Brewery: Cairngorm
Location: Aviemore, Scotland
ABV: 4.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Marks & Spencer

M&S Scottish Ale is brewed by Cairngorm of Aviemore and is one of the regional British beers that make up the majority of the store’s current own-label bottled beer range. And I’m guessing – based on the description on the Cairngorm website – that this is either a straight re-labelling or a very close relative of the brewery’s Blessed Thistle ale.

M&S Scottish Ale pours a rich, deep, red-brown with a thin head and carries a faint whiff of the sweetness and spices to follow in the taste. It’s a rich, slightly sweet malty ale and the addition of dried thistle and dried ginger, along with whole-flower hops, in the brew makes for a pleasantly spicy counter-point to the maltiness. There’s a slight hop-dryness but not much in the way of bitterness so you’re left with the after-taste of those spices on your palate.

Interesting flavours, well-balanced, easily drinkable and I’d happily do so again. I picked this one up in a branch of M&S in Southwark when Jo and I were down that way a couple of months ago, but I’ll be keeping an ye out for it in stores nearer to home in future.

Incidentally, you can pick up a twenty-pack selection of five of the ales in the M&S range: Cornish IPA, Yorkshire Bitter, Norfolk Bitter, Scottish Ale and Sussex Golden Ale, via www.marksandspencer.com, at a price of £39.42 (plus delivery).

Brewery: Fyne Ales
Location: Cairndow, Scotland
ABV: 4.8%
Version: Draught
Source: The Trackside, Bury

En-route to a Peter Kay warm-up gig at the Bury Met last night, Jo and I stuck our heads around the door of the Robert Peel to see what the Wetherspoons Festival had to offer. Answer: nothing that really grabbed us (there was one Belgian brew that I would have been happy with, but it would have left Jo on the Guinness draught) so we wandered around the corner to the Trackside, who can always be relied on to have at least one dark ale among their eight or nine pumps.

So, while Jo happily settled down to a very pleasant half of Acorn Darkness (an easy-drinking dark mild with a tight, stout-like head and a smooth, nutty flavour) I decided to go for a pint of Fyne Highlander. This ‘strong ale’ (is 4.8% really all that strong?) poured a bright, copper colour with a decent head and gave off a lovely whiff of hoppy oranges. Burnt-orange and caramel were the predominant flavours and the beer was quite dry on the after-taste, yet slightly sticky on the mouth-feel; hardly surprising that orange marmalade sprang instantly to mind and stayed there for the duration.

An interesting, tasty beer although not being a huge fan of marmalade myself, I did join Jo on the Acorn Darkness for a second one before we headed off to the gig. But on the strength of Highlander I’d definitely be interested in trying a few more Fyne Ales if I get the chance.

Brewery: Williams Bros
Location: Alloa, Scotland
ABV: 4.2%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

One of the 15 finalists in this year’s Sainsbury’s beer competition, Williams Bros 80/- (confused? It means ’80 shilling’, an explanation for which can be found on Wikipedia) poured a lovely dark ruby colour with a frothy head. It tasted sweet and spicy, with flavours of red cherries and plums. There were whisky and port wine notes swirling through the rich malt as well, and just a hint of pepper on the after-taste. And the mouth-feel, which the Williams Bros website describes as “toffee-ish”, was certainly very pleasantly chewy.

All in all: a rich, flavourful, quite delicious brew; definitely the sort of session beer I’d be delighted to find on draught. I picked up a couple more bottles from Sainsbury’s yesterday evening (our local branch still has some competition stock left) to keep me going in the meantime. Highly recommended.

Williams Bros 80/- around the Beerblogosphere

• Zak Avery (@zakavery) encountered woodsmoke, chocolate orange and strawberries.
• Barry M (@BarMas) was reminded of apples and digestive biscuits.
• The Reluctant Scooper (@reluctantscoop) found hedgerow fruitiness and bonfire toffee.

Brewery: Craigmill Brewery
Origin: Strathaven, Scotland, ML10 6PB
ABV: 5.2%
Version: draught

Having enjoyed the Clydesdale IPA and Old Mortality I’d picked up I thought next time we were in the area it would be a good idea to seek out the Craigmill Brewery, home to Strathaven Ales, to pick up some more of the beers this small, independent Scottish brewer has to offer. And what a lovely day for a brewery visit – its in a scenic, rural location in an old mill building by the River Avon, close by a pair of arched stone bridges spanning the flowing water and golden hued autumn trees around the old stone buildings. An hour before it had been horrible showers, now it cleared magically to bathe the scene in soft, golden sunlight and beautiful blue skies; perfect.

