Portpatrick:
Our base for a couple of days. We arrived in bright sunshine, having driven through snow, and grabbed a drink to sit outside with. Very friendly staff, good beer and wine, and great food, the atmosphere of an old-fashioned village pub in the bar, with a real fire. Popular for, but not dominated by food, and (as an aside) nice rooms.
Stranraer:
A Good Beer Guide and historic interiors pub in Stranraer. It was a bit early really, but (as we remembered) Stranraer doesn’t have that much to offer a couple of middle-aged tourists, so we dropped in. The interior is classic Scottish pub, the barman friendly, and the cask beer was the same local ale (Beltie Blonde) as at The Crown, but in better condition. Pity we didn’t feel like starting epic drinking that early.
Annan, Dumfries and Galloway:
Another hotel bar, but it felt like a rather down-at-heel drinker’s pub. Barman was friendly enough, though. No ale or posh lager, Tennants drinkable, but football on TV loud :-(.
Annan, Dumfries and Galloway:
Noting exceptional here: a drinker’s pub. No cask ale, or decent lager, so Guinness it was, which was fine, if not a favourite. Pleasant staff though, and friendly (if very, very pissed) locals.
Annan, Dumfries & Galloway:
We walked down to this from the Queensberry Arms. My phone told me it was this way, but we were reaching the end of the town, and I mentioned my concern. Then we looked upwards, to the huge blue bell. Maybe this was it?
Inside, traditional pub, with the interior mostly intact from an inter-war refit as part of a state-managment scheme in the area. Now it’s a pleasant community pub with a choice of cask ale, nibbles on the bar when we visited, and a really nice feel.
Annan, Dumfries & Galloway:
OK, it’s a hotel, but this has to be stretched in Scotland: generally the local hotel is also the pub. There’s several pubs in town in this case, but this isn’t always the case, and the bar felt pubby.
No cask ale, but tolerable lager (Staropramen). Barman friendly enough, atmosphere OK (but marked down for TV showing some third-rate channel), nothing exceptional though.
In Ur Pubz, Drinkin Ur Beerz