Coach Class

Many moons ago, before this blog was even a bun in the oven, the Hand and Flowers - Tom Kerridge’s lauded two Michelin Star gastropub – was about as close to a local as the Ewing and I had.  The perfect spot for some lovely grub and a pint of local ale, and somewhere we still haven't really managed to replace.

This may seem like a fanciful story for two impoverished library workers, especially if you consider it currently has a six month plus long waiting list for dinner and mains on the ala carte menu starting at thirty quid. But back in the good old days, when the pub had ‘just the one’ star, they offered a two course set lunch for a tenner - including their fabulous bread and famed whitebait amouse bouche - with pudding for an extra £3.50. Plus you could easily get a table on a Monday (the library workers’ traditional day off) at a few days’ notice.

Sadly, for someone who remembers having three courses, pints of beer and cheeseboard and still getting out for £50 for two, those days are long gone. Although, at thirty quid for three courses, the set lunch remains decent value. And they still serve the whitebait.

But, while the H&F might not now be the place for an impromptu late lunch, Chef Kerridge’s march on Marlow continues with The Coach, his second pub on the same road - complete with all day opening hours, small plate ‘pub grub’ menu and, best of all for someone with a last minute bonus afternoon off work,  no reservations.

Being a solo diner, I slotted instantly in to a spare barstool, complete with view of the open kitchen, and was soon nursing a glass of house red and a (pristine) copy of the Guardian, offered from a wide selection of papers by the charming bar staff. 

It might be an unfortunate symptom of the modern age, but there’s nothing worse than feeling at a loose end when eating on your own so I was pleased to have the tragi-comic diversion of the day’s current affairs, interspersed with tragi-comic updates from the Magical Stealth on WhatsApp, to keep me amused until my food arrived.

The menu is essential ‘pub tapas’,  with the size of dishes being roughly proportionate to their (not inconsequential) price tag. As I was on my own, and so mercifully spared from sharing, I pretty much stuck to a classic ‘starter, main, pud’ order of proceedings, which began mushroom risotto ‘Claude Bosi’.

Whether you think that this is an improvement on the classic Italian version would depend on how wedded you are to your carbs, but I did find myself strangely impressed by the tiny uniform pieces of perfectly cooked mushroom, bound in a cheesy sauce and topped with a dreft of Parmesan like fresh snow on the top of Monte Bianco.

My next plate was a little closer to home; pigeon from the West Wycombe Estate (a far more appetising prospect than High Wycombe High Street), served with trompettes and pearl barley. I often judge a good dish by its gravy, and this was some of the best. Shimmery and shiny with a deep meatiness that complimented the blushing pigeon and nutty grains.

Alongside were the famed pomme boulangeres, or bakers taters in English. Arriving in their own saucepan, topped with a disc of crisp potato shards that had been brushed with another slick of glossy meat juices,  I doubt you could spend a better £2.50 anywhere.

Although ordered from the ‘non-meat’ section of the menu (with a ‘contains meat' caveat in brackets after) make no mistake, this one's for the carnivores. As soon as the tuber lid was lifted I was greeted by a heap of dark and sticky braised meat on top of further layers of slow cooked potato; a satisfying sight and they tasted even better.

Pud was a warm chocolate and peanut tart with a ball of salted caramel ice cream perched in a chocolate tuile basket on top. Like everything that had come before, this was a superlative plate of food - the friable pastry giving way to a perfectly oozy, nutty fondant centre. If I hadn't been half-cut on house red I'd have felt guilty that my chocoholic wife was down the road at work, and not sat at the bar sharing it with me.

While I'm still a little wistful for those halcyon days enjoying long boozy lunches up the road, the Coach is an more than able enthusiastic younger sibling with the added advantage of not having to plan your visit weeks in advance. Add in the warm and friendly service and (not too eye-watering) pricing and it might be time to pull up a stool and get comfy; there's a new local in town.

Anchor & Hope, Waterloo

I've spoken about hygge here before - the great Danish concept to which our nearest equivalent word is probably cosy, like a big wintery hug - although on that occasion I was with a tee-total and love sick Stealth and ended up drinking all the negronis and cuddling up with myself.

