Scotland travel help

Edinburgh is great, there is tons to do there, and just look for anything on cask. Even if you have had the bottled/exported counterpart in the US, it is basically a completely different beer. I don't know how you are traveling, but just outside the train station is a number of things to walk to and do.

Pubs: Cafe Royal Circle Bar. 4 or 5 casks, excellent seafood, ornate tiled murals on the wall that have a lot of history.

Just around the corner, is Guilford Arms. Tons of cask. Downstairs is an old pub, upstairs is a restaurant that has legit steaks (at least did when I was there).

Near to both, well walkable for me is Calton Hill, a park with lots a trails going up a cool hill. Great views. There is also the Royal Mile of course, that is the touristy stuff going up to the castle.

Other must stop pubs are The Bow Bar, and Deacon Brodies, which I think is the same owners as Cafe Royal.

Summer is the perfect time to go. I can't remember exactly when I was last there, but it was a UK holiday, and the end of a French Jazz fest that took up the Royal Mile. Walking up Calton Hill there was fireworks all over, and the Royal Air force flyovers.

I worked for a while in Aberdeen, so I have a fondness for that city. It is about a three hour train ride from Edinburgh. When I had days off, I would often take the train to and from for some day trips.

I know there are Brew Dog pubs around as well, but I was never the biggest fan of those. They just reminded me of trendy beer bars in the US, that are overly loud and trying to hard to be the "cool" thing. But thems just my opinion

I'm sure locals have more advice, but that is mine ha.

 

1) Guildford Arms in 1 West Register Street. Halfway House in 24 Fleshmarket Close. Cask & Barrel in 115 Broughton Street is recommended by many, but I was not entirely satisfied with the beer quality there, nor the (lack of) friendliness. They might just have had a bad day. The Barony Bar in 83-85 Broughton Street was better. The Abbotsford in 3-5 Rose street is worth a visit. There are of course many, many pubs that I did not visit, which might be equally good. If you want to visit a bottle shop, Cornelius in 18-20 Easter Road is worth a go (again: there are many more options).

2) It is too many years since I visited Isle of Skye, but The Merchant Bar in Bosville Hotel (Portree) is recommended by others. So is the Stein Inn in Waternish. Around the island there are many more cosy pubs with just a couple cask ales on, that still might be worth a short visit.

Let me know if you want to visit Aberdeen, many recommendations there.

3) My highest rated beers from Scotland are these (I don't know which ones you have access to in the US):

Orkney Dark Island Reserve
4.8

3.88 8/31/2007 4/17/2009
Orkney Dark Island (Cask)
4.7

3.52 3/21/2002 8/28/2007
Cairngorm Trade Winds (Cask)
4.6

3.23 5/29/2005
Traquair House Ale
4.5

3.67 3/1/2005 8/12/2012
Orkney Skull Splitter (Cask)
4.4

3.41 5/28/2005
Harviestoun Old Engine Oil (Bottle)
4.4

3.72 6/2/2005
Harviestoun Ola Dubh (40 Year Old)
4.4

4 9/20/2009
Black Isle Hibernator III
4.3

3.42 9/11/2007
Harviestoun Ola Dubh (16 Year Old)
4.3

3.87 3/31/2009
Harviestoun Ola Dubh (18 Year Old)
4.3

3.91 4/1/2009
BrewDog Paradox Isle of Arran (Batch 016)
4.3

3.79 6/22/2010
Fierce Bourbon B.A. Imperial Cafe Racer
4.3

3.76 6/28/2021
Harviestoun Ola Dubh (12 Year Old)
4.2

3.86 1/22/2009
BrewDog Paradox SmokeHead (Batch 015)
4.2

3.59 9/9/2009
Harviestoun Ola Dubh (30 Year Old)
4.2

3.92 9/19/2009
Swannay Orkney Porter
4.2

3.7 6/15/2010
Harviestoun Ola Dubh 1991
4.2

3.88 7/5/2013
Belhaven Scottish Ale (5.2%)
4.2

3.16 6/20/2018
Six Degrees North Snowy 2018 (7.5%)
4.2

3.42 2/5/2019
Windswept Wolf of Glen Moray - Port Cask Finish
4.2

3.58 8/30/2021 8/30/2021
Caledonian Deuchars IPA (Cask)
4.1

3.09 2/13/2002
Black Wolf Glencoe (Cask)
4.1

3.21 9/29/2004
Fyne Ales Avalanche
4.1

3.42 8/28/2007
Harviestoun Liberty Ale
4.1

3.01 8/30/2007
Williams Brothers Black (Bottle)
4.1

3.27 9/18/2007
Orkney Dark Island (Bottle)
4.1

3.49 4/3/2009
Heather Ales Fraoch 20th Anniversary Ale
4.1

3.5 10/10/2009
BrewDog / Mikkeller I Hardcore You
4.1

3.89 10/23/2010
BrewDog Paradox Jura
4.1

3.9 7/16/2012
Fyne Ales Vital Spark
4.1

3.4 9/13/2012
Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Engineer's Reserve
4.1

