Along with some typical shiny brewing equipment they also have a couple of strange terracotta cauldrons for lack of a better word, with their lids tightly locked down as if the contents would try to escape otherwise.

Coincidently, every Tuesday was when you would find the Cask Whisperer lurking at the back of the bar, funny how that happened …

No indication of any bottle conditioning but at 10% it really doesn’t need it, and at seven years in the bottle it would be of little use anyway; if I had wanted it any livelier, I would have searched for it all those years ago.

There also appeared to be a children’s party going on in both the upstairs and downstairs function rooms, with the kids approaching the bar several times during my session and walking off with glasses and pitchers of Shirley Temples.

... it adroitly threaded the needle between a strong mild, a wee heavy, and a barleywine, without venturing too far into the exotic world that is the Winter Ale or Christmas Ale or Holiday Ale.

... this was the beer that had the most additives, pretty much everything that you would find when cleaning out the back of your fridge and spice cabinet.