This time I had a dinner date with my darling wife at The Anchor and Hope, one of London's first gastropubs. An epithet that, over a decade after they opened, probably sounds like being damned with faint praise, but the Anchor and Hope blazed the trail headed by St John and the Eagle that saw stripped back British food firmly back on the map.

It also must be a leading proponent in the no bookings game, except for their Sunday lunch, when you can now reserve in advance. While it might be an ongoing frustration for some, at least you can cosy up in the 'pub bit' next door, or outside if the weather's not inclement, with a nice bottle of red while you wait for your table to be called. Which is just what we did.

The first paragraph of Matthew Fort's review - back in the early 2000s when below the line didn't exist, so no comments moaning about London-centrictism (although south of the river was barely classed as London then) - simply recited the menu, and all these years later I could happily do the same.

Warm snail and bacon salad, jerusalem artichoke soup with foie gras, whole turbot roasted in duck fat, seven hour Swaledale lamb and potato dauphinoise, suet crusted pheasant and chestnut pie, Longhorn mince and tatties, buttermilk pudding and salted caramel sauce. I would go on but I'm in danger of short-circuiting my keyboard

In the end it had to be the cassoulet for two, a bubbling earthenware dish crammed with garlicky sausage hunks, slabs of pork belly, confit duck gizzards and a leg, sticking majestically from the burnished breadcrumb and parsley speckled surface. If a picture says a thousand words then I think this one is saying oof repeatedly with a Gallic undertone.

The main reason that this got the nod above the other assorted delights on offer is it was the same dish I had on my first trip here with my uni friends one winter's day more years ago than I care to count.

Retrospectively, I find it a little strange to consider they agreed to such a rich dish, their diet at uni comprising that of most teenage girls; mostly coffee with skimmed milk and giant bags of Malteasers. Not to mention sharing with me is always fraught with danger.

If there's anything more huggable (no, of course not literally, think of the grease stains) than a wobbling array of crisp-skinned meats bobbing in a thick stew of creamy cannellini beans then please send it my way for a cuddle.

Even the gizzards were remarkably well-mannered; little avian nuggets that provided a welcome texture contrast to the unctuous pig bits and mealy beans. A green (and red) salad of bitter leaves cut a swath through the richness and lent a slightly more virtuous air to proceedings.

As if I was in need of anything more soporific after such a magisterial main, a bowl of clotted cream rice pudding crowned with a dollop of damson jam pushed me nicely into that post-dinner slump of sheer contentment.

I love nursery puddings and rice pud is right up there with the very best of them. And while normally I shy away from mixing it with fruit (after an incident at school camp as a child, enough said), the addition of sharp plum worked a treat. The glass of icy Muscat, recommended to go alongside, gilded the lily nicely.

In a surprise move, the Ewing eschewed the chocolate and hazelnut pie with cold cream (much to my chagrin) for the baked vanilla and poppy seed cheesecake with poached quince. The cheesecake struck the perfect balance between the lemony clagg (good) of the cream cheese and buttery crunch of the base which bought to mind my Nan's version - from the Hellmann's cookbook - which is very high praise indeed. Added quince is always a good thing and the suggestive slice of amber fruit added a perfumed sweetness. 

A couple of espressos later and we were ready to face the long road home. Luckily even the cold December night couldn't dent the warm glow we had inside.

Scotch ale trail - Edinburgh edition

There’s something romantic about train travel. Sure, it might seem hard to visualise it when your nestled in the armpit of the morning rush on the Bakerloo Line, or in the loo on a Virgin Train (and the less said about the bathroom facilities on a memorable journey from Thailand to Malaysia as a child, the better).

But these things aside I have many more positive memories of rail travel that include riding the wonderful Shinkansen, or ‘bullet’ train, in Japan; spending the end of our honeymoon eating a picnic of goat’s cheese and walnut bread, washed down with vin rouge, after getting caught on the Eurostar in the snow somewhere outside Paris; and our mammoth coast-to-coast American adventure, the highlight of which was riding the California Zephyr for two and a half days from Chicago to San Francisco.

