Old Peculiar

Once upon a time, I was in some town in Scotland at a Tesco, or some other chain grocery store staring intently upon the wall of beer. The selection in Scotland and England, as you may imagine, is phenomenal. I mostly picked out my choices because of neat looking labels, hence 'Hobgoblin' was one of the first I tried on my trip. The particular day I must have looked more lost than usual, as an extremely friendly Englishman came out of nowhere to aid me in my decision. This was the beginning of a streak of extremely friendly Englishmen appearing in random places (including Montana). He picked up a bottle of some brew called Old Peculiar. "This is a pretty good one. I'd highly recommend it." He went on to tell me that it's brewed near his home in Yorkshire and that people down there pay £4 a pint for it. The bottle was significantly cheaper than that and it seemed to have a good alcohol percentage and I really didn't know what I was doing there anyway, so I bought it.

That night I stayed at Saucy Mary's, a hostel on the Isle of Skye, which instead of a loung area had a pub. Thinking it would be a little rude to bring my own beer to the pub, I set it under my bed. The next day I completely forgot about it and was on my way without it. I'd thought about it a few times since then, a little disappointed that I didn't get to try this beer that was so good it inspired a total stranger to not only recommend it, but provide background info on it.

Today, I was shopping for other people (I swear!) at a place called Liquid Solutions, which has a lot of fantastic microbrews and imported stuff. Unfortunately, it didn't have the coffee I was looking for and the Strongbow only came in bottles (who drinks cider from a bottle???), so I browsed to avoid the whole trip having been a waste. Lo and behold what do I find but Old Peculiar! It's in a much smaller bottle, but nonetheless, it exists!! So I bought a couple along with some Murphys. So much for Christmas shopping.

So anyway, I'm drinking it now. And it is good. Very good. It's one of those beers that when you sip, you don't have to wait a few seconds to eek a flavor out of it. It's a layer of flavors and they're immediate and strong. Yum.