Back on the bike

I went out on a club ride today with the cycling club from work, and realised I've not been on the bike since the last club ride 4 weeks ago - oops! We had a different starting point this time so actually had to load up the bikes on the car and drive, to Glendoick Garden Centre on the road to Perth. It was quite a blustery morning, though thankfully not as windy as it's been lately, and the forecast was for sun with occasional showers, which proved to be accurate. As with the last couple of rides we've done we split the group into the more serious riders who headed off for a hilly ride, whilst I led the slower group on a flat ride. One of the other group members had planned the route, and none of us had actually ridden it before, so it's probably no surprise we ended up off track for the second half of the ride - I just ended up taking us the way I've been before not realising that wasn't the plan. It actually took 3km off the total distance so I don't think anyone would mind if they knew, which they don't 😉
I forgot to take any pictures of the ride. but this is the wrap I had for lunch at Alibob's Cafe - spot the loyalty card:

And this was the route we actually ended up doing:



Getting fancy, embedding a link there....

We got back to Glendoick before the serious riders, partly because of my accidental shortcut, but also because they had an eventful time of it after lunch, with one person coming off his bike on a bend, and a two rider crash, resulting in injured riders and damaged bikes - not so good.  There'll be some stingy cuts and bruises after that!

We have an activity challenge running at work for the next two weeks so I should hopefully have a couple more rides to report on, though we won't be splitting the group for those so  I'm going to have to up my game a bit 😬

We drove home via Arbuckles soft fruit farm so I'm looking forward to strawberries and cream with raspberry and white chocolate meringue for pudding!

No trips to the pub this week - just a couple of beers from Asda and a couple from the Brewdog AGM stash, which is the gift that just keeps giving.
Friday's supermarket pick was an American White Ale, not as good as the best Belgian white beers, but easily a match for Blue Moon, which would be the closest comparison. The sticker on the bottle says UFO is imported to the UK by Adnams, who make some decent beers themselves and seem to have a pretty strong presence on supermarket shelves.
The AGM beer we shared was one of the Wicked Weed's we ordered from Brewdog. Recurrant is aptly named. It's like a very grown up ribena, and is almost closer to a fruit wine than a beer in flavour - not surprising when it's aged in wine barrels!
On Saturday I started off with a beer I've been drinking since before the whole craft beer scene really took off, Fraoch by Williams Brothers. I still can't remember how you pronounce it, but it's a Heather Ale, a style they claim has been brewed in Scotland for over 4000 years. Whether or not that's true I don't know, but it's a lovely, sweet, lightly spiced beer.  My second beer was another one I've had before, Moose Mousse from Fierce.  This is a really easy one to describe, as it tastes like a Cadburys chocolate mousse in beer form!

I do like to be beside the seaside

I'm very deliberately keeping it light this week. There's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, more eloquently, about recent events, and I've already spent too much time dwelling on things I can't personally change, so I'm sticking with my original plan and wittering on about beer!

I've had a pretty quiet week truth be told. It's been a scorcher of a weekend, but also really windy so I chickened out of going out on the bike. I do need to get back in to cycling to work though!
We had a quiet night in on Friday night, watching tv with a couple of beers - both the beers I went for were bought in either Aldi or Lidl, from their Scottish craft beer ranges.

First up was this summery pale, in a pretty smart can, by Jaw Brew from Glasgow. The yeast gives it a Belgian edge. I think I need to work on the stylised beer pics, but you can probably see this is quite a cloudy beer. I read an article today suggesting 'murky' beers are the latest craze in craft beer - I don't know if that's true or not, but it has to be good news for vegetarian and vegan beer drinkers, as the stuff most commonly used to make beer crystal clear is fish based. Nice eh?
Next up was a spicy little number from what's fast becoming my favourite Aberdeenshire brewery, Fierce Beer who make some really adventurous beers. When you buy a beer called Ginja Ninja, you've got a pretty big clue as to the main flavour! According to Fierce this one features lemongrass and habanero chilli along with the ginger. The chilli definitely added an extra kick, though I can't say I noticed the lemongrass. A very good ginger beer, I'd definitely have it again, perhaps with the suggested food pairing of Thai green curry, since I have some green curry paste in the freezer.