Our journey on the Scots Sleeper - from Euston to Edinburgh, although you can ride through the picturesque Highlands all the way to Fort William - may struggle to live up to the heights of breakfasting in the dining car in Denver before spending a day riding through the Rockies, but I was equally excited about the prospect of falling asleep at Watford Junction and waking up somewhere north of Carlisle.

After hearing the call of 'all aboard! (not really, we were in North London, not an American movie), we squashed our case in the cabin - which would charitably be described as 'bijou' by all good estate agents - and raced down to the dining car for a midnight snack.

While it was a little late to attempt the Rannoch smoked duck or the Clunes lamb casserole, we made sure we ticked every other Scottish cliche by hitting up the whisky menu - Auchentoshan and a Balblair - with a side of Irn Bru and haggis flavoured crisps. If you fancy a train beer, large cans of Tennants and Belhaven Best can be had for just £2.30, although more refined brews from Fyne ales and St Mungos are available.

After a decent night tucked in my bunk - only truncated by a knock on the door from our attendant, followed by a cuppa and a shortbread biscuit half an hour before we arrived - we were soon roaming the streets of Edinburgh, the foggy weather matching our foggy heads, in search of a good breakfast. All signs, and a steady flow of hi-vis jackets, were pointing toward Snax Cafe, tucked on West Register Street off the main Princes Street drag.

The biggest breakfast was the plate of my dream, minus the bad egg (not reflecting the quality, merely my antipathy toward it). Alongside the standard link sausage, black pudding, bacon and beans there was the local additions of square sausage, haggis and tattie scone (my dad's favourite, from a childhood spent visiting Belfast) and, instead of white sliced, a floury morning roll to squash assorted morsels into.

The payoff for such a blowout was climbing up Calton Hill, then past the Scottish Parliament and up Arthur's seat, finishing with a traverse around the Beautiful Duddingston Loch. Which wasn't too much of a hardship at all and meant we arrived at the Sheep’s Heid just in time for opening.

Established in 1360 and purportedly the oldest pub in Scotland, as well as a regular stopping place for both Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI – the pub is halfway between Craigmillar Castle and Holyrood Place – who called in to drink and even to play skittles; a bowling alley, built around 1870, remains to this day.

Today it’s the perfect place to get in from the rain and cosy up in a leather wing-backed arm chair by the fire. Fortunate, as it had started throwing it down just as we arrived in the village. It's also a good choice if you like tartan, too, as there's plenty of it adorning the upstairs dining room, although the menu offered is strange a cross- English hotchpotch, boasting crab from Devon, black pudding from Bury and ham from Yorkshire.

The culinary conceit for this trip (after previous holidays spent trying to eat the top 10 national dishes or find obscure local specialties only served at noon on a Thursday) was to only drink Scottish beers, hence the post's title. Whilst this might have seemed like an easy task, until the recent craft explosion it might have meant a days subsisting on Schiehallion (try saying that after a couple) and McEwan's Export. 

My first pint was Autumn Red, a staid seasonal brew from Caledonian - the last remaining of Edinburgh's 'old' breweries, although now owned by Heineken - that was perfect when supped in a wing-backed armchair while watching the rain battering on the window.

As the first day of our trip was my actual birthday (not the practice run I had enjoyed a few day's before at Yauatcha) there had to be cake and where better than Lovecrumbs, who proudly advertise themselves on their website as 'Edinburgh's cake-only cake shop - we don't do soup, sandwiches, bookings or gluten free.' 

From an almost dizzying array of sweet treats housed in the cabinet at the front, I chose the damson and lavender cake (only rejecting a wobbly chocolate tart with a glaze as glossy and black as pitch because, well, it wasn't a cake). While not my usual choice of flavours, this was light and fruity and fun. The Ewing's austere-looking chestnut and apple cake was also a winner.

The Hanging Bat had been mentioned to us several times as a big hitter on the craft beer scene and I was also interested in checking out their onsite microbrewery. Thankfully it was just around the corner from Lovecrumbs, less fortuitously our visit coincided with a mid-afternoon sugar slump (not helped by our early start). Of course, we manfully battled on, who could resist such a selection of cask and keg beers (their bottled menu is something to behold, too) especially when dispensed from wooden taps carved to resemble the winged mammals after which the bar is named.

