– Perfect winter warmers
We have couple of special super-limited beers on the bar today.
Firstly, available for a very limited period is Thornbridge Bracia aged for 3 years in Pedro Ximinez casks. Thornbridge’s multi award winning, much lauded beer, the brainchild of their recently departed head brewer Steffano Cossi. The strong, dark, old ale/stout is a triumph in it’s bottle conditioned form, but we have one of a few casks of a barrel aged version, the choice of barrel was the famous Pedro Ximinez sherry casks. The PX sherry is famed for it’s deep almost treacle sweetness, with lots of dark and stewed fruit flavours along with deep oak flavours from the wood combine with the ale to give a complex and very refined finish to the beer. Definitely one to try while it’s here, just sip at a third and enjoy.
Also while we’re on the subject of big beers, we have one firkin of Moor Beer‘s ‘Sloe Walker’, another prize winning beer given a twist, a seasonal version of Old Freddy Walker, with sloes surprisingly enough. After a days foraging, a whole bunch of sloes are cleaned, frozen and pricked then weighed out and distributed among 10 casks, the beer is then racked over the top and left to mature for several months. The result gives a subtle acidity counterbalancing the bold flavours of the beer, it’s recommended you leave it to warm up a little to allow the flavours to really come out.
Words by Jonathan Heyes
– Saison Liaison – Part 2 / By William France
Last Thursday we had the pleasure of launching our collaborative birthday beer, “Anniversary: Saison DuPort”, a traditional farmhouse ale, dangerously drinkable at 6%. Collaborating with some of the countries most progressive brewers the temptation is to go for hops, hops and more hops, we decided to go for traditional and subtle instead, staying pretty true to style and letting the yeast do the talking.
So what’s in store for the Saison now? …..It will surface at Port Street a few times before the year is out, on keg & cask, please keep an eye out for it.
Also, the word on the street is that it’s going to be in some of the UK’s finest purveyors of the malt based beverage that is beer.The Sparrow in Bradford, Cask Pub & Kitchen in London, Mr Foley’s in Leeds, The Evening Star in Brighton and the Free Trade Inn in Newcastle have all said they would take our creation. These amazing places share our love of beer and we are so proud to have it winging it’s way to them.
The beer is also being bottled and aged, allowing the yeast to carry on doing it’s thing, we’ll maybe crack some of these on our next anniversary.
Big thanks go first of all to the brewers Summer Wine Brewery, Red Willow, Quantum, Magic Rock and Darkstar.
Not only but also, our pumpclip design and production by Alex Humphreys (Illustration), Kunstkammer (Graphic Design), Savwo (Print and ink dribbling).
Word by William France
– Meet The Brewer with Brodie’s Brewery / Monday 27th February
Our second Meet The Brewer of 2012 welcomes our first London guests, Brodies. This will coincide with the launch of our small festival ‘London Week’ running from Tuesday 28th February until Sunday 4th March
// Brewery info
In June 2008 Jamie and Lizzie Brodie took over an abandoned brewery in East London. After six weeks hard work cleaning, replacing missing equipment and fixing up what was left, Brodie’s beers was born.
Brodies IPA was first brewed on the 8th August. Based on a recipe that Jamie used to brew in his bath at home it proved to be a hit with punters. Two years and thirty nine different beers later Brodie’s is still going strong. We even have our own small (very small) bottling machine incase you want to take some of our beer home with you!
Port Street Beer School presents …. Meet The Brewer with Brodies
SOLD OUT
Monday 27th February 2012 / 5.30pm – 8pm (event starts at 6.15pm prompt)
Port Street Beer House, Port Street, Manchester, M1 2EQ
– Project Venus – Launch Venus Gold / Wednesday 1st February 2012
The initial idea for Project Venus was conceived by Sara Barton from Brewster’s Brewery in Grantham. Having come across an article on The Pink Boots Society, a US group promoting women in brewing, Sara decided they needed something similar in the UK.
Taking the bull by the horns Sara decided to start a group called Project Venus and made a call to arms to all female brewers (brewsters) to collaborate on a brew, to show off female brewing at its best! The task of getting everyone together at the same time and place was a tricky one and the brewsters decided on a series of brews using roughly the same recipe but with ‘local variations’. These are put together with input from all the brewsters (communicating via Facebook!) The inaugural brew was on 12th March 2011 at Sara’s brewery, Venus Jade and was followed by Venus Rouge and Venus Black.
Saturday 14th January saw the brewsters meet at Prospect and a 4th brew is under way, entitled ‘Venus Gold’. It will be a well hopped golden beer at 3.8% using hops with golden or astral connections. The beer will be launched exclusively at Port Street Beer House on Wednesday 1st February at 7pm.