Is it beer, though?

 We landed in Bristol on Thursday having dealt with a few things down south (where Things = ears and a Trustee meeting).  I insisted on catching the bus because we'd decided we wanted to make sure the "Beast" lens, a decent camera and a tripod were conveyed to the flat - mostly for the purposes of getting a better picture of the peregrines that use the nearby ledges as their dining table.  

Anyhow, I digress.

Despite more than usually bulky luggage, the journey was pretty-much textbook though watching people using the Paddington ticket gates, there's definitely a PhD in there somewhere.

Naturally, upon landing at the flat, the usual offices were carried out and we got out to The Barley Mow.  It being Thursday, it was starting to get reasonably busy but we bagged a good table, and started to neck a couple of lovely BBF cask pints.  Relax.  The second was another cask beer each (Tileys for me, Stroud for him).  We were pretty restrained on our final drink - despite some lovely (and strong) beers on Keg, we decided to avoid the strong and go with Summacrush from NBB instead. 

Friday we tinkered about with the camera, did a bit of work - and then knocked off a little early.  Moor had Illumination on cask so it would have been very rude not to.  We took our drinks out into the garden, got annoyed by a particularly gobby magpie and by a couple of annoyingly loud cars (we are old, after all) and then as it cooled down, sought refuge inside and played some Regicide.

Saturday is always a tricky day in the spring/summer - we definitely don't want to go towards town (we'd seen all the hen and stage parties arrive...shudder) so I took a look at the real ale finder app and the Kings Head looked like it had some interesting stuff on - so we strolled round there.

Got chatting to the chap who appears to be a new landlord/manager living-in???  An Oakham beer was on offer and I expressed delight.  Turns out he's from the midlands and so knows the brewery well.  "It's dividing people", he said.  Turns out not everyone likes the lemon peel that was added (I liked it a lot).

Second cask beer was a 5% NEIPA which we shared a pint and a half of (they don't really do 2/3rds on casks here).  It was excellent - and we'd barely touched the cask offering, really.

However, what we'd both seen was three (count 'em) strong stouts.  Fyne on cask, Vault city and Holy Goat on keg.  I bought 2/3rds of the Fyne which was 9.5% (so they can do 2/3rds...) and attempted a 1/3 of the Vault City (it was 15%) which was, fortuitously generously poured.   Both stouts were lovely in their own way and we shared them before strolling home for dinner - definitely feeling the effects.

Today I'm musing on 15% keg stout.  Is it really beer?  It's stronger than most of the wines we drink.  I certainly would have it again - it's almost the perfect last-beer but even I'm thinking it may be a bit too much...maybe.