I tried the Cromarty raspberry infused IPA, a great little early autumn beer with tropical hops blending nicely with the tart Scottish berries and served up at a very easy-going 3.2%, The Ewing also went a bit fruity with a Salzspeicher cherry sour from the Freigeist Brewery in Germany. Named after the ancient salt towers of old Lübeck (made famous in the classic 1922 horror film “Nosferatu”), Salzspeicher is a mix of two great historical Porter styles, the traditional sour German a salty English version.

 

After so comprehensively failing to do the board any justice the first time, we returned on our last day to tackle a beer flight, plus another schooner of the Cromarty raspberry infused IPA. notable brews were a Six Degrees North and Hanging Bat collaboration, La Place Du Soleil grisette; and the Ewing's Burning Sky gooseberry saison.

We also sampled a selection of grub including a passable haggis dog - the sausage lacking the requisite girth, although it was housed in a very decent bun - and some spicy pulled brisket nachos. Pick of the platter was the house smoked bbq wings accompanied by a punchy blue cheese dip that, after I ran out of chicken, I happily spooned up straight from the dish.

After such big-hitting flavours we finished with a big hitting beer, a Fyne ales and De Molen collaboration, Hills and Mills. This was a gloriously dark sticky imperial stout with the autumnal aroma of ginger cake, treacle and prunes and an ABV of 9.5% which made the decision to only sell in thirds seem like a wise one.

You can’t have a serious discussion about Scottish beer without mentioning Brewdog. Started in 2007 in Aberdeenshire by James Watt and Martin Dickie they now have well over twenty bars in the UK, as well as outposts from Barcelona to Brazil. While their marketing may be divisive, their beers have put brewing north of the border firmly on the map.

The Ewing wanted a Pumpkin King, spiced pumpkin ale, but it wasn't on keg and the bottles weren't chilled, so she settled instead for a Cocoa Psycho an imperial russian stout brewed with crushed coffee beans, cocoa nibs and dark malts. At 10% maybe not the best choice for someone that was almost under the table (through tiredness, I should add, not drunkenness) at the last bar we had visited, but well received nonetheless. 

I tried the new Lizard Bride on keg, a union of sour fruit with the hops of an IPA. A batshit-sounding combination of berries and dank funk that might well have fitted in at our previous stop, as well as slipping down with little resistance.

After so much beer it’s only natural our thoughts should have turned to kebabs. Well, my did anyway as at this point the Ewing informed me she had, in nearly 40 years on this earth, never had the pleasure of a few slices of elephant leg in a pitta, all salad, extra chilli sauce.

Inebriated as we were, the lady was not for turning – unlike the gloriously fatty, salty tranches of meat she has shunned all these years – so it was quite by good fortune that we stumbled upon Kebab Mahal, an Edinburgh institution that dishes up both curries and grilled meats (and a variety of pizza, including the mixed kebab calzone, if you so desire).

To start we had chicken pakoras which we were warned ‘came with bones’, which indeed they did and were all the better for it; four juicy, crisp nuggets of thigh, lightly tumeric-infused batter and served with two varieties of ‘special sauce’, white and red. This was followed by an earthy dish of lamb with yellow lentils and a perennial favourite, palak paneer, or cheesy spinach. Not as much fun to say as cheesy peas, but equally delicious to eat. There was also, controversially, a garlic nan, chosen by the Ewing over the customary peshwari in the hope the vast amounts garlic would kill off any residing cold germs (and anyone that came within 50 feet).

I also had the shish kofte, the only kebab they serve with nan, that arrived as a blistered and billowy teardrop of buttery bread with two large minced lamb kofte and a token handful of salad nestling inside. The kofte tasted as glorious as it looked, although I didn’t find this out until the following morning as, being too stuffed to attempt it there and then, I had carried the hefty roll home for the following day’s breakfast.

Possibly the culinary highlight of the trip, and certainly one of my favourite moments, was eating a macaroni pie in the rain on Leith Walk. While carb-on-carb may sound like an unholy abomination these might be the greatest things to be exported south of Hadrian's Wall. As on our previous trip we got our pie from Storries, alongside a Scotch pie that's filling may have looked dubious but tasted delicous, and a hefty vanilla slice.