When we arrived there were several folks in the brewery shop who turned out to be from CAMRA, up for both a visit and to bestow the certificate of award to the brewery – their Duchess Anne light ale (which I’ll review later) had won at a beer festival (stupidly I didn’t make a note of which festival). After picking up several bottles of some of their ales I hadn’t tried yet, and being given a bite of some beer-flavoured fudge (yes, really!) the staff invited us to go downstairs where they have a small bar. We could see they had the CAMRA folks on a visit and didn’t want to intrude, but they insisted and the CAMRA folks did too, so down we went and very glad I am that we did.

The lower floor still has some of the mighty metal cogs and wheels and shafts which would have operated machinery driven by the water wheel (although next to that now is an enclosed trout farm hatchery, so obviously it doesn’t turn now), in a stone walled space with a small bar at one end with a few taps. I was delighted to accept an offer of a pint of Aleberry Damson Beer, a brand new beer, which hasn’t even made it to the local pubs yet, so only a few folks have had the pleasure. In fact it wasn’t quite as clear as they hoped for yet and they told me they were planning to do a little more to take care of that.

(pic taken by me at the brewery, the larger version can be seen on the Woolamaloo Flickr stream)

But on the actual drinking side there was no problem at all – as you can see from the pic I snapped it’s a lovely colour, like the old horse brasses in a country pub catching the firelight. There’s a lovely fruity aroma, but it is restrained and light, not as overpowering as some continental fruit beers can be. Similarly the actual taste delivers a touch of the Damson (locally grown a stone’s throw from the brewery), but not too much, its pretty well balanced, imparting some lovely flavouring without insisting on itself or overpowering the beer. The ale itself is lovely and smooth, going down very easily – perhaps too easily given it’s a 5.2% beer, you could happily sip away several pints before realising oops, may have overdone it!

There’s a very pleasing mix of bitterness from the ale mixed with a gentle sweetness from the Damson, although again it is fairly restrained, which I appreciated. After swallowing the Damson was a little more noticeable, as the bitterness of the beer faded to a nice, gentle sweetness. This would make a nice, refreshing beer on a late summer afternoon or early evening, but equally I could imagine sitting with a pint of Aleberry by the fireside in the pub on a cold winter’s night too. They guys tell me that once they are happier with the clarity they will see about getting it into kegs for the pubs (I was happy to find out they regularly deal with pubs in Edinburgh where I live, including well known real ale pubs like the Guildford Arms, the Abbotsford and the wee Halfway House) and probably bottling for general sale at some point too. At which point I think I will want to get hold of some more… Oh and on a related note of interest it turns out that the Craigmill Brewery was previously home to another Scottish indy brewer of interesting ales, the Williams Brothers who Ed and I have been enjoying recently.

Brewery: Williams Bros Brewing Company
Location: Heather Ale Ltd, Alloa, Scotland, FK10 1NT
ABV: 5.0%

The colour of Fraoch when poured from the bottle with its elaborately decorated label is a very beautiful, golden honey-amber. The back label blurb declares that it has a “flowery aroma” which is actually true, there is a very light, flowery scent from the ale, which shouldn’t be a surprise since it is “infused in heather flowers before being fermented in coppers tuns.” The blurb also goes on to say how this is one of the oldest Scottish forms of ale brewing, with native heather infusions in ale going back to before the time of the Picts (on a side note the label decoration draws on the elaborate Pictish art forms which gives it a nice semi-historical, semi-fantasy look – maybe serve it up with Hobgoblin at your next D&D RPG night!) and is apparently brewed to a Scots-Gaelic 16th century recipe (Scots, Gaelic and Picts – ticks all the boxes for Scottishness, couldn‘t claim to be more Caledonian if it had Haggis smoothies added in), part of a range of historic Scots ale recipes the brewer has resurrected.

Okay, I do find the whole Pict-Scots-Gaelic-heather-ancient-recipe a little bit overdone, although I can see why they’d do it for marketing reasons, especially for overseas markets. And the blurb doesn’t affect the taste, which is very smooth and warm; the ale itself has a lightness, slightly sweet (especially the aftertaste), although not too sweet, just right. One odd observation for an ale though – I noticed a very small but persistent stream of bubbles in my glass for quite a while after pouring, which is unusual in an ale, although it isn’t a large amount like you’d expect in a fizzy lager. I have had Fraoch on draught a couple of times (in Edinburgh’s Guildford Arms, an extremely highly recommended real ale emporium) and I’m trying to remember if too had more bubbles than usual. Again it didn’t affect the refreshing, light, aromatic taste, so it doesn’t matter too much other than as a little quirky detail. A nice, different beer to slide into your mix now and again.

