By: MJ + PJ
Serendipity is sometimes a royal flush. MJ had picked up a free community copy of The Skinny a few days prior, while waiting for AJ to finish browsing some random game shop on Rose St in New Town. That edition, out of character it seems, did some reviews of bars and pubs in Scotland. Salt Horse was featured due to their range of beers, and was hence starred in our Google map as somewhere to visit.
Almost forgotten about a few days later, but duly visited since the fireplace bar we headed to didn’t allow kids inside, we strolled down Blackfriars St thinking we’d have a look and a pint and head home. Two hours later and with much to say about the experience, we left.
As you’ve already guessed, this is a bit of an outlier post under this topic on our website. This is not a region nor country review, but a very focal piece. And deservedly so: This was going to be a quiet drink but it turned into an almost GABF experience. That is a big deal.
The storeman, an also spectacled doopleganger of the guy on ‘Mythbusters’, gave us the explanation of how the place worked. We took a seat and looked over the menu (1 page), then looked at the beer menu (6 pages!), and came to a grinding halt. What had we stumbled upon? Clearly, we needed a strategy, as a separate smaller page additionally listed the tap offerings in 1/3 or 2/3 pint servings. Like deer in headlights we turned our server away twice while trying to make up our minds as to where to start. Eventually we created two triple flights of thirds… which is way too much math to explain here.
So why should a beer fan put this location on his or her list of places to visit in Edinburgh? This is not a traditional Scottish bar or pub. It is not a cosy fireplace hangout with stories of yesteryear plastered on the walls. It is a simple and comfortable place to admire and explore beer. We counted 40+ Scottish beers on their list. This is the kind of thing you dream of when wanting to get a taste of how beer is crafted in a region. We counted just as many Swedish beers and asked the storeman the obvious question (and got an interesting answer). We found a literal library of UK beers listed as such, independent of the Scottish beers… as you would expect in Scotland! At this point there seems little else to explain!
However, it didn’t stop there. Once we finished our simple meal, 1/3 flights, and dessert beer, we headed to the shop section and started asking questions. We did not get his name, but our Mythbusters doppelgänger storeman had all the answers. You know a pro when you see it, and this man fit that title. We walked out of there with no less than eight samples of beer. We also asked how this all worked: How do you get such diversity, how do you obtain this collection? The place is owned and supplied by a beer distributor, and this is one of several locations that gets ‘first dibs’ on anything that comes into the warehouse. This opens the doors to holding an unusual array of beer samples.
Our eye was caught by a Crooked Stave listing. This was a place MJ had visited on a quietly infamous bike brewery tour of Denver with a friend that took place in 2017. It was hazy as a last stop can be, but there was a recollection of a marionette berry beer at that location. Regardless of dubious history and any events that followed, we asked if Salt Horse took leads of beers that would seem to fit their profile. You’d expect a ‘yes’, and that’s what we got. We scribbled them down (High Hops’ ‘Bad Mama Java’, and Loveland Aleworks’ ‘Imperial Stout’ Coconut Porter’ and ‘Rasberry Sour’) and told him to try them out. (Give us some slack – it was a post-it note sized piece of paper which was waaaay too small for Colorado beer recommendations.) He put them in his phone faster than we could produce one of our trip business cards. Cheers to that!
We departed feeling like we had merely scratched the surface, yet we were only in town for a few more days. Optimistically, our able storeman said “See you soon!”. He may well be right.