For 'pudding' we went to Baynes for a coconut snowball - this incarnation being two sponge cakes glued together with icing and rolled in coconut - rather than the marshmallow version. To drink, if more sweetness was needed, was a glass bottle of Barr's Red Kola, an unholy and delicious amalgamation of sugar and e-numbers that purportedly cures sore throats and almost definitely hastens a visit to the dentist.

Man can't live on sugary drinks alone, so we wandered down to the water for a drink. The Port O' Leith Bar - known for it's collection of naval paraphernalia and 'colourful' atmosphere, was closed for renovations, so we trudged on to the King's Wark down on Leith shore. 

Known mostly for their seasonal Scottish food - monkfish cheeks and crevettes in bouillabaisse broth or rabbit saddle stuffed with duck liver and pistachio, anyone? - they also have a range of ales from Caledonian. I enjoyed a pint of Edinburgh Castle, an inoffensively easy drinking, malty 80/- ale, that was revamped at the start of the year in partnership with Historic Scotland. Beer and culture, what's not to like. 

Our final day saw us craving something fresh and containing more than just the dose of vitamin b12 we were getting with each pint. So made our way to Ting Thai Caravan, where, at twenty past twelve the queues were already forming down the street.

We were to find out with good reason, the Thai/Vietnamese/Chinese fusion menu offering good value, and interesting, street food nibbles, curries and soups in a convivial – if rather cramped and cacophonous – setting (factor on getting to know your neighbours quite intimately, although we got the bench in the corner to ourselves). Full marks for the wait staff, too who as well as being welcoming and extra efficient made time for a little impromptu dancing as they dealt with the hordes.

The Ewing's revival started with a tom yam soup with prawns and extra rice noodles, while I had the somewhat less virtuous Char kway teow with its spiced coconut broth bobbing full of squid, prawns and giant green lip mussels and topped with a thatch of fried egg noodles. Maybe not entirely authentic, but lots of fun.

A decent enough salad, that was heavy on the carrot and fish sauce but light on green papaya, bolstered the ‘healthy’ aspect of our lunch, supported by accompanying drinks of sweet roasted coconut water and something spicy with ginger and lemongrass which was a little too ‘freshen-up towelette’ scented for my tastes. Cute little metal water jugs on each table can be filled up from a tap by the door.

Strolling on our way to nowhere, one of the true joys of being on holiday, we stumbled into the National Library of Scotland, who were hosting an exhibition on the history of Scottish cuisine; no not an oxymoron but a glimpse through history that charted the local larder from the delightful sounding crappit heid (cod’s head stuffed with oats, suet and liver and boiled in seawater) through to the rise of the Scottish sweet tooth and ending with a display about sustainability, including allotments and ‘grow your own’, that the Ewing was particularly taken by.

Ironically, after spending a happy hour discovering some hidden culinary gems, one of the first places we stumbled upon was a chippy with this sign in the window. Although I resisted the lure of a battered Mars (having last enjoyed one a few weeks ago, in Bristol of all places) I do confess to being sad that I still haven't sampled the delights of a deep fried pizza (known as a pizza 'crunch' if it's also battered before being submerged in boiling oil).

For our final stop I owe an apology to my wife, who had repeatedly mentioned Jeremiah’s Taproom as a potential drinking spot after researching pubs and bars near the hotel before our trip. For reasons of my own (mainly centred around my antipathy toward the name, I liked the biblical connotations - TE) I had discounted the idea of visiting. But, with an hour or so to kill before our train we decided to brave the hordes of Scottish football fans drowning their sorrows and call in for a farewell drink.

The final drink was a cracker, a Double Mochaccino stout brewed at the Pilot Brewery just down the road in Leith. This was possibly my favourite beer of the whole trip, and was akin to enjoying a coffee and an after dinner snifter in one. A majestic pint to which the clichés ‘velvety’ and ‘smooth as silk’ seem warranted.  So impressed by the beer we also had a half of another Pilot brew, the intriguing Citrus and Basil Sharp, which was a little more summery than the occasion demanded, but equally tasty. 

