Walking the North York Moors

Walking is an important part of the English culture.  It would be called hiking back home.  The North York Moors is popular spot for walking.  It’s 1436 km² and became a National Park in 1952.

I went for  ~8 mile walk with Grandfather in the Osmotherley area on Friday.  It was wonderful.  The weather was perfect, the scenery was beautiful, and the sheep were bountiful.  There isn’t much else to say other than I see why walking is so popular.

First brewery tour – Cropton Brewery

Went in to the North York Moors today.  Ended up in Cropton, which has a lovely pub with a brewery next to it.  The Cropton Brewery.  They have somewhere around 16 beers of their own, plus a few more they brew for super-chain store Marks and Spencer.  They are well known for their “Two Pints” English Bitter, which, sadly was not available on tap at the time.

In the pub I had their steak pie made with Cropton’s ‘Scoresby Stout.’  Steak pie is quite possibly one of my favourite dishes of all time.  Its sad that its impossible to find a steak pie in Canada, and if you do its very disappointing.  They’re always a total slap in the face to pies in general.  So this steak pie was a real treat.  Hands down the second best steak pie I’ve ever had.  The only better ones are the ones made by my mother.  Quite possibly because she usually uses moose instead of beef.  You can’t beat moose meat.

As far as the beer goes I had the Monkmans Slaughter and Yorkshire Warrior.  Monkmans Slaughter is a Strong English Bitter.  Very dark, very delicous.  Best beer I’ve had so far in my five days in this country.  Yorkshire warrior is another English Bitter.  A darker ruby colour, and tastes quite good.  Its sitting in second place right now.  Next time I’m in Marks and Spencer I will be picking up some more Monkmans Slaughter and will try out a couple of the other brews from Cropton Brewery.

The tour was very informative. Our tour guide was a gentleman named Mick.  Who, claiming to not be an employee of the brewery, certainly knew his stuff.  The fermentation tanks above, while not actually made of copper, are Canadian made.  The only disappointing thing to the whole trip was that the brewery tour did not include samples.

British Beer: First Impressions

Pubs are a pretty big deal in the UK. Even with the current economic situation causing pubs to close down at an alarming rate. When you order your beer you have 3 choices: “beer“, “lager”, by name.  Beer means an English Bitter.  Lager refers to, well, lager types which; from what I’ve experienced so far, are all imports – Stella Artois, Fosters,  and, Carlsberg.  The Budweisers and Molson Canadians of Europe.  Carling being the only British Lager.

I’m fairly disappointed with the beer scene so far.  I know there has to be more to it.  I thought Canada was the same, but I found out its not.  Doesn’t help having the USA next door with its massive, high quality, craft and micro scene.  A few days before I left Canada I heard in a pub that ‘Britons drink beer because it tastes good, Australian drink to get drunk.’  Like I’ve said before stereotypes are based on some sort of truth.  I know this will prove to be true.  I just don’t know when, how, or who will prove this to me.  Britain, along with Belgium, have historically been known for their ales.  I am now embarking on a mission to see if this is true.

Oceans of flavour

The North Sea tastes worse than the Pacific Ocean.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles also known as 29 hours later

It took a long, exhausting 29 hours to arrive at my final destination, my grandparents place.  Now i’m sitting here on a Saturday afternoon enjoying a, as Chris Onstad would put it, cruchy Stella.  Time for a run down of the journey.  Lets see if I can type it out before I finish this beer.

I had four beautiful relaxing days the parents place involving ATVs, brewpubs, playing with the dog, and chores.  Nothing like mowing a near vertical lawn in 25°C degree weather at 9 AM.  Thursday morning I hopped on a plane at Kelowna airport at 7 something Ante Meridiem.  Arrived at Vancouver too early for the check in with Thomas Cook for my London flight.  So, I had to try and find somewhere to sit for 2 fucking hours.

Vancouver International is a very beautiful airport, but there is fuck-all for seating outside of the secure zone.  Found a seat the food court about a kilometer away from where I have to check in.  Cracked open Drew Curtis’ ‘Its Not News Its Fark‘.  I had purchased this book to read on the plane (it was also $5 at Chapters) and I sudden foundly myself over half way through.  I got up to do the kilometer trek hoping that I could check in, which I was lucky able too.  Ah shit, ran out of beer.  Time for a pint of Boddingtons.  It’s like a mall on the other side at Van In’tl.  I saw one shop I wanted to hit up, BC Sportssomething.  They were displaying various Canucks t-shirts.  Something that I wanted to wear proudly over here.  Who cares if they sucked in the second round of the playoffs and nobody over here knows who they are.  I still want to show my support.  Turns out its on the nigh-hermetically sealed American only flight section.  You have to pretty much give all freedoms to fly to the states.