I was busy for the most of the day yesterday so by evening I was pretty keen to get out for some fresh air. It was still pretty warm, so we took a wander along the front to Broughty Ferry. There were tables free outside at the Ship so we stopped there for a quick one.
I went with another cloudy, Scottish beer - Beltaine by Inveralmond Brewery. This is as summery as the name suggests, with some herbal notes, but definitely at the lighter end of the scale for a Hefeweisen - just the thing on a warm summer evening! Much though I was enjoying our prime position looking out over the water, the bar was really busy, and the range of beers a bit limited so we moved on to Jolly's which was taken over by Wetherspoons a few years ago. I do think most of the criticisms levelled at 'spoons are pretty much justified, and I wouldn't want to share a pint with Brexit loving boss Tim Martin, but they do have a decent range of beers, and this branch is pretty spacious so you can generally get a seat. I had a couple of passable beers here before we headed off for food.
Fun Wetherspoons fact - each Wetherspoons pub has it's own unique, bespoke carpet. Someone even wrote a book, having blogged about them!
We've lived within walking distance of Broughty Ferry for 10 years so it's a little surprising to realise we'd never actually come down for fish and chips at the seaside! We finally put that right last night with a fish supper from Murray's. Yes, those daft little forks are a pain, but a chippy tea does taste best eaten by the sea!

The light nights at this time of year can make you lose track of time, but it was getting late (though not much cooler) so after watching a member of Ye Amphibious Ancients Bathing Association (!) getting in an evening swim, we headed home, past the RNLI Oor Wullie, and the growing collection of rigs at the docks.

Speakeasy

A not so random Shed Seven reference there...
I would say this week was a 'normal service is resumed' week, in that it was my first 5 day week at work for a while and we didn't do anything much out of the ordinary. The small matter of a General Election made it not a remotely normal week in reality.  Don't worry, I'm not going to go into this in much detail - this is supposed to be a beer review blog after all! All I will say, is that I woke up on Friday with a bit more optimism than I went to bed with on Thursday, not because I think the Tories and DUP are the dream team we need to be negotiating Brexit, but because it feels like Labour could win the next one, and it also feels like it won't be that long till that happens.  Maybe I'll have to eat my words on that one, and I'll regret putting it in writing, but it definitely feels like the tide is turning.
Anyway, back to the beer! On Friday Brewdog Dundee celebrated their 3rd anniversary with a Kernel Brewery showcase, and free cake, so obviously we wandered in to town to join the birthday party...
It was a bit too busy to order a flight - we weren't confident we'd get a seat, though actually we timed our arrival okay and did manage to find a table to perch on. So I started with their current Biere de Saison, a barrel aged citrussy saison.  The woody notes from the barrel ageing made it taste almost like a good Chardonnay - a good beer for wine drinkers. Not as tart as some of the sours I've had lately, making it an easy drinking first of the night, which would explain why it went down  so fast...

Not the best picture, but you can see how cloudy it was - definitely a farmhouse beer!
Next up I finally got around to trying a beer that's been on draft at Brewdog on and off for a while now - the Framboise from Kirkstall Brewery.  This is one of those dangerous fruit beers that tastes like fruit juice. At 3.6%, it's not a huge ABV but you could drink a lot of this without giving the alcohol content a second thought - I'm thinking beer garden on a sunny day. A delicious drink, but doesn't taste like beer in any way! Not that you can tell from the picture, but it pretty much looked like a glass of raspberry juice too. Having just had a quick look at their website I'm thinking a brewery visit might be in order at some point!

