Beer: the perfect ingredient?

The recipe for success is a delicate balance.            


Water is essential, but Harviestoun’s alone filters through the granite Ochil hills.  Quality lowland barley is equally vital, but is only as good as the carefully cultivated yeast for its germination.  



And without beautifully bitter hops, your real ale is just another mediocre lager - which, lacking the magic herb's preservatives, may go off (if you can tell the difference).

We really do appreciate the work and waiting to perfect this subtle combination.  Yet still our eyes glaze over – before we’ve tasted a drop!

In fairness we’re a hard audience:  this is the tenth time we’ve learned the brewing process, grist to the mill of our annual beer weekends. 

And maybe this isn’t ‘purist’ enough: if you add salts to your water, oats to your barley, even lager to your range of ales – and base yourself in a soulless industrial unit - well, for us it’s hard to swallow. 

Yet Iain is an enthusiastic and generous host, soothing sharp questions with honesty and pragmatism – and our thirst with generous tastings.  We all adore a beautiful blond, and Bitter & Twisted is a worthy Champion Beer of Britain.  The fruity zing of Wild Hop pale ale makes it my favourite.  And we jump at the chance to sample the dark, rich Old Engine Oil stout – though a few drops are enough!

Tasting continues into the evening, with Stirling’s surprisingly rare supplies of real ale drained by our rapacious thirst for education and enlightenment.  An hour in a sports bar to witness Chelsea’s triumph is 60 minutes of wasted ale-appreciation, but we end on an high note in the comfort of the Porthcullis Hotel, tired but happy after a fulfilling day.

Yet whilst necessary, good beer in itself is not sufficient to make the weekend. 

Location is crucial, and over the years we’ve been fortunate to balance Stirlingshire and the Lothians with Cumbria and North Yorkshire - with Oxfordshire now on our list.  Good accommodation helps, this time in Stirling’s impressively-situated and imposing youth hostel.   

Food, whilst secondary to drink, is also part of the mix - a welcome pizza sets us up for the evening, whilst Sunday begins with an indecisive tour of coffee shops, our selection criteria as shaky as our stomachs - but we finish strongly, with a stonkingly good pub lunch in the sunshine at Sheriffmuir.

This, of course, follows that other key element - the morning-after walk, without which the weekend just isn’t complete.  This time Rick does us proud with a cracking hike giving clear views across the Firth of Forth and ample chance to stretch legs and clear heads.

Yet all this would be for nothing without the most important ingredient of all:  friends. 

And what a cracking collection!  Nick, Dick, Mox and Me may sound like a children’s book, and we do indeed go right back to schooldays, with welcome additions Chris (once, so far), Gareth and our latest rookie Christian.  Nick successfully added Scoff (sadly missed this time), Andy and Mike to the mix – and of course Tim:  sometimes key ingredients just cannot be sourced locally.  

This easy mix generates a relaxed camaraderie – a natural understanding developed through studying our subject together over many years.  Conversation includes love, laughter and livelihoods (what is it you actually do - again?), not to mention the perennial musing on what makes the mix come together so well – and to what extent the elements can be changed (wives and girlfriends next time? - only joking!).

As the gentle haze of the weekend lifts, I see clearly that the ingredients for a good beer weekend are as varied and complex, and sometimes as difficult to define, as those for the brew itself. 

This weekend though, I think we found the perfect recipe.