And so our Scottish sojourn come to an end at Wonderful Wishaw.
Or “AnyWhere but Wishaw” as it’s affectionately known.
Only the Good Beer Guide brings English people to post-industrial steel towns like Motherwell and Wishaw, and we should thank it for that. Mrs RM was less convinced as we drove through the challenging streets of Motherwell and Craigneuk, and I quickly dropped the idea of a detour to Carluke to explore the craft scene.
I don’t know how Girvan won “UK worst high street”; VAR is needed to reassess Wishaw’s strong challenge.
In its defence it has more Scotch pies than Girvan, and a bigger bingo hall. And sells a pint of venom for a fiver.
While you always hope it’s going to be Corrigan’s or Ross’s in the GBG, selling that Fierce Peanut Butter Stout on cask,
you know by now the only possible Guide entry is the Spoons selling undrinkable cask but handpumps !
And so it turned out with the Malt. Ambitious outdoor seating in Greater Glasgow there.
Possible the best carpet, though.
And some excellent local art, here set to music on my video.
Ooh, beer choice.
These gentlefolk were befuddled. Always go for the Doom Bar, ladies.
Actually, I went for the Deuchars, which was foul (NBSS 1), Mrs RM smelt it to confirm, and I had the joy of taking a beer back for the first time in two years.
The replacement Kelburn therefore only cost me 85p, so I’m winning at life. It wasn’t bad.
Mrs RM took a work call, I nipped to Baynes the Family Baker and came back with Scotch pies and bridies. The Scottish can’t always keep good cask, but they sure can make great pies.
retiredmartin 
So did you actually march up to the bar with your duff pint, or accost a passing waitingperson?
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I strode to the bar and said “excuse me awfully this beer may possibly be on the turn” !
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Of all the beer you had in Scotland, what proportion of it came up to the standard you would expect in the Good Beer Guide? And how does that compare with south of the Border?
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Was just thinking of doing a post covering exactly those points !
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Look forward to that. I do know that Shetland’s last two GBG pubs would never have made the Guide south of the border.
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Little known fact, there is a direct correlation between the quality of scottish pies and the number of craft beer salesmen sent to the region in the previous month.
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Kilburn is usually a very good producer of varied beers…I used to drink Goldihops regularly
Glad your Scottish tour ended tbh 🤣 beer and hospitality all a bit depressing..
I’ll go and listen to some Leonard Cohen now 😄
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Oh I loved it, Graeme ! Can’t you tell. It’s more about the travel than the beer.
And Kelburn make good beer, nearly all breweries do, but if a pub Can’t sell a barrel in 2 or 3 days it’ll taste rubbish.
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Glad you enjoyed Martin ..I am saddened that Cask has such a limited following in Scotland which probably encourages the injudicious ” ekeing out” of the barrel..I did do battle once with the end of a barrel from Ayr brewery and managed to make the landlord concede it was ” finished..” 😀
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Look through the blog and you’ll see eulogies to the beer quality in Edinburgh (a lot of pubs), Musselburgh, Glasgow (Bon Accord and State), Aberdeen and Inverness among other. But appreciation of cask tends to focus on a few specialist pubs and many of the recent new Beer Guide entries have been chain pubs (Spoons, Marston, Greene King) which put on real ale and then take it off.
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A long time ago, but that Spoons was the worst one – and the emptiest – I’ve even been in.
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