I ended the night in traditional fashion, with a dark beer - in this case one of Kernel's many stouts and porters. There were two on offer, and after some deliberation I went with the lower abv 1890 London stout, apparently made to an 1890 recipe.  A lovely nutty, slightly smoky beer, and a lovely way to end the evening.
I had planned a quiet weekend after a few busy ones, but the local cinema was showing Colossal last night, and based on the limited information I'd read about it, I really fancied going to see it.  We didn't have long for tea before the film, so it was probably a good thing we were the only customers in The Mexican Grill when we arrived.  Granted, it's a bit of a worry at 8pm on a Saturday night, but the food was pretty good, and a couple of other groups (well, a group and another couple) did arrive whilst we were there.  I would have loved to take the manager/owner up on his offer of churros but we had 5 minutes to get from the restaurant to the cinema and buy tickets so sadly we had to pass up that one - maybe next time!

I decided to embrace the cliche and ordered a margarita with my prawn bobo. It was actually a pretty good shout as the lime in the margarita really complimented the coconut sauce on the prawns.

I really enjoyed Colossal, probably all the more for not having read anything much about it.  I think I can avoid any spoilers by saying it's an indie romcom meets godzilla movie, which obviously shouldn't work on any level, but absolutely does.  If you're going to reference Wes Anderson in the script you're setting quite a high bar, but I'd say they just about got away with it!
We could have just headed to Brewdog after the film, and would have made last orders, but I've been hearing good things about a 'secret' bar in Dundee, which is obviously a slight contradiction, but as we were passing it's *rumoured* location it seemed like a good time to go looking for it....
Again, I won't say too much - spoilers and all that, other than to say it's modelled on a prohibition era speakeasy (oh, now I get it!) and is called Draffens.  The main focus is on decadent cocktails, priced accordingly it has to be said, but they do have a small but decent range of craft beers in the fridge too. I thought I'd best get into the theatre of the place and had a pretty heady cocktail, in a gorgeous glass.

Not the best picture, but it was really pretty! I'd definitely go back, though I might have to make more of an effort on the dressing up front next time - it's a perfect excuse to go full vintage if that's your bag. 
I'm going to say, the fact this place is in Dundee makes me think it was right that the City of Culture went to Hull instead, as Dundee's doing a pretty good job without that title, and that's before the V and A's even opened.
Well, that's the new series of Poldark about to start so I'm calling it a night, and hoping for another uneventful week!

Brought to you by the letter W...

Well hello there Wednesday! I won't be keeping this up for the whole post, but I will be mentioning The Wedding Present and Westfest, and I am writing this on Wednesday instead of my usual Sunday, what with being at Westfest, so I'm going with it...

It seems a while ago now, but it was only 2 weeks past Thursday when we made the short journey through to Leslie in Fife to see Indie legends (and they wouldn't thank me for that title!) The Wedding Present in a tiny function room in the Greenside Hotel.
This is Greenside, Leslie:

As you can see, it's a pretty little village, and not somewhere you expect to go to a gig that leaves your ears ringing two days later! We arrived early enough to have a pre gig drink in the bar, where we had a good old natter with one of my colleagues who'd also made the trip through from Dundee, and his good friends who live basically over the road from the venue - handy!
The band do make a point of manning the merch stall and chatting to fans before and after the show but my fear of coming over all fangirl and saying something daft stopped me from going over for a chat.  Think David was probably quite relieved about this (husband, not Gedge - he wasn't to know he was missing out on my top chat 😉).
The room gradually filled up with, let's face it a lot of balding, 50 something chaps - there were a few women and younger folk in the crowd, but we were definitely in the minority. This tour has marked the 30th anniversary of their album 'George Best' and they attract the kind of loyal following of fans who've been going to see them for 30 years, which is pretty good going really, when the only original member remaining is David Gedge himself!
They opened the set with some of their newer material,  which received a polite but subdued response - it's not really the kind of music you'd mosh to, and quite different to their earlier output. It definitely took a few listens for Going Going to grow on me, but some of the tracks really are beautiful.

