Brian's Hiking Blog??

"Brian" you say, "why has your so-called 'beer-blog' not had any updates about beer?"
Well, I suppose its simple... I'm in 'beer school' and by all accounts a professional brewer by trade. My classes all relate to beer, so there is a lot of beer going on in my head. But of course I need some hobbies that take my mind off of beer. It seems that I've turned to photography, hiking, and reading (btw, Ian Rankin writes some pretty good books set in Edinburgh). In a way, this beer blog was an escape from my old regular job too. I'll keep it up though, I'm thinking actually that it might be a good idea to start writing "articles" about topics I learn in school. It would be helpful certainly to learn the material after all...

For now, I'll leave you with 2 bits of information. First, I finally found a decent pub to go to with some cask ales within walking distance of where I live (on campus). You really can't get a pint of decent beer on campus, its all lagers. I suppose theres Guinness... but still. The Riccarton Arms has two cask ales on tap (Deuchar's and a guest beer), decent prices (£2.40) for a pint, not too busy, and its frequented by mostly locals. Its about a 25 minute walk from campus, and I've enjoyed going there to sit and read my Ian Rankin book(s). I suppose I could, in theory, also do homework there too... hm, maybe it'll happen.
Anyway, that makes me happy.

Second, I've taken to hiking of late, as I need to get in better shape. I jog too, but thats not as interesting. On Sunday (the 20th) I took off at 8:30 in the morning from the campus and headed west. About 7 hrs, 16 km, and 633 photos later I returned home. It was quite an interesting day. I enjoy relatively aimless wandering. I ended up hiking through a bog to get up a small hill. I took some good photos, but they'll take time to process. Here is a link to the photos I've processed so far, and some examples. Other than that... cheers!