Ten Days In Aberdeen

Folks at work have referred to my travels as a tour of Dying British Seaside Towns, and they maybe have a point. Bournemouth clearly has had better days, and Blackpool is less ‘faded glory’ and more ‘decaying remnants’, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that Aberdeen isn’t the crumbling industrial wasteland it was described as.

It’s rather nice. It’s like Edinburgh if those awful tourist shops selling plastic tartan crap had never existed, so instead you have the sort of shops & cafes that people in a city centre are more likely to use, and you need to pay a little bit of attention to find anywhere that’ll sell you some postcards.

I’m told that I got the small season of good weather, and that it’s miserable there the rest of it. Given that the person in question got snowed on in Aberdeen in May, it may be that they’re biased. Or in possession of accurate information.

In the interests of full disclosure, I picked Aberdeen by putting the available dates into hotel apps, and it popped up as being a cheap rate at a decent hotel brand I knew (ibis) with good reviews. The fact that I could take the sleeper back in super-swanky class just sealed the deal.

Worked the first couple of days from the hotel, with a view of the harbour, then alternated between two Brewdog locations. ( Well, still the hotel in the morning, as they didn’t open until 11am ) There was a third location which didn’t show up on the Deskdog list, which turns out to be because they have very limited opening hours during the standard working day.

Aberdeen, is their first bar. It’s small & cosy, maybe the same patron floor area as The Rookwood
Castlegate is more of your classic pub layout, wraps around a corner of the building
Union Square is the oddest of the three. It’s in a mall, and it’s big, and has what would be a terrace section open to the outside if it wasn’t in a mall.

For working, Union Square was probably the best; lots of customer churn, and enough space that nobody cares that you’re taking up a booth.
Castlegate had an amazing variety of patrons over the day, which was fun.
Aberdeen has the most ‘local’ feel. It’s compact enough that you’re going to know what the other tables are doing, even if you don’t care.

from a message to friends about Brewdog in Aberdeen

A lot of street art, or just things which amused or interested me;