Flight was good.  Food was, as expected, god awful.  It didn’t even look like food.  It didn’t even taste like food.  It tasted like it was flavoured to taste like what it is.  Ketchup chips (or crisps as they call them over here), for example, do not taste like ketchup.  They don’t even taste like similiar to a plain chip smothered with ketchup.  They dont even taste like a chip made out of ketchup.  No matter what combination of ketchup +potato you can make, it won’t taste like the ketchup ‘flavoured’ chips.  That was how the food tasted.  That looks like chicken, but the taste still leaves me guessing.  Service was good though.  It was like a Westjet flight.  Except excruciatingly long.  It doesn’t help when you can’t sleep on planes, and when you’ve seen the flight movies.

I was going to meet Heidi at Gatwick as she was flying out to Iceland a few hours after I land.  Gatwick looks horrible.  It was also a complete gong show.  It was like someone when to a zoo and release all the animals, then ran off cackling like a stereotypical evil genius.  She was flying out the north terminal and I was in the south terminal, unable to move in the direction that I want to.  I’m just going what ever way the herd wanted me to.  I was able to break free and I looked around, I waited around, all for naught.  Got on the Gatwick Express and blasted off the downtown London.  Tubed to King’s Cross.  I had 5 hours to kill there, as I booked an afternoon train so I could see Heidi and have extra time to get there (it was also the cheapest one of the day).  Sadly I never found Heidi, and I was way too easy to get there. I tried to get to platform 9¾, but it has its own security section.  No good.

When I booked my train it, no idea why, was cheaper to book a first class ticket instead of coach.  Not gonna lie, I didn’t believe it.  Even when I got my ticket and it said “1st class” on it I didn’t believe it.  Until I approach my car and it said “First Class” on the side did I believe it.  About damn time.  The seat was very comfortable.  I had been  using of my bags as a seat for the last 5 hours.  King’s Cross has less seats than Van In’tl.  Why not wander around London you’re probably thinking.  Try wandering around in a city designed by Daedalus in the most goddamn, unbelievable, hottest fucking weather with a hundred pounds of shit strapped to you.  Yeah, not happening.  Back to the train.  The seat was so comfortable it was almost impossible not to fall asleep.  Which, was an idea that dreaded, even after been awake for the 25ish hours.  I did not want to miss my stop.  Trains aren’t like planes, they won’t wait for your ass to get off.  First class has all you can drink complimentary tea, a small package of biscuits (2) and a little bottle of water from Harrogate Spa.  That water was horrible.  It was hands down worse than the plane food.  No competition what-so-ever.  I decided to inspect the bottle.  Apparently its carbonated, suppose to be served cold, and some kind of super water that is 400 years old.  No wonder it tasted awful – it was warm and fucking expired.  Trolley service comes by and sees if we want anything off the menu.  I said to myself  “fuck yes, beer time.”  The selection was weaker than Heather Mills’ left leg.  I ordered a Stella.  It was warm.  Room-fucking-temperature.  Then I get handed a juice glass.  Whatever, it’ll still go down.  It barely did.  I thought the whole “get ready to put your dinner in the fridge and your beer in the oven” thing was a joke.  Its not.  You always learn the hard way that stereotypes are based on truth.

The bathroom on these trains is something else.  I hadn’t used a toilet in about 8 hours because King’s Cross charges you 30p to use the lavatory.  Outrageous to charge to use a toilet.  This isn’t elementary school where the bully charges you to use the outside toilet during recess.  Back to the toilet.  I noticed the light indicating it was available.  I go to it and try to open the door.  I pulled on the handle and got nothing.  I noticed a small sticker saying “push button the right.”  So I push the button.  This bathroom is from the future.  I push another button inside and the opposite wall to close, then other to lock.  I’m very impressed.  I do my business.  I got to be hygienic ya know.  The sink is, pretty much, in a hole in the wall and the water/soap is dispensed from the top.  I squirt the soap on my hand and I go turn on the water to make the lathering that much easier.  I can’t figure out how to turn the water on.  I stick my hand underneath, wave it around a little.  Nothing.  I start flailing my hand around as if I was having the most violent of seizures possible.  No water.  Look again for a button.  Shit, now I have a hand covered in soap and no water.  I do my best to wipe it all off with a paper towel.  I really should not have wiped toward my fingers.  That just made this awkward situation even more awkward.

Another thing about King’s cross is that there are no garbage receptacles at all.  You have to put your garbage on ledge or throw it on the ground and someone comes along and picks it up for you.  They also don’t recycle there.  Maybe they do, it certainly doesn’t look like they do.

Grandparents picked up from the trian station and I had the most confusing drive I can remember.  The road system here makes absolutely no sense.  Its so simple back in Canada, and if you live outside of BC your roads are straight.  29 hours later I had finally arrived.  Throughout that entire journey I had gotten about 40 minutes of sleep.  I felt like I needed a shower more than a Gulf Islander.