With another pint sadly refused so we could dash back to Waverly, I excitably squashed into our cabin and climbed into my bunk with the foreboding words of the witches in Macbeth (a film that we had watched at the cinema earlier that evening) still ringing in my ears.

‘Sleep shall never night nor day, hang upon his pent house lid'...

…the next thing I knew I had fallen into a deep slumber, dreaming of Watford Junction again.

Brizzle in the Drizzle

Before my recent career change, I hadn't worked on a Monday for nearly a decade. For every bad point about my old job all I had to think about was that smug Sunday evening feeling, when I'd be cracking open that second bottle of wine with glee, and it would all seem worth it.

Now I've joined the rat race, I may have got all my weekends back but I also only get to experience the dizzy joy of a bank holiday half a dozen or so times a year. Garfield's right; Mondays do suck. On the upside it means I can plan to make more of them, and for the late 'summer' (I use that word advisedly) bank holiday, the office drone's last free pass until Christmas, I dragged the Ewing down to the South West to Banksy's Dismaland; a satisfyingly dismal day out. But before our miserable adventure, we found ourselves with a day to spare, and where better to spend it than one of my favourite cities, the beautiful Brizzle.

Our first stop was the recently relocated Moor Brewery, who were hosting a beery barbecue for the Bank Holiday with some of their West country friends; the previously blogged about, Ethicurean; newcomers, No Man's Grace; and ex-butchers and bakers, Birch. All very alliterative.

It may have been a drab day but the pop of colour from the gazebo at the front - that the weather-hardened drinkers had already begun to congregate under - standing out against the grey roof and the even greyer sky was a cheering sight. And by the time we left a multicolored tangle of bikes had also been propped up against the wooden fence outside. A very Bristolian scene.

Moor originally began in 1996, making their beers on a five barrel plant based in Pitney, on the Somerset Levels. Nearly two decades and much success later and they can now be found brewing on a shiny new twenty barrel brew kit about ten minutes walk from Temple Mead station.

Their beers are all unfined, meaning they don't use isinglass - derived from fish swim bladders - or any other finings to settle the brew. This leaves their beers naturally hazy, although most will settle naturally, or drop bright if you want to get technical, over time. 

Like 'cask vs keg', 'London Murky' is a beery bone of contention. Opaque brews that can sometimes look more like tomato soup are going to be a hard sell for some drinkers, and may give the impression of being 'off', even if they are designed to be drunk that way. But Moor, and many others - think of German wheat beers or hoppy West Coast IPAs - believe that fining free will produce a more natural product with a better flavour and aroma.

I'm a big fan of Moor beers, but clearly we were here to put more to the test. From their keg selection we started with Claudia, a hoppy wheat ale that's a California/German mash-up between an IPA and hefeweizen; all the cloves and bubblegum you'd expect from the wheat with an added mango and grapefruit funkiness from the hops.

We also sampled their Dark Alliance, a rich smoky stout brewed with the addition of coffee from the nearby Clifton Coffee Company, Finally I got stuck into the Return of the Empire, a IPA brewed with new English jester hops, and big enough to stand up to the West Coast hop bombs. It was so good I had a couple.

Blur may have sung 'barbecue is cooking, sausages and chicken' in their paean to an English bank holiday, but the menu for this long weekend grillfest promised something a little more. Who wouldn't be up for sampling such delights as pig skin crisps, grilled corn with crab butter and duck breast with burnt orange; even if it did mean standing in a rather cramped and smoky queue. At least we had plenty of beer to keep us lubricated.

First up was a grilled oyster with burnt cucumber from Birch. It's pretty hard to make your grub look good on paper plates, but these bivalves, served perched on a bed of sea salt, certainly looked the part. As an avowed oyster avoider (alongside my nemesis, the egg) the Ewing reported them excellent.

Next was the Ethicurean's beef rib, a bijou piece of sublime bovine served with a smoky aubergine puree and smoked cherry tomatoes - anything that can improve upon a cherry tomato (still one of my favourites of all foods) is a good thing indeed. If there were a criticism, I might have preferred to gnaw my rib off the bone, but I am a neanderthal. 

