If you’ve lost track of these diary extracts I feel your pain.
This is now Saturday morning, Day 3 of the Great Tayside Tickathon and an actual CAMRA AGM to attend.
But first, a recuperative Miners Benedict in my Broughty Ferry Wether-hotel.
As Allo Darlin’ sang “This is life. This is living”.
I would have walked back into Dundee but it was a dreich day, so another £1.80 wasted on buses.
20 minutes before the AGM to tick off the most ornate Optical Express in the UK,
and mildly despair that J.A. Braithwaite’s famously unchanging tea and coffee shop was closed to escape the CAMRA rampage, despite being promoted in the Members Handbook.
An underrated city, hills to the north, architectural gems dotted all over the place.
I guess you’re dying to hear about the AGM and CAMRA motions to define cider, oppose/support Mimimum Unit Pricing, and save real ale.
That’s tough. Look on the CAMRA website. I will say that the Conference was superby organised, the standard of public speaking very high, the tributes touching, and Nik Antona managed to explain the annual accounts better than I ever manged in my career.
But at the half-time break, I bumped into that Scott Campbell fella and we bounded up the hill to a pub.
“Can I help you ?” said the nice Innis & Gunn folk as we peered into the Beer Kitchen. That normally means they’re closed, but in this case means “Are you dining“.
We noseyed round to the refectory area where the beers were kept.
We both perked up as we spotted one of those beer boards it’s impossible to make head and tail of, even with neat Scottish handwriting.
Thank goodness for handpumps, then. They signify that the beer is compliant with CAMRA Policy document 37 Subsection ii), even if it tastes like vinegar. My Cloud Fall from just up the hill was decent, to be fair.
I’d say we enjoyed our beer at the booth but a) I don’t think we did and b) I don’t think we actually sat down.
Time for a bit more exercise.
retiredmartin 
Pretty grim looking interior even by US standards.
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Thought I had the Cloud Fall and you got the Pale & Significant; although they did look fairly similar, so could have been either.
Your photos make it look even more like the dining section of a Premier Inn than I recall.
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That’s why I tag along with you, Scott, your memory is far sharper than mine. Indeed, I would have had the weaker one as I had an arduous day ahead and you just had an afternoon of heritage Tennents pubs to look forwards to.
I haven’t made it look any better than a Brewhouse & Kitchen, have I ?
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At least B&K have some nice shiny copper vessels to look at
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Your photos make me (a) want to go to Dundee; it looks great and (b) not want to go to that pub; it looks rubbish.
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To be fair to Innis and Gunn, their staff were pleasant and they’re very much a keg brewery. Probably need to eat there to appreciate it.
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Nothing against Innis & Gunn, quite fond of their beers. Just wondering why the pub has to look so grim and uninviting.
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When you say that you ticked the AGM, is the members’ bar in the GBG ? It certainly has the characteristics that you like – open four days per annum, you are never quite sure of its future location etc. And, at least, for ease of the ticker, its opening days are consecutive – far better than open on the first Saturday of each of our four seasons.
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No, I mean I ticked attending the AGM. The “members bar” is the antithesis of my personal quest, just like beer festivals in general. Please don’t give Tayside CAMRA ideas about including this in the GBG retrospectively 🙃
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I knew what you meant !
But I thought that having a GBG inclusion with restricted entry and only open four days per year is just the sort of challenge that you relish. A bit like if the GBBF was in the Guide. Now there’s a thought.
Happy Easter to you and your family, and (importantly) to the blog.
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Sorry. As you know I’m very slow on the uptake now I’m old.
I did wonder if anyone would put a beer festival in the Guide. GBBF would be open longer than the Connoisseur Tasting Rooms in St Helens. Aghhhh.
Happy Easter to all readers except any in Maidenhead
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What about those from Maidenhead ?
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No-one ever leaves Maidenhead.
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So we last saw our intrepid explorers re-routing back through Mexico City after enjoying bacon and eggs at a small regional airport while our flight left without us.
We are now in Puerto Vallarta, a seaside resort, where our new exchange home,a small one-bed condo,lies in the shadows of huge hotels. The sea view before the building started 15 years ago would have been magical.
They seem to be mostly populated by Canadians whose day appears to revolve around 5-7pm Happy Hours and getting trashed on bowls of margaritas.
I’ve haven’t seen so many bad mullets and tatts since we last visited the American Mid-West – and that’s just the women.
Of course we join them – at two quid a throw it seems a sin not to.
I told them I was helping out young Martin on his blog and one Canuck asked if that was the one where Russ corrects all the typos.
Amid all the tourist nonsense one bar really stands out – La Cerveza Union is a brilliant craft beer emporium on the beach and Mexico looks to be in the throes of the same craftiness as everywhere else,just without quite so many hops and ironic facial hair.
Here we met another Canadian called Tony, necking the cheap house lager while waiting for his Mexican girlfriend to finish work at another bar.
Tony told us he only came down to visit his girlfriend on long weekends which seemed strange.
But it all made sense when he regaled us with tales of having to pay a ransom to get her brother released by armed kidnappers.
And how it was too dangerous for him to visit her home town.
ThaibridesRus obviously has a Mexican branch.
We left him just as he took a call from the lovely Alexandra to say her car had been hit by a tourist bus and she needed 5,000 dollars for a lawyer.
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Bacon and eggs at an airport 😃
What a life.
Your holiday snaps would liven my blog up.
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Agreed. My initial reaction was that ‘Spoons had put two big blobs if ice cream on your breakfast, but that was clearly not the case.
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What’s most shocking is the lack of evidence of any Broccoli whatsoever .
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Broccoli motion remitted.
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Cask in the Innis & Gunn? That’s a pleasant surprise. A certain pre-emptive surely. Glasgow has one in the west end which I quite like but doesn’t have cask. Small grrr.
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Possibly there just for the CAMRAs. Not their beer on cask (both 71 Brewing).Mixed views on quality.
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You’re not selling this CAMRA lark to me…Dundee looks like good fun though
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I sell pubs mate, not CAMRA 🍻
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