3.82 7/3/2013 7/5/2013
Fierce / Devil's Peak Imperial Cafe Racer
4.1

3.78 8/30/2017
BrewDog vs. Amundsen Mallow Mafia
4.1

3.82 8/22/2018
Spey Valley SVB.GL.A26 GL26 Minmore IPA
4.1

3.05 11/14/2019
Fierce Cafe Racer
4.1

3.71 1/4/2020
BrewDog Abstrakt AB:24
4.1

3.77 1/24/2020
Tempest Red Eye Bourbon Barrel
4.1

3.86 10/31/2020
Fierce / NZBC Revelry In Rivalry

 

More Scottish beer recommendations:

Hebridean Celtic Black Ale
4

2.7 2/16/2003
Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted (Bottle)
4

3.38 12/30/2003 10/27/2006
Orkney Dragonhead (Cask)
4

3.34 5/18/2006
Williams Brothers Midnight Sun (Bottle)
4

3.54 10/12/2009
Williams Brothers Harvest Sun (Bottle)
4

3.16 1/5/2010
BrewDog Hops Kill ?
4

3.62 3/11/2012
BrewDog Cocoa Psycho
4

3.93 8/25/2013
BrewDog Dogma
4

3.63 10/21/2013
BrewDog Bourbon Baby
4

3.55 8/10/2014
Fierce / BrewDog Aberdeen Very Big Moose
4

3.98 1/5/2019
BrewDog Abstrakt AB:22
4

4.04 1/24/2020 1/24/2020
BrewDog / Northern Monk The Vermont Sessions
4

3.56 6/13/2020
Fierce Hazy IPA
4

3.48 4/19/2021
Fierce Bourbon V.B.M. Very Big Moose
4

3.97 4/19/2021
Fierce By Nature Brett IPA
4

3.42 5/14/2021 5/14/2021
Fierce Dirty Sanchez
4

3.52 6/12/2021
Fierce Very Big Chomp
4

3.56 5/12/2022
Overtone Unwaves
4

3.34 7/26/2022
Overtone / ÖL Öl Or Nothing
4

3.76 7/26/2022
Newbarns Plain Dark Beer
4

3.93 10/1/2022 10/1/2022
Newbarns / Deya I Have No Proof
4

3.56 11/24/2022
BrewDog O-G Hazy Jane (7.2%)
4

3.67 11/11/2023 11/11/2023
BrewDog Triple Hazy (Jane)
4

3.57 11/12/2023

 

Loads of places to drink in Edinburgh, my favourites are Bow bar( great for whisky too), cloisters, blue blazer, Stockbridge tap. All others mentioned are good too. Be aware if you have yet to book I'd go either side of the festival, unless you are going specifically for that.

Skye is a beer desert still really their brewery is a bit rubbish unfortunately. Still my favourite scottish island despite that, it's an amazing place especially if you visit in the off season. If you do any hillwalking/mountaineering or photography it's a wonderful place. There's some cool fossils too, basically fossilised footprints of dinosaurs that are easily findable at low tide.

Best places for whisky tourism is Islay and speyside. If you've not done one, I'd do one tour of any distillery as they are all pretty similar, then I'd search for whatever distilleries do the best tastings or warehouse /tasting tour. I'm a member of SMWS which satisfies my whisky tasting needs so haven't visited many distilleries for tastings recently, any of the reddit whisky subs will have good guides on where to go currently. The best one near Edinburgh and glasgow is Deanston, its near the monty python castle too, Doune castle

Look out for anything by Fyne, Tempest, Cromarty, they tend to be very reliable for tasty beers. There's quite a few micros in Edinburgh, down in leith especially iirc, but most scottish breweries are a bit hit or miss.

 

If you can wing it the Volunteer Arms/Staggs in Musselburgh is quite simply the greatest local pub in Scotland. No doubt.

Would also recommend a visit to Rosebank distillery which will re-open in June some 30 years after it was mothballed.

 

It's been about 15 years since I lived there for a few months, so much may have changed, but here are a few thoughts.

For Edinburgh, try out the Jolly Judge. It's near the castle so you can send off your fellow travelers to the castle if they dont want to join while you enjoy a few pints.

If you make it to St Andrew's, hit up the Whey Pat at the West Port. I only ever went in during the day when it was just me and some local old men, not sure what it's like in the evening and night, but it was lovely and quiet in the early afternoon.

In general, I'd focus on drinking anything brewed in the UK or Ireland, prioritizing cask then keg. Buy a bottle of nice scotch (I agree with others that Islay and Speyside are the two to target) directly from a distillery after a tour to bring home and save your alcohol consumption for the beer experience you can't get in the states. Make sure to check the current custom regs, but you can likely still get one nice 750ml bottle through at a great price.

Also an unsolicited note on the experience: like most places, Scotland is conducive to the typical tourist hit. Go to the big attractions, get your photos, rip off to the next place. I'd advocate for a different approach, though. There's a wonderful quality to Scotland that takes some time to soak in. Plan fewer stops. Slow down and enjoy each stop more. For example, if you head to St Andrew's, don't just take some photos of the cathedral and other attractionsand then get back on the bus. Explore the roads and alleys and absorb the atmosphere, take a walk along west sands, look at the stonework of the west port gate, linger in a secluded corner of the cathedral. You won't see as much or have as many photos to share, but I wager you'll have a lot more meaningful memories to look back on.