Brewery: William Bros Brewing Co
Location: Kelliebank, Alloa, Scotland, FK10 1NT
ABV: 4.2%
Version: 500ml bottle

You may have come across the micro-brewed beers of Bruce and Scott, the William Bros, before as they do some rather nice beers. And because Ed just reviewed Good Times from the same brewery (we’ve both obviously been grabbing similar liquid loot from our respective Sainsbury’s branches). This was the first time I had tried a fruity one from them though. And you are probably asking what the heck is a Tayberry? Well I must confess I hadn’t heard of them either, but the label blurb informs me that it’s a cross between a Raspberry and Blackberry (the fruit, not the trendy phone/PDA) grown in the Tay river area of Scotland.

Roisin (pronounced Rosheen) is apparently ‘pink’ according to the blurb. Which shows you why you can’t always believe label blurb because, well, it isn’t pink. Although really I think the boys were being humorous from the tone of the blurb, so I won’t hold that against them! Actually the colour is rather more like the warm red of firelight reflected in brass or copper; quite attractive and inviting. There is an enticing fruity aroma, although I noticed by the time I was halfway through my pint it wasn’t as strong, but perhaps that might just be my nose becoming used to the scent – you know how it is once you’re around an aroma for a little while, you don’t notice it so much, so that’s fairly subjective.

The taste is very smooth, fairly light (no mean feat with it being a 4.2% ale), very enjoyable, nice malty, hoppy taste and, unsurprisingly, a nice fruity tone to it, pleasantly light but slightly sweet (bit not too much) aftertaste. Overall a lovely, light, enjoyable and  a rather fun beer from the William boys. And like Innis & Gunn its recommended to be chilled a bit beforehand – maybe not so important as we enter autumn but a thought when next summer comes around. I find some fruity beers can be a bit overpowering, but I think this has the balance rather well between scent and taste, between fruitness and beerness. I think I may have to stick some more of these on the rack.

Brewery: Craigmill Brewery
Location: Strathaven, Scotland, ML10 6PB
ABV: 3.8%
Version: 500ml bottle

This is one of the Strathaven (pronounced more like ‘Strathvin’) Ales from the small Craigmill Brewery in Lanarkshire and not one I had come across before I spotted it (and a companion 80 Shilling) in a local gift store in a Lanarkshire country estate.  The colour is a  pale straw yellow, while the taste is very clear and much crisper than many IPAs, with an almost dry quality to it, which I didn’t expect, very, very smooth, gentle mellow aftertaste lingering on the tongue afterwards rather pleasantly. Billed as “an easy quaffing favourite” and yes it is indeed.

Clydesdale name refers to the mighty Clydesdale horses bred nearby by the Hamilton family – in fact when we left the former estate of the Hamilton family (where I bought the ales) we passed a breeding farm which still proudly produces these immensely strong beasts which were a mainstay of British farming for centuries.

The Clyde Valley is only miles from Glasgow, with Motherwell, a former heavy industry site, nearby and yet it is in the middle of beautiful countryside, well known for being home to many farms – it’s a great spot for going to pick your own, from strawberries to tatties and its from the Valley that the hops in this IPA come, so its about as local a beer as you can get. Not spotted it elsewhere yet though, sadly, so the very localness of it might mean you’d struggle to find it elsewhere.

Brewery: Belhaven Brewery Co Ltd
Origin: Dunbar, Scotland, EH42 1PE
ABV: 3.9%
Version: 500ml bottle

Colour-wise this isn’t quite as dark as some 80/- such as fellow Scottish ale Caledonian 80/-, more the warm tone of polished old wooden furniture. Very smooth to drink (a mere 1.95 units of alcohol, if you are counting, getting you under that psychological 2 points plus barrier, unlike many Scottish heavy beers), with a nice malty aftertaste lingering on the tongue after each swallow, something that I usually find characteristic of most decent 80s.

The BLB (back label blurb) informs us the beer has “subtle tones of kiwi and apple with a marriage of walnuts and creamy toffee set against a background of grain and hops”. Can’t say I noticed the apple and kiwi (and I wonder how many of us ever actually do notice these supposed inflections in taste and how much of it is just marketing blurb), but there is indeed a nice nutty-tinged toffee taste in there, which, like the malted barley, tastes good when you take a sip but also leaves a very pleasant aftertaste in the mouth once swallowed (lip-smacking to show appreciation is allowed, just don’t do a lot if it if drinking in the pub, it can be a bit off-putting to the rest of us).

I doubt it would surpass my personal favourite of Caledonian 80/-, but it’s a very palatable, nice, smooth and enjoyable pint and having had it a few times on draft too its certainly a decent pint to have in the pub too. (pic borrowed from and (c) Belhaven Brewery’s website)