My local brewpub, The Black Cloister, had a couple of bagpipers entertain patrons last Tuesday evening. These weren’t your run-of-the-mill bagpipers (if indeed there is such a thing). Andrew Bova and Dan Nevins are World Champion bagpipers – both members of the Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipeband who were crowned the Grade 1 World Champions at the 2015 World Pipeband Championships.
Andrew is from Perrysburg, OH (a suburb of Toledo). He started playing the bagpipes at the age of twelve. Among other distinctions he is, to date, one of only four pipers to hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Bagpipe Performance from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2013 he received a Master of Music Degree in Bagpipe Performance from Carnegie Mellon making him the first person to receive such a degree from a North American Institution. Andrew currently lives in Glasgow, Scotland and is pursuing a doctoral degree from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Unlike Andrew, Dan is a native Scot who has being playing the pipes since age seven, being taught by his father. Dan works as a piping tutor at Lathallan a private school which is located in the beautiful Brotherton Castle near Aberdeen, Scotland.
To accompany the evening’s entertainment the Black Cloister had Snow and Tell Scotch Ale from Boulevard Brewery in Kansas City, MO on draft. With an ABV of 6.3% this is a fine example of the style. There are in fact a number of breweries that reference bagpipes and bagpipers in the names of their Scotch Ales. Cosmic Ales of Torrance, CA brew a Scotch Ale called Bagpipe Ale (9.2% ABV) Amherst Brewing Company of Amherst, MA brew one called Half in the Bagpipe (7.2% ABV), while Fegley’s Breworks of Bethlehem, PA brew Bagpipers Scotch Ale (8.5%).To celebrate their first anniversary last year BentSpoke Brewing Company of Braddon, Australia brewed a Scotch Ale called Blow Your Bagpipe (8.9% ABV).
As I watched Andrew and Dan I was reminded of the Unipiper. The Unipiper, aka Brian Kidd, who lives in Portland, OR plays the bagpipes while riding a unicycle and wearing a Darth Vader mask. In addition to having a day job as an aerial mapper Mr. Kidd is a lover of beer and has dabbled in home brewing. Not surprisingly he has established quite a reputation for himself in and around Portland and in 2015 he teamed up with Oregon’s Rogue Ales to brew an IPA, which was aptly named UnipIPA. The recipe for the brew included bagpipe-roasted habanero peppers. Yes, the Unipiper’s bagpipes discharge flames when played.
Overall, it was a great evening. Andrew and Dan each did some solo piping and then teamed up to to raise the volume. There were no unicycles or flames coming out of their bagpipes – just two world champion bagpipers entertaining an appreciative crowd. Normally, Tuesday evenings are fairly quiet at the Black Cloister, but not this one – the place was packed to the gills.