Scottish beer culture?

That's quite a lot for just a week

I was in skye just this summer for four days, you'll have less tourists to contend with in May thankfully. In terms of beer on Skye, the Skye brewing company I think is the only brewery there ( although I think the sligachan hotel has a tiny kit too), their brewery/shop is on Uig peer however they don't have an on license so you can't drink there - most hotels/bars have their bottles at least, they are ok beers not the most exciting. Some places will have them as cask beers but you'll need to check out which ones . You can drop in there as it's on the main tourist loop of the north part of the Island ( Fairy Glen, trotternish ridge, old man of storr, dinosaur footprints etc) . Also as an aside, Talisker distillery also don't have an on license, so if you want to try their whisky there I think you'd have to take the tasting tour that they do, as opposed to just trying some in the shop.
As Dave's mentioned for food, some places are excellent for seafood etc but others are stuck in the 70s or 80s, if you can parse the reviews on the likes of TripAdvisor then you should do ok.

 

Agreed - we're being overly optimistic with some of our planning. I'm sure we won't hit everything, but it's helpful to see where the consensus is so we can prioritize. Thank you for the recommendations.

Usually when I travel, I try to bring a few things to share with the locals. Should I assume that hoppy, hazy IPAs from America will be well received?

Cheers and thank you!

 

Thread bump. Traveling in about a month. Our itinerary shifted a little to include Glasgow. Any thoughts?

 

There was a decent , recent article by Evan rail on the main site about beer in Glasgow, it's worth a read as is the discussion thread linked at the end of it.

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/17089/where-to-drink-in-glasgow-scotland/

 

Just to report back - ended up hitting Hanging Bat and the Bow Bar in Edinborough - Really great places. Also hit a local pub called The Bailey (if I recall) correctly, near our Air BnB. Enjoyed the Hanging Bat a wee bit more (loved the urinals and sinks made from half barrels) and had an awesome BA beer brewed in-house. In Inverness we spent a ton of time at Black Isle Brewing which was next to our hotel. Beers were great and they had three casks on. Also stopped into a number of local establishments. Really enjoyed MaCleods. No beery things in Skye per see, but stopped in at The Merchant in Portree and thought it was delightful. Hit Fyne Ales on the way to Glasgow - great beers and cool environment - arrived the day before their Fest. Well worth a stop if you are around Loch Lomond. I could have spent a ton of time there, but our itinerary was booked. In Glasgow, we hit Tennants as well as WEST brewing, which was around the corner from our Air BnB on the Greeen. Decent German style offerings, but nothing overly impressive; however, the place was really quite nice and had a biergarten. Overall impressions - I accomplished what I set out to do and drank quite a bit of real ale. The majority of places I hit did in fact have a cask on and the lines were well curated. Totally fun trip; however, if I were to do it again, I would have dialed the destinations back a little. Cheers and thanks for the recommendations!

 

I can't imagine why you would do this and I'm curious, if you did, how it went over. Similar to knowing that a village has a penchant for red things and you decide to take a blue one to share around. The hazy crap is a juvenile American fascination. Drinkers in the UK are most likely much more mature than that.

 

I found people to be very receptive and enjoy trying things they can’t easily get. This was my experience in Germany, Italy and particularly Belgium. My friend is an expat living outside of London and they go ape for the American stuff. Granted, he’s hanging with the BA and RB crowd. Unfortunately, I had weight limitations this trip and couldn’t bring any extras to share although I offloaded a bunch of locals to my friend which will get shared with his pub mates.

 

Just picked up on this thread and I don’t know why you wouldn’t think it’s a good thing trading beers. The vast majority of craft drinkers love to try new beers and broaden their horizons, particularly with beers that they can’t routinely get. UK drinkers are always going to go for American haze, no doubt trading their souls for some.

Just wish I lived on the West Coast and knew you were coming