Another great dish, which I have failed to do justice to with my picture, was No Man's Grace's offering of cured hake, charred lettuce and red wine tartare sauce. Smoky, salty, tangy and the second dish in a row that proved hot salad can be a very good thing.

 

It wouldn't have been a barbecue without something in a bun and the offering from Birch of welsh black flank beef with grilled onions and mustard may certainly hit the spot. Maybe my savoury dish of the day; maybe. The only down side was having to share with the Ewing (I will remember that - TE).

For pudding we had the battle of the marshmallows. A curious sea salt, onion and aniseed incarnation from the Ethicurean was far more delicious, and far less scary, than it first sounded. We also scarfed a a very good slab of sticky toffee apple cake that just missed a crowning dollop of cream.

The Birch raspberry marshmallow and chocolate biscuit s'more was truly a brilliant thing. The berry-infused toasted confection being complimented by the slightly bitter cocoa note of the biscuit. If I'd have had the patience, and wasn't in the grip of a crazed sugar rush, I'd have queued for another (and a third).

Luckily I had one more sweet distraction to occupy me, a waffle cone of beer flavoured ice cream from No Man's Grace. From the three ices they had created - the others being based on wheat beer, Claudia and barrel aged old ale, Fusion - I chose the BMoor, made with the stout of the same name that Moor describe as 'a big hit of blueberry chocolate cheesecake'. I'm sure you're bored of superlatives, but you can see from the half-eaten evidence that this frozen desert was not long for this world. 

Not quite done for the day we walked up Welsh Back - the mooring place of the Apple Cider Barge, scene of a few drunken birthday shenanigans last time we were in town - to King Street's Beermuda Triangle; a row of three watering holes; the Beer Emporium, The Famous Royal Naval Volunteer and Small Bar.

Sadly the FRNV was closed for a private party (although a photo did exist of me from my last visit here, but I made the Ewing take it down from Twitter, so you're all spared). Happily the other two were open for business, so we started at the subterranean Beer Emporium, a split level shop and bar with a few streetside tables above ground

Our final port of call was Small Bar, confusingly, a rather large space that is so named because of its dedication to small batch beers. Their web site cites the 'things we have', including 25 taps pouring great beer produced in the South West and beyond; food in collaboration with some of the best local independents and beards (some of us…). And the 'things we don't' including pint glasses; shot Glasses; TV’s and Stella on tap. Which is the kind of divisive thing you will either find refreshing or not, depending on your opinion on 568ml measures of wife beater.

Luckily, with such a great looking bar list, it was easy to forget about Belgium's most infamous libation and get stuck in to some of the South West's finest brews. This time two more sour beers, both from Somerset's Wild Beer Co. The first was my Sleeping Lemons, a gose (German-style sour wheat beer) made with salted, preserved lemons. Despite the rather alarming aroma of Fairy Liquid it made the perfect, zesty summer tipple.

The Ewing also enjoyed her Somerset Wild, a spontaneously fermented berlinner weisse-inspired bretted brew described as 'the Yakult of beers' and made with wild apple starter. Dry, acidic and a touch fruity, rather like its imbiber.

They also have a food menu featuring all the usual beer food suspects including burgers, dogs and club sandwiches on Hobbs House bread. As a stop gap we went for the deep fried platter; a light snackette of battered dill pickles, jalapenos and onion rings with homemade fry sauce. Oh, and buried somewhere under all that ballast, a deep fried Mars Bar.

The reason for having just a little morsel? The fact that KFC was opposite our hotel and (as has become customary every time we stay here) I was already planning the best way to attack a two piece variety meal - the hot wings and mini fillet strip made a good pre-breakfast the following morning - with fries and extra gravy. Not a refined spread, but it would be a lie to say I didn't enjoy this about as much as anything else I'd eaten all weekend.

I've realised that more than one of my blogs have ended with drunken feasts of fried chicken and gravy; and while that is no bad thing, I'm going to leave this one on a slightly more refined note with a bijou Bristol beer haul. The Old Freddy Walker is going in my stocking, ready for Christmas, the Ready Made 2, brewed with porridge, made a very nice brunch tipple, and the Wiper and True Milkshake may not have bought all the boys to the yard, but boy it was a tasty stout.