With the opening chords of 'Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft' the atmosphere in the room changed completely - this is what everyone was here for really! Must be an age thing, but we've seen a few '30th anniversary' shows lately, and I always think it must be a bit strange performing songs you wrote so long ago. They say the past is a foreign country, but beyond that the person you are at 50 has to be at least a little bit different to who you were at 20 - I wonder if it ends up feeling like someone elses songs you're singing? Whether that's the case or not, they were played with gusto, as you'd expect if you've ever encountered the Wedding Present.  My favourite album of theirs, Saturnalia, was released in 1996 so hopefully they'll do a 25th anniversary tour for that one in 2021 - I'd definitely go and see them again, but I'd probably not want to wait till 2026 😉

I'm never going to make it as a gig photographer - these are my pictures:

Still, it was a great night - I might take earplugs next time though as it really was one of the loudest gigs I've been too!

Brief interruption for a Public Service Announcement: we went to see Mindhorn on the Wednesday. You might have missed your chance, but if you can, do yourself a favour and go and see this genuinely funny British comedy.

So onto Westfest. This is a free community festival that started in 2010 as a celebration of the West End (funnily enough) of Dundee. It started out pretty informal, but the Big Sunday held in Magdalen Green has grown into a major event which meant that for the first time this year they had to put up a perimeter fence and secure an alchohol licence, meaning people can no longer bring in their own alcohol.  There was a bit of a 'public outcry' about this, with accusations of selling out/going corporate/ripping people off, but in all honesty they were lucky to get away with the authorities turning a blind eye in the past, and contrary to what the whingers were predicting it was just as busy as last year, which was the first time we'd been.  There was a great selection of food stalls, all small and fairly local businesses, and along with the Red Stripe and Koppaberg, one of the three bars was selling beer from two fairly new Dundee Breweries, Law Brewing and 71 brewing.
I'm always happy to support small local business, and if I can do so by eating burgers and drinking beer, well that works for me!

Think this was the All Nighter from Law Brewing!   It was raining as we walked in to town, but as you can see the sun came out and stayed out for most of the afternoon, hence my slightly red neck - at least I managed to cover my face and arms with sun cream, but I always seem to miss a bit...

The line up of bands was as eclectic as you might expect at a free community event. The Dundee Schools Rock Band put on a performance their parents would be proud of - actually they weren't bad really!  They were followed by Got Soul Choir - if you've ever come across 'Rock Choir' you'll get the idea - an open to everyone branded choir franchise that do pop covers.  Not really my cup of tea, but they were set up to combat loneliness and bring people together through singing,  which can only be a good thing I guess.
Next up, the winners of a recent battle of the bands competition provided a slightly surreal moment - a bluesy hard rock band isn't really what you expect at a family afternoon in the park, and I think Multistorey Lover were experiencing one of their stranger gigs...

We were back on slightly safer territory with local bands Kashmir Crows and Miami Vince, who if you haven't already guessed are a 70s and 80s covers band! They were joined on stage by, amongst others, Kit Clark (of Danny Wilson fame if you like your 80s pop music) to perform a set of David Bowie songs they'd previously played at a Bowie Tribute night in Clark's pub. We've seen a few gigs in Clarks where Kit's been at the sound desk so it was interesting, and pretty cool, to actually hear him singing for a change!

By the time they finished the set with 'All The Young Dudes' the sun was losing it's heat, so we headed into town for a quick drink in Brewdog before walking home.
Magdalen Green is on the flight path for the flight training centre at the airport, so I took some plane pics:

 Well, tomorrow is the General Election so by the time I post again I'll know whether we're doomed to another 5 years of Tory Government, or if Jezza's managed to pull off a near miracle. I think you can guess which way I think this is going to play out - after Brexit and Trump my faith in the democratic process isn't strong.  In previous elections it's probably been print media that have had the biggest impact on the outcome, whereas we appear to be in a faintly terrifying age of dark digital electioneering that nobody quite understands at the moment.  I may retract that statement if Labour actually manage to win this thing of course!
See you on the other side.......



*PS when did you stop noticing 'W' words....?