Scotland: Craft Ale From The Isle Of Skye

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another installment in the series about my Scottish holiday. This post deals with one particular aspect of the whole week.

THE ISLE OF SKYE BREWERY PRODUCTS

My first encounter with the products of this local brewery which specialises in craft ales was on the Saturday, at Hector’s Bothy. I also sampled some of their product at lunch on the Isle of Skye on the Tuesday, and a selection box of four bottles from Kyle of Lochalsh Co-op enabled my to broaden the range of my sampling. All these ales have a strength of between 4 and 4.5%. Here now are my findings about each the ales I drank:

Skye Blaven (blue label on bottle): a perfectly fine craft ale, albeit the least impressive of this particular selection.
Skye Red – a rich, full flavoured drink. The fact that I rated this one third of the four is credit to the top two, not in any way discredit to this one.
Skye Gold – a heavily hopped ale which also features a highly unusual ingredient – porridge oats. This is a delicious drink, and it would require something special to keep this one out of the top spot, but fortunately for me this brewery has something else that is not merely special but absolutely unique…
Skye Black – a unique craft ale, because it contains oatmeal. The result of the combination of the oatmeal with malted barley, hops, yeast and water is a truly remarkable drink. Imagine the finest stout you have ever encountered and then ramp the quality up from that and you get somewhere close to just how good this drink is.

SG1 — At some stage in this series I will be producing a post about the craft ales produced by the Skye brewery.

Scotland – Friday: The Paddle Steamer

A post dedicated to the world’s last ocean going paddle steamer.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another installment in my series about my holiday in Scotland. The steamer has been mentioned/ shown in various previous posts (Setting the Scene, The Museum of All Shells and Friday Overview) but this one is dedicated to it. There are a few other pictures as well.

THE STEAMER

Alighting from my parents camper van in Kyle of Lochalsh I was just too late to get the whole steamer in shot, but I did get this picture:

I had not expected to see it again, not knowing the route it would be taking, but that evening it passed by Ferry Cottage, all be it on the opposite side of Loch Alsh, so I was able to get plenty more pictures of it.

SOME EXTRA PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the remaining photographs from Friday evening.

THE MEME

Scotland – Friday: The Murchison Monument and Balmacara Square.

An account of the Murchison Monument and our second visit to Balmacara Square.

INTRODUCTION

This post continues the coverage of the Friday of my Scottish holiday.

THE MURCHISON MONUMENT

This is not in honour of geologist Roderick Murchison, who has various things including a river in Western Australia named in his honour, although it was originally erected by him, in 1853. It is instead a monument to someone who fought on the side of the Jacobites and (probably because he was not significant enough for the other side to be that interested in dealing with him) held the land on behalf of his laird.

The monument is at the end of small, midge infested path, and is quite impressive.

Murchison Monument1 — The first of two shots of the whole monument.

Murchison Monument Inscription — The first of two close-ups of the inscription.

BALMACARA SQUARE REVISITED

The first time we walked around Balmacara Square nothing was open, so it was good to go back when things were open. There is a coffee shop there, which we visited. Even in this tiny place in the middle of nowhere they had raised over £500 at their Macmillan Coffee Morning. There is also a photographic gallery, run by photographer Iain Turnbull. My mother purchased one of his prints.

Scotland – Friday Overview

Continuing the account of my Scottish holiday.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next installment in my series about my holiday in Scotland. It is now three weeks since I returned, and I edited the last of the photos from said holiday only yesterday. This post is the first of three that relate specifically to Friday, there will also be several about the homeward journey and a special post about craft ales from The Isle of Skye Brewery.

FRIDAY MORNING

Someone from the National Trust called round to check on the cottage’s water systems. It was from them that we learned of the presence in the area that day of the world’s last remaining ocean going paddle steamer. Once they had finished we went into Kyle of Lochalsh, and while my parents went to check in on emails I went out with my camera.

Steamer2 — This was my first shot at the steamer – as you will see in a later post there were many more to come.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

After lunch I decided to do as much packing as I sensibly could given how early my train would be leaving on the morrow. This process brought to light the fact that my train tickets were no longer in my possession. All attempts to locate them and/or secure replacements having failed, the woman at the ticket office in Kyle of Lochalsh did her best for us by providing tickets for each part of the route, which reduced the cost of the tickets to a still painful £117.60. On the way back from this unwanted excursion we visited the Murchison Monument and revisited Balmacara Square, which will feature in the next post in the series.

FRIDAY EVENING

The steamer came past Ferry Cottage, enabling me to get some more photos of it (post coming up about that). After supper it was time for bed, bearing in mind the very early start.

Scotland – The Museum of All Shells

Continuing my account of my holiday in Scotland with a piece about shells.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my holiday in Scotland.

EXPLANATION

One of the things I identified early on about where we were located was the preponderance of shells of various kinds. I decided therefore to include a post dedicated to them. I took my title from a chapter in Richard Dawkins’ “Climbing Mount Improbable”.

As with all activities on this holiday I adhered strictly to the policy outlined in this infographic of my own creation:

THE MUSEUM OF ALL SHELLS

Here to conclude the post are the shell pictures:

Scotland – Thursday Supper (In Which I Perpetrate a Shameless Act of Cultural Appropriation)

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next post in my series on my holiday in Scotland. This one is different from most of the others as it does not feature photos. The theme is Thursday’s supper, which was my signature dish.

