– Toccalmatto’s ‘One Shot series’
If you think Italian beer is all mainstream tasteless lager we already have the means to prove you wrong, but if there are still any waverers we’ve decided to make it 100% clear that the Italian craft beer scene is shit hot. In order to aid us in really getting this message to hit home the fantastic brewery Birra Toccalmatto, creator of the divine Zona Cesarini, which faithful regulars will already be aware of and revere, is bringing joy to the lives of many with a wonderful year of brilliant beer.
For the next twelve months we will be getting two different Toccalmatto beers a month, one of which will be from the standard range and as Zona fans will tell you this in itself is pretty exciting stuff, the first from this range will be the ‘B Space Invader’ a black IPA made with galaxy hops-needless to say the staff here are all pretty darn excited. As if that wasn’t enough the second beer will be an unknown entity of excellence from Toccalmatto’s One Shot series, these aren’t beers that will be made twice people, these are the beers that bloody brilliant brewers fancy making because they can! Just to clarify: these guys are not afraid to make big flavours, try new stuff or hop the hell out of something.
We assume you will enjoy, no worries, you’re welcome.
– Port Street Beer House Presents: Meet the Brewer at NRB / Tuesday 5th & Wednesday 6th March
Next week we will be hosting a couple of Meet The Brewers events at ‘Northern Restaurant and Bar 2013’, taking place at the prodigious Manchester Central. It’s sort of a trade event for people in the trade! If you don’t know what we are talking about here is a small bit of blurb about NRB :
“Whether you run a restaurant, bar, pub, hotel, deli or cafe Northern Restaurant and Bar is the trade exhibition on your doorstep in the North of England. Come and be informed and inspired by the industry’s star names, and sample the finest produce and premium brands from 200 leading suppliers.” You can claim FREE tickets if you work within this trade (please note this event is not open to the public – sorry)
Coming along for the ride are Summer Wine and Red Willow, each will be hosting two Meet The Brewer events on consecutive days, sampling at least four of their beers, two on keg and two bottles.
Tuesday 5th March
13:00 and 15:15 / Port Street Beer House Presents: Meet the Brewer with Summer Wine
Wednesday 6th March
13:00 and 15:15 / Port Street Beer House Presents: Meet the Brewer with Red Willow
Places are limited to 30 people on each of these events, based upon a first come, first served basis.
Hope to see some of you there.
– Port Street Beer House Second Birthday / by Jamie Hancock
How time flies, eh? Two years ago we were a fledgling purveyor of beer from around the globe, taking our first tentative steps as one of the country’s few specialist craft beer bars, and quite unsure how things were going to work out. Now, we’re garnering praise as one of the kingdom’s finest places of pilgrimage for those seeking a quality beverage and putting on last October’s hugely successful Independent Manchester Beer Convention (IndyManBeerCon) at the beautiful Victoria Baths, which will be back bigger and (hopefully) even better this year! Last November saw the departure (kind of) of manager Will France to oversee the opening of The Beagle, our beer and food haven in Chorlton, with the menu overseen by Laurence Tottingham of the awesome Aumbry restaurant in Prestwich, one of Manchester’s best kept secrets (and it really shouldn’t be a secret. Go there).
Thursday January 24th saw our second anniversary, and we hoped to see it in in style. Back in December, a few of us (Euan, Jamie, Claudia, Anna and Sean) headed over to the Outstanding Brewery in Bury to brew our second birthday beer named, brilliantly, Anniversary 2, following on from the Saison DuPort we brewed with a number of local breweries last year. This year we wanted something darker, so after much discussion, decided on a Sour Cherry and Pink Peppercorn Porter. We wanted to reflect our love of unusual flavours in beers and couple it with one of the UK’s oldest beer styles.
Brewday was fun, as ever, and more importantly, a success. The beer turned out just how we’d hoped, 5.5% abv, with the sourness of the cherries and aromatic spiciness of the pink peppercorns both present, but not overpowering the base notes of malt in the porter.
The 24th saw us packed out with many of our beloved regulars, some of our favourite brewers, including, but not limited to, Outstanding, Dark Star, Quantum, Magic Rock and SummerWine, and a substantial amount of National Winter Ales Festival-goers who’d sought us out thanks in part to our first inclusion in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. Some of these folk seemed a bit perturbed by the tolling of the bell at about 7pm, no doubt fearing their evening of quality boozing was being brought to a premature halt. However it was merely the signal for Jamie to grab his beer crate and do his thing, his thing being to thank everyone for coming and introduce Anniversary 2.
To reiterate the point of the night, we’d like to extend a massive thank you to everyone who turned up, not just for the birthday celebration, but for the last two years, including our aforementioned beloved regulars, those who seek us out on trips to Manchester, our brewing friends and partners and our brethren from The Grove in Huddersfield, North Bar in Leeds, The Sparrow in Bradford, Hanging Bat in Edinburgh and beyond. It’s a huge cliché, of course, but we’d be nothing without the people who visit us from far and wide to drink amazing craft beers from here, there and everywhere. Cheers!
Words by Jamie Hancock
– Up and coming / Hand Drawn Monkey
Hello, to start 2013 we have decided to ‘hand pick’ some of the most newest, freshest breweries around. First up is Hand Drawn Monkey in Huddersfield (is this place the centre of the brewing world?!? Must be something in the water!). Our debut blog piece comes straight from the ‘monkey’s mouth’….
“Hand Drawn Monkey are a progressive craft/cask ale brewing company based in Huddersfield. Started by Rob Allen, Roger Allen and Tom Evans, after some initial collaborations and cuckoo brews we began brewing on our own plant in October 2012. Winning three awards (including overall beer of the festival for our wheat I.P.A : CCI.P.A) at our launch event the Huddersfield CAMRA Oktoberfest festival were off to a great start! We are ambitious and creative (sometimes we brew stuff too weird to release). We don’t know any other way of being. We stretch imagination, push forward but reference tradition. We want to be complete brewers but never the finished article.
Rob and Tom have tolerated each other’s company for a few years, love beer and have brewing experience. Rob used to be the Manager and brewer at the Rat and Ratchet in Huddersfield and on-site Rat brewery. Tom has Brewed at Ossett, Blue Monkey and was head brewer at Celt Experience in welsh Wales. In mid 2012 both had moved on or were contemplating moving on to other projects. Rob had been hankering after brewing full time in his own brewery for some time and when the opportunity arose to purchase an already up and running plant from those lovely Brewsters at Mallinsons as they re-located to larger premises he contacted Tom. Tom was interested and over a few too many beers a simple plan was formed. HDM would brew the type of beers they liked to drink or beers they would like to drink but no-one had brewed yet. Rob sold his house, Tom moved up from Nottingham, the brewery was purchased and brewing began. Roger is Rob’s Dad and is a keen craft beer and real ale fan and enthusiastic taster of HDM beers. He also tries to talk the boys out of some of their stranger brewing ideas. He usually fails.
We hope you like our beer. We will be making more of it.”