffle gifts which helped raise £257.00 for Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team.

This is a local pub for local musicians

Our local regular session musicians turned up in fine form and entertained the gathering for the evening. They certainly earned their prawns & scallops.

A Bevvy of Brewers.....or whatever the collective noun is!

So, there you have it folks. A great night in true Clachaig style. I have it on good authority that there were a few sore heads in the morning but lots of compliments too and already looking forward to next year.

Many thanks to Alechemy Brewing Cairngorm Brewery Cairn o Mohr Real Fruit Wines Lerwick Brewery Loch Lomond Brewery Letterfinlay Specialist Foods Orkney Brewery River Leven Ales Isle of Skye Brewing Company Strathearn Distillery Strathaven Ales TBS Coffee Thistly Cross Cider Fyne Ales and Williams Bros. Brewing Co. for making it a night to remember. 

And finally a huge shout to team Clachaig for the excellent service.

  

See you all next year!

Quiet February?.....You must be joking!

James preparing a new delivery

Clachaig is buzzing at the moment as we go into the second week of our winter beer festival. The cellar is rammed with a selection of Scotland's finest cask ales from Cairngorm, Williams Bros, An Teallach, Glenfinnan & Caledonian to name but a few.

Plenty of things to do in the evening too, whisky & ale tastings, mountain safety lectures, quizzes & of course plenty of live music & craic by the bucket load.

Winter safety lecture

Meanwhile through in the lounge bar over 60 hardy outdoor enthusiasts enjoyed last nights lecture on
Winter Mountain Safety presented by Roger Wild (UIAGM Mountain Guide and ex Safety Advisor with the MCofS) The main focus of Roger's lectures was winter navigation, vital training that apparently paid off as some of them managed to navigate through to the boots bar afterwards....job done.

Books 'R' us

Following the recent makeover to our residents lounge we've added a couple of bookshelves and filled them with...er...books. Guests & visitors alike can borrow, buy or swap. All we ask is a few pennies for Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team. We've even come up with some innovative bookends....old whisky boxes...empty of course, sorry folks.

Everybody's got to learn sometime!

And to add to the workload we're busy training our 'newest' recruits as we gear up for a busy season. Jessica originally helped us out in our housekeeping team at weekends & during school holidays, but she's all 'growed' up now and has returned from her studies for a stint on the front desk....
......Still no Hawkers or Campbells but smiles all round & a friendly welcome guaranteed.

Kelpie Seaweed Ale

We’re always keen to improve our product knowledge, so when the chance came up to combine this with a day at the beach rather than at work it seemed too good to be true. So, of course it was.

No lounging around topping up the tan, no beach barbeque, and worse still, not an ice cream van in sight. Instead the morning was spent gathering bladderwrack seaweed.



I dare say it may seem an odd thing to do to some, but for brewer Bruce Williams, it’s just “another day in the office”. Bruce and Scott Williams are behind Williams Brothers Brewing, the guys who for the best part of twenty years have supplied us here at Clachaig with numerous tasty beers. These have ranged from the more familiar ales like 80/-, to the more exotic (and historic) ones including Fraoch (Heather Ale), quite possibly our best selling beer over the years.

But tomorrow’s brew is Kelpie Seaweed Ale. So with that in mind, a short ten-minute drive brought us to the shoreline by Castle Stalker, just in time for low tide. Monty Python fans will of course know it by its alternative name, Castle Aaargh. Maybe we got the odd funny look or two from passers-by, but at least we weren’t subjected to taunts of French knights as the heroes of the film were.

Armed with a handfull of bags, and several pairs of scissors, we set about gathering one of the key ingredients for the brew. Cutting the seaweed rather than pulling it up leaves to roots intact, ensuring there’s plenty of seaweed for the next harvest.

Despite the weather, it has to be said it was a surprisingly pleasant way to spend a morning, and indeed is there a better to improve product knowledge than to occasionally get out and get involved with our local suppliers? Well, that’s my excuse for not working anyway!

Spring forward - Fall back

As British summertime kicks GMT into touch and you're complaining about losing an hours sleep, perhaps your thoughts should turn to new born gamboling lambs, sprouting daffodils & the Easter bunny...... or even the Birds & the Bees.

Described as an aromatic pale ale brewed with a combination of barley, oats, hops, meadow sweet & elder flowers. Any excuse to try out a new traditional cask ale is alright by us, so if you are dropping into the bar over the weekend 3rd/4th April, treat yourself to the latest offering from the the Williams Brothers, stars of the hit TV show 'drink to Britain' with their new pals Oz Clarke & James May.
http://www.ozclarke.com/drink_to_britain.html

FebruaryFest in Full Swing

There's a dazed look on a few faces this morning as we recover from an absolute belter of a weekend here at Clachaig. We're still trying to work out why this weekend was so much busier this weekend than last, as the weather, although fairly settled, was a whole lot milder this week than last.


Its been great to see so many folk having a great time at the beer festival. As ever, the beers have been many and varied, but there are definitely a few favourites emerging from the selection so far.

One of these is Midnight Sun, brewed by the William's Brothers. Its a proper winter ale, being dark and spicy, and at 5.6% ABV its to be enjoyed in moderation! (I actually tried this thinking that it would be too sweet & strong to enjoy but was pleasantly surprised how drinkable it is - go easy is my advice, Ed)

An Teallach Brewery, run by former Clachaig entertainer (and purveyor of terrible jokes) Davie Orr in Dundonnel, have come up trumps with a couple of new ales. The Hector is a lovely smooth stout named after the famous boat that sailed from Ullapool to what became Nova Scotia in the late 18th Century.

And Suilven, named after that famous whale backed big lump of a mountain thingy in the image on the pump clip above, has won over a few fans, being a nice light hoppy number.

These are just 3 of the ales featured in our FebruaryFest Beer Festival, though sometimes its a case of blink and you'll miss it as a bar full of folk get a taste for the latest addition to the range. However, tell us your favourites, and we'll gladly bring them back again after the festival finishes.