Excerpts from issue 53/24 5 September 2026
Oktoberfèis
Islay Ales will host the first Islay Beer festival on 3 October, to hopefully brighten a dark October weekend and invites you come along to their Oktoberfèis; Oktoberfest, Islay style! Tickets, priced at £10 each, plus a 50p booking fee will afford all day access to the festival, a half-pint tasting glass and a token for the first half-pint of Islay Ales core range.
According to Brand Manager, Alice Jackson, "We've invited five other breweries from all over Scotland to bring together some of our favourite beers and some of our favourite brewers."
Joining Islay Ales will be; Wild Barn (Oban), Gigha Brewing (Gigha), Loch Lomond Brewery (Loch Lomond), Williams Bros Brewing (Alloa) and Swannay Brewery (Orkney). Each will be offering a selection of their own beers to purchase in half-pints.
Nourishment will be available from Orsay Sea Food and the Grub Hub, providing a range of snacks and hot meals throughout the day.
Entertainment will be provided by Oban-based trad band 'Ceol an Aire', playing celidh tunes and Scottish folk classics throughout the day. Local legends 'North of the Bridge' will play their own classic selection, and apparently Calum has also promised to try his hand at a bit of Oompah.
To get in that proper Oktoberfèis spirit, fancy dress is encouraged and there may even be a prize for the best dressed!
Islay Ales is a mere 100 metres from the airport bus stop so you won't even need to bring the car! However there is carparking available onsite.
Tickets can be booked through the Islay Ales website.
www.islayales.com/s/stories/oktober
Photo: Ben Shakespeare Photography
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Tom's chequered flag
Tom O'Farrell, owner of Islay Sims, was given a "very last-minute opportunity" to race in the Classic Mini Racing Championship at the Brands Hatch Mini Festival, to which he ended up travelling from Islay to Kent to take part.
"The journey itself," said Tom, "was fairly ridiculous, starting with me getting stuck on the MV Isle of Islay while engineers worked on the ramp so we could get off. That was slightly panic-inducing when I already had such a long journey ahead." It took him nearly 17 hours to get there, and around 13 hours to get home, for about 55 minutes of actual racing.
"The weekend went far better than I expected. I qualified 7th overall out of 17, finished 4th and 5th in the two races, was the highest-placed guest driver in both, and set the fastest lap of the field in each race."
Tom has been running his simulator business on Islay for a few years and is currently working towards moving into permanent premises in Bowmore later this year. "Sim racing has also played quite a big part in my own route into 'real' motorsport, particularly residing where getting to an actual circuit is anything but straightforward."
Tom said that it felt quite fitting to go from operating racing simulators on Islay to suddenly competing at Brands Hatch.
"I'm also now looking at options to race in the Classic Mini series for a full season in 2027."
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In this week's issue:
Islay Book Festival report and pictures, Fly-tipping at Cairnmore, Bowmore Primary's Gaelic recognition, Primary one pupils 2026, Run the Runway, Port Ellen Pier works, Kilmeny Sports Day, T-in-the-Church, Islay Cancer Support, Islay Show's new stage. Scottish Opera coming to Bowmore, Bridgend Bowls, Islay Ales Oktoberfestèis, Missing road lines, Tom's chequered flag, Gaelic concert, Dance the Runway for St. Andrew's Day, Music Review - Tommy Smith Quartet, Music Review - Simon Thoumire, Islay Jazz Festival.
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Music review
Four. Tommy Smith Quartet
Scots Saxophonist, Tommy Smith's previous recording, released in 2025, took the form of a series of duets with pianist Gwilym Simcock. This particular release, however, predates that by just over a quarter of a century. Recorded at Gateshead Arts Centre in 1999, when the artist formerly known as 'Prince' was in party mode, it features Smith on tenor sax, Orlando Le Fleming on acoustic bass, pianist Steve Hamilton who had joined Bill Bruford's Earthworks only a year previously and drummer, Sebastiaan de Krom (the only member also part of Smith's quartet in 2017/18).
That very same year, Smith performed an enforced solo concert in Islay House at the very first Islay Jazz Festival.
It's a recording that, deliberately or otherwise, asks as many questions as it answers, predominantly with reference to the means by which it was recorded. During the last incarnation of the Tommy Smith Quartet, Smith insisted on performing without any amplification, an 'innovation' that seems to have commenced during 1999. His agent told me of the quizzical response from Ronnie Scott's Club in London when outlining that the performance would, uncommonly, eschew amplification entirely.
But other than the completely acoustic performance - "just the natural acoustic sound of four musicians interacting in the room" - the recording was made directly to a mini-disc recorder via a single microphone situated in front of the band. If recording quality of this level was thus achievable last century, it seriously brings into question the apparent need for considerably more sophisticated recording technology nowadays, without, arguably, notable improvement.
(Should there be accusations that such methodology be only appropriate for a small jazz quartet, the album 'Birdland' by the fifteen piece Buddy Rich Big Band was recorded in the late 1970s on two microphones into a Sony tape deck).
The album begins with the title-track, Four, originally penned by trumpeter Miles Davis and released in 1954, subsequently becoming a jazz standard. This particular version is quite superb; spontaneously rendered and showcasing sharp interplay between saxophone and drums. The album ends five tunes later with a song also recorded by Miles, 'Someday My Prince Will Come', drawn from the 1937 Disney animation of Snow White.
The 1930s might possibly be an era with which Smith finds favour, having included the Rodgers and Hart 1937 classic 'That’s Why The Lady Is A Tramp'. All four musicians are impeccable performers throughout, with Hamilton's performance at the piano clearly illustrating why he was recruited by Bruford (Co-incidentally, the pianist in the final version of Bruford's Earthworks was Gwilym Simcock). The entire album is steadfastly underpinned by Le Fleming's acoustic bass, clearly audible despite the 'rudimentary' recording method.
Brilliant throughout.
bp
'Four', by the Tommy Smith Quartet is available on Bandcamp.
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This is Islay
2026 Podcast of the Year featuring individuals, personalities and features of Islay and Jura. Listen now at https://anchor.fm/thisisislay
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