Good bye Easter !!

So Easter is well and truly over. Everyone is back to school or work and all the chocolate is gone. Fort William saw a very busy time in Fort William with a great spell of good weather, even some Ben Nevis sunburn victims were recorded. Easter also saw a record number of pints and pies sold at our "Pint and a Pie" Festival. The pies proved so popular we found ourselves having to place emergency pastry orders.
Down to business tho, and the big question is "who is the winner of the best ale of the festival?". As always we allow customers to vote for the beer they enjoy the most over the two weeks. As always the results were surprising especially when the quality and range of ales were the best we've seen here at the Grog. The winner was Kelpie Seaweed ale made by those clever Williams Brothers, with Ben Nevis 80/- coming in a close second. Great to see customers at the Grog are brave enough to try a taste of Seaweed ale. But the end of the beer festival ain't the end of the world and we will be show casing another 9 local cask ales this weekend to wash away your thirst. So pop in and see what we've got to tempt you with.

Chinese Whispers on the web

Right then, what's this a picture of? If you guessed "Mario is fixing the roof of a house", then you'd be spot on. Chances are you'd also either have cheated, or be clearly quite mad. What am I on about?
Visit Broken Picture Telephone and all will be revealed. The name itself means nothing to me. But if you called it Chinese Whispers, then I'd have a better idea as to what this was. Maybe its a regional thing, or perhaps an age thing? Or maybe Chinese Whispers is just plain racist and morally offensive in the 21st century.

So, basically, someone comes up with a written description and someone else then draws a picture of it. The next person then writes what he sees in the picture. And on it goes, with (as they say on TV) hilarious consequences. Here's a couple of games to have a look at. Try the rest of the Mario one, or perhaps the pen is mightier than the sword.

So, when next bored silly in The Grog & Gruel, simply fire up your lap top, make use of our free wireless internet connection and have yourself a quick game of Broken Picture Telephone.

Oh my god! It's Acousticrat.

One of the better advertising posters for live music at The Grog & Gruel.


See them play live at The Grog & Gruel on Wednesday 27th May, or take a peak at their MySpace page.

For more details of live music at Fort William's favourite pub, keep an eye on our Diary Page.

Say aye tae a pork pie

So, the Easter Beer Festival has been and gone, and with it all those wonderful pies you've been enjoying over the last fortnight. More on the festival to follow soon, but for those of you who've had pie withdrawal symptoms, here's the ideal solution.

Pies by post!

The Rowan Cottage Kitchen is a small business based way out west at Newton of Ardtoe (that's just beyond Acharacle and the beach nearby is reason enough to go and visit). They came across to Clachaig last night to meet some of the local B&B businesses at the informal 'gathering' of the trade. Great to meet such enthusiasm for doing business.

They say that pies inspired them to start their little business, and pie fans everywhere can certainly appreciate why. And fear not, for you don't need to wait for a sunny day and a trip to the beach to go and buy one of their pies. No, they'll post one to you.

Thing is, I can't work out how much Piccalilli I need to go with a 2 kilogram Pork Pie!

Visit the Rowan Cottage Kitchen web site.

Cask Marque Accreditation

Our Easter Ale & Pie festival is well under way and we have already got through a fair number of casks and munched through a large number of pies. With 9 local beers for customers to taste it was a great time for us to be visited by our cask marque inspector. For those of you who are not in the trade Cask Marque is an independent check of the temperature, appearance, aroma and taste of the cask ale being served. As always the Grog & Gruel got top marks for all the ale being served at the time of the random, twice yearly inspection. This is no surprise as we are consistently checking the ales for consistent high quality in-house. Why not pop in for a pint and put us to the test yourself??