 

Skye beer is OK, not the best IMO but perfectly drinkable.

The paradox about Scotland is that many breweries are quite remote, but the market for their beer is in the big cities. Outside the cities it very quickly becomes difficult to find anything other than the ubiquitous Tennent's Lager, Scotland's biggest selling beer (You will end up drinking this at some point anyway so there's no need to go looking for it). If a sketchy-looking pub doesn't even have Tennent's, leave quickly.

Check https://camra-phg.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/pub_guides/Scotland.pdf for CAMRA's list of the most picturesque/historical pubs.

In pubs look out for beer from Fyne Ales, Harviestoun or Orkney breweries. These are reliably good.

There are some very good nanobreweries but you won't find them in pubs, you'll have to seek them out in bottle shops. Holy Goat and Dead End Brew Machine make the best mixed fermentation beers. Epochal produces stock ales aged in wood with Brettanomyces.

 

Tons of great pub recommendations here - I second the Guildford Arms, Blue Blazer, Stockbridge Tap and Bow Bar as my favorite spots for cask ale. Two other New Town pubs I’d add are small/neighborhood spots (on the way to the Stockbridge tap from Princes St)- Kay’s Bar and the Oxford Bar. You won’t see any tourists at these places and the cask ale is fabulous. One unique experience I’d recommend is to hike up and over Arthur’s Seat (a hill at the bottom of the Royal Mile near Holyrood Palace) and into the small/upscale hamlet of Duddingston - there you will find the Sheep Heid pub - claimed to be the oldest in Scotland. The pub has a couple of real ales on cask and nice selection of pub food - their Sunday roast is excellent if you happen to be there on the weekend. If you are with a group - you can rent their two lane skittle court on the premises - we had a group of ten there last fall and it worked out great - we played for an hour after lunch. The hike up the hill only takes about 30 minutes (gorgeous views of Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth beyond) - and the stroll down the backside into Duddingston is really picturesque - with a long set of stone stairs as you approach the town - to walk back you can take an Uber or walk on the road - or just go back up and over the seat.

 

Slight caveat about the Sheep Heid – it is pretty modern inside despite its age so don't go expecting to be transported back to the eighteenth century. The hike is the attraction (or the skittles, I suppose). There are olde-worldier olde-worlde pubs in Edinburgh if that is what you are looking for.

 

modern is a relative term I suppose

 

Visited Edinburgh for a few nights last October.

Visited some really lovely pubs are bars but standouts for me where The Bow Bar, (Great for Scotch, they had over 400 we I visited) The Guildford Arms, The Oxford Bar and if you can get a seat Halfway House (It's tiny but had some great beers on)

 

Be aware that UK breweries are, more often than not, not set up for visitors the way US breweries tend to be. It's quite rare for them to have a tap room on site. Usually there's just a small shop where you can buy bottles and merch. I haven't been to Skye but I suspect they are set up like this. Having said that, they'd probably be happy to show you around if you contact the brewery in advance – just don't roll up expecting to drink pints on the premises.

We have perhaps been a bit mean about Skye – the beer is perfectly decent and I bet it will taste great on the island.

On which distillery to visit, I'd say it depends on how peaty you like your whisky. Talisker is one of the peatiest, Oban isn't.

 

Oban is quite small. The Oban Inn is the stand out pub with cask beer from Fyne Ales. There is a great bottle shop, the Oban Beer Seller, right next to the distillery.

If you like seafood there is also a fantastic shack on the pier that sells the biggest oysters I have ever seen.

 

Hi there. Skye is beautiful. If walking, photography and generally just appreciating stunning land and seascapes is your thing then you will not be disappointed.
In terms of beer Isle of Skye brewery in Uig is okay. Not a big fan personally, but a lot of folk like it and the visitor centre is quite popular and well stocked, if expensive. The Co-op in Portree has a fairly wide choice of beers from Scotland and beyond - so worst comes to the worst you can stock up there.
Talisker distillery is well worth the visit. The visitor centre and tour are both good. Talisker is definitely one of my faves. On the other side Isle of Raasay distillery is well worth a visit and, personally speaking, is a hidden gem. You reach it by ferry from Sconser (worth dumping the car and going as a foot passenger). The bar in the distillery is nice and chilled out with great views. The whisky is a wee beauty! Try taking a hike up to Dun Caan (also on Raasay), the views of the mainland and the Cuillin hills are jaw dropping.
Talisker bay, the Quirang, the Old man of Storr’ are all worth a visit. The seascape at Neist point lighthouse is very dramatic - take a picnic and crack open a nice beer if you are not driving
I have only ever passed through Oban on my way to the Isle of Mull, so I can’t really comment - it seems nice enough. I hope you enjoy your stay!

 

Yes it is, it's one of the more common cask ales all over the UK. They seem to have massively expanded distribution since the end of lockdown.