LEMONY CHICKEN AND CORIANDER

Although the version of the dish that I am describing differs from the original by enough to count as my own, it developed from a recipe created by Madhur Jaffrey (hence the reference to cultural appropriation). Courtesy of the Fort William branch of Morrisons and a little forethought I had the following ingredients at my disposal:

1 large ginger root
1 head of garlic
eight chicken thighs
70g of fresh coriander
4 lemons
salt
ground coriander
ground cumin
500g pasta

To start my mother grated half of the ginger, which I then mixed with a tiny amount of water to form the necessary paste. I assembled my mix of salt and dried spices (2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground coriander and 1 and a half teaspoons of salt mixed together in a cup). Having consulted with my mother as to how much butter would be necessary to equate to a tablespoon of olive oil I melted the appropriate quantity in the largest available pan and having removed the skin from the chicken thighs put them on to cook. This done I squeezed the lemons, and commenced chopping the garlic. I had initially envisaged using the whole head of garlic, but by the time I had chopped half of it as finely as I am capable of I reckoned based on experience that I had sufficient chopped garlic for my purposed. Removing the chicken from the pan I added the garlic and stirred continuously for about one minute, until it picked up some colour (the stirring is because I did not want it in direct contact with the base of the pan, when it would have burned). Now it was time to add the ginger paste and stir thoroughly. Roughly chopping the fresh coriander that went in next along with the ground cumin, ground coriander and salt mix. Then the chicken went back in, followed by the addition of the lemon juice and a tiny amount of water. Then once this mixture had started to bubble I put the lid on, turned the heat right down and had a fifteen minute lull, which I used to attend to some of the cleaning. Having tested the mixture at that point and found it good it was time to attend to the pasta. 15 minutes later the meal was ready. I started by serving each person two thighs and some pasta, over which I drizzled some of the juices (more generously for my father who is not that keen on pasta than for the rest of us).

Everything got eaten, including the two bonus thighs.

The reason for the imprecision in the description of the cooking is that I know from experience when I have enough of any given ingredient. The biggest difference between my version and the Jaffrey original in that that one incliudes chili and cayenne, neither of which I use, because while I like strongly flavoured food, as this was, I do not like to blow the roof off my mouth. Also she recommends much more oil than I use.

Scotland – Thursday: Fort William to Glaick

The return from Fort William to Glaick.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about a Scottish holiday. Having finished the account of my experience with The Jacobite, this penultimate post for the Thursday deals with the return journey from Fort William to Glaick.

LEAVING FORT WILLIAM

Before heading back to the cottage in Glaick where were staying we visited the Morrison’s in Fort William to stock up on food, including some ingredients which feature in the next post in this series. That done we headed off back towards Glaick, me with the camera at the ready.

Scotland – Thursday: Farewell to the Jacobite

The final stages of The Jacobite jnourney.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest post in the series I am doing about my holiday in Scotland. This post brings to an end the account of The Jacobite train journey.

THE LAST STAGE OF THE TRAIN JOURNEY

Once we were able to move on from Glenfinnan we encountered no further hitches and the train chugged into Fort William at 3:55PM, within a few minutes of the stated return time.

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS
ON “THE JACOBITE”

This is unquestionably a very fine train journey, and to experience it on a steam train added something to it. However, I have to disagree with the ‘selectorate’ who named it The World’s Greatest Train Journey. Inlandsbanan in Sweden is one that I rate ahead of it, the other section of this same railway, Glasgow to Fort William, is as impressive in its own way, sweeping across a moor that sees it at one point seven miles from the nearest road, and as you will be seeing later in this series of posts the rail route from Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness is pretty special as well.

Scotland – Thursday – Mallaig to Glenfinnan

The account of the first half of the return journey on The Jacobite.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next post in my series about my holiday in Scotland. This post commences the coverage of the return journey from Mallaig to Fort William on The Jacobite.

EXPLANATION

Why am I covering the return journey? Because although I was still on the non-ideal side of the train, rge fact that the locomotive runs around the train to be attached to the opposite end did mean that I was facing the direction of travel for the return journey, which meant that I got more and better photos than on the outward run.

MALLAIG TO GLENFINNAN

Although we would not be stopping for long enough for anyone to disembark on this return journey we would have a stop at Glenfinnan to allow a regular service to pass us. Thus, Glenfinnan once again forms a logical break poiny.

GV1 — Glenfinnan Viaduct through the window.

Scotland – Thursday: Mallaig

The stop in Mallaig.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next post in my series about my holiday in Scotland. This post covers the hour and a half at Mallaig that The Jacobite allows.

MALLAIG

Naturally, I commenced proceedings at Mallaig by taking the opportunity to get some photos of the train:

I had noticed the presence of a Heritage Centre close to the station. Unfortunately such is the extent to which Mallaig has embraced its status as a tourist trap that they were charging for admission, so I got nor further than the gift shop.

The rain eased sufficiently for me to explore a little further.

While on the train I had purchased a souvenir route map. In Mallaig I also bought a pictorial map of Skye and Wester Ross:

	Thomas on 49
	Shaun Bradford on 49
	Thomas on Reaching Back to WG Grace Twic…
	Elena Delle Selve on Reaching Back to WG Grace Twic…
	Thomas on Two Contrasting Routes to…

INTRODUCTION

THE ISLE OF SKYE BREWERY PRODUCTS

INTRODUCTION

THE STEAMER

SOME EXTRA PHOTOGRAPHS

THE MEME

INTRODUCTION

THE MURCHISON MONUMENT

BALMACARA SQUARE REVISITED

INTRODUCTION

FRIDAY MORNING

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

FRIDAY EVENING

INTRODUCTION

EXPLANATION

THE MUSEUM OF ALL SHELLS

INTRODUCTION

LEMONY CHICKEN AND CORIANDER

INTRODUCTION

LEAVING FORT WILLIAM

INTRODUCTION

THE LAST STAGE OF THE TRAIN JOURNEY

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS ON “THE JACOBITE”

INTRODUCTION

EXPLANATION

MALLAIG TO GLENFINNAN

INTRODUCTION

MALLAIG

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS
ON “THE JACOBITE”