Dave Halliwell, our Manx correspondent, summed up the appeal of travel guided by the GBG here;
I started the blog to write about travel and will press on till I can’t after completing the Guide. I understand there may be some great pubs outside the GBG.
It’s taken me 57 years to reach Orkney, and I couldn’t have picked a better place to finish the Guide, winding down on Rousay after that emotional tick at the Taversoe.
2022 has been mostly about Scotland; 122 pubs ticked in every chapter of then Guide.
What a wonderful country. This was at Innellan on the Firth of Clyde, which you’ll read about eventually;
I’ve found some of the southern Scottish villages a bit concrete heavy in the past, but recent trips have been a revelation,
and the fonts !
I’ve been blessed with the weather this summer, the sun shines on the righteous (and Mrs RM when she joined me), and the pubs have been glorious.
Duncan, who did the GBG first and best, always told me I’d find good cask, and Kirkwall was possibly the pinnacle of cask this year. Look at the lacings on the Scapa Special in the Auld Motor Hoose;
So, thanks Scotland, and all your friendly folk who let us go on earlier ferries and helped me reverse up ramps onto boats and cheerily served high quality cask. And the pubs who were OPEN when they said they would be.
I think some of the micro pubs need a bit more TLC though…
retiredmartin 
Pre-emptively ticking every Burial Chamber and Souterrain I see, cellars just waiting for cask.
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That one on Rousay is 5,200 years old. The Bass might nearly be ready.
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Oh I don’t know. You really don’t want to serve it too fresh.
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It’s not the beer it was in 3,180 BC, according to some on Discourse.
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Made in the Barrow Union System back then, pebble-pinching finance hut staff put paid to that…
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Any theories on why Kirkwall would be the cask hot spot?
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Swannay. Have been incredibly good and proactive for years. The owner starting out at Moorhouse may have helped in decent recipes as well.
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You’ve still got a visit to Shetland to go, and a pint of Tennants in the Baltasound Hotel for UK geographic completeness.
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The public bar in the Baltasound closed a couple of years ago although you might still be able to get a pint in the lounge. However, the UK’s most northerly bar is now the Balta Light, a community pub that opened after the Baltasound bar closed.
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Congrats on completing the GBG, though the new one’s out shortly of course. Why not go on to do all the UK real ale pubs? That’s my objective and, assuming I live to 140, I think I can do it!
John
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If you do live to 140 and do all the pubs, John, I’d be grateful if you did a guest post for my blog !
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Congratulations on completing the GBG
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Thank you, John. Actually, walking into a pub and ordering a beer isn’t that difficult, to be fair.
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