– Updated: Festival of Britain(s Beers) / March 26th – 8th April 2012
The end of this month sees our first festival of the year! We have taken on board some of your suggestions following our previous blog piece and we are proud to present a selection of Britain’s finest beers.
Update…… 15th March 2012
We thought we would entice you a little more for our forthcoming Festival of Britain(s beers). This festival is a must for a beer lover and it’s really exciting for us too. To have an entire Birtish tap takeover on our bar is something to be really proud of, because so many great beers are being brewed on these shores by amazingly talented people.
Here are four beers we are getting really excited about, these will be on during the festival period:
Summerwine Maelstrom
New permanent Double IPA, 9% in volume this is lining up to be an impressive beer. If Diablo is anything to go by it’s going to be epic.
Kernel Motueka IPA
Keg Kernel does not come around very often, we have had a couple but they have kindly done us some more. Motueka is a dual purpose hop variety from New Zealand and one of our favourites, bred from noble this hop imparts flavours of tropical fruit & spice.
Lovibonds Dirty 69
Were lucky to get this one too, a black version of the 69 IPA. Brewed with a nod to tradition but with modern techniques and hop choice. Hopped with Cascade and Chinook then dry hopped using the Hopinator.
Camden USA Hells
Brewed as a limited release, we have the only keg outside of London. Made with all US hops this unfiltered lager is not to be missed. Star spangled, hopped to hells.
/ UPDATED stock list :
/ CASK
Darkstar
Imp Stout
Black Coffee Pils
6 Hop
Revelation
Juniper Rye
2009 Critical Mass
Thornbridge
Galaxia
Jaipur Dry Hopped (two variants)
Broc
All Magic Rock core range
Gadds Kent IPA
Kernel Export
Red Willow Faithless XI
plus MANY more….
/ KEG
Magic Rock
8 Ball
Dark Arts
Rapture
Cannonball
Human Cannonball
Thornbridge
Raven
Steelmaker
Halycon
Chiron
Saison DuPort
Summerwine
Reaper
Mailstrom
Kernel
IPA Motueka
IPA Amarillo/Citra
Lovibonds
Henley Gold
Henley Dark
69
Dirty 69
Lager Boy
Camden
Helles
USA Hells
Ink
Wheat
Pale
Gadds South Pacific IPA
Darkstar Revelation
Brewdog Libertine Porter
Ilkley MJ Pale
The Festival of Britain(s Beers) launches on Monday 26th March with Darkstar / Meet The Brewer and continues until Sunday 8th April 2012.
Artwork by Steve Hockett.
– Meet The Brewer with Darkstar / Monday 26th March
As part of the Festival of Britain(s Beers) we are proud to present one of the UK’s best brewers around today! Please welcome a special Meet The Brewer all the way from sunny Brighton, Mark Tranter from Dark Star Brewing Company.
Brewery Info /
Dark Star was born in 1994 in the cellar of The Evening Star Pub, in Brighton. Then, with a brew plant only marginally bigger than an enthusiastic home-brew kit, the characteristic style of hoppy beers was developed and tried out on the willing guinea pigs at the bar.
Within a few hard working years it was obvious that the brewery could no longer keep up with the growing thirst of the Evening Star’s drinkers, yet alone the demand for its beers from other local pubs and beer festivals.
In 2001, the brewery relocated to a new purpose-built brewery in Ansty, near Haywards Heath. Then in 2010 the brewery moved to its third and current site in Partridge Green, West Sussex from where it still supplies the Evening Star with a selection of its beers, along with its sister pubs the Stand Up Inn, Lindfield, the Duke of York, Shoreham and it’s brewery tap, The Partridge in Partridge Green.
Meet The Brewer with Darkstar
Monday 26th March / 5.30pm – 8pm (event starts at 6.15pm)
Port Street Beer House, Port Street, Manchester
SOLD OUT
– Photos / Meet The Brewer with Brodies – Monday 27th February
Here are a few blurry pictures from last nights Meet The Brewer. Our most ‘outlandish’ event featured big hair, pies and cabaret.
Thanks to Brodies (for the beer and humour) and The Crusty Cob (for the pies)
– Review – Hitachino Nest Red Rice Ale / By DJ Adams
And now for something completely different. Last week Port Street Beer House took delivery of a small number of cases of beer from the Kiuchi brewery based in Ibaraki-Ken, Japan. Craft beer from the USA? Check. Classic beers from Belgium and elsewhere in mainland Europe? Check. Amazing small-brewery beers from the UK? Double-check. But craft beer from Japan?
Beers from Japan are making an inroad into the UK via importers in Europe, Italy in particular. Port Street Beer House has heralded Hitachino Nest’s arrival in Manchester by being the first establishment to stock it, in particular the Weizen, Espresso Stout, Sweet Stout, Amber Ale and the Red Rice Ale.
If the first word that comes to mind is ‘sake’ when thinking of Japanese breweries, you’re on the right track. Hitachino Nest is the main beer brand from the Kiuchi brewery, but they only started brewing beer in 1996. Over 150 years prior to that, the brewery was established by Kiuchi Gihei to brew sake from the warehouse stocks of rice collected from farmers as land tax on behalf of the dominant Mito Togugawa family in that region. After the end of the Second World War, when demand for sake increased, the Kiuchi brewery, by then under the leadership of Mikio Kiuchi, bucked the trend and remained true to quality and craftsmanship, resisting the temptation to mass-produce.
So, Red Rice Ale. Not as unusual as it sounds, rice is a common starch adjunct used in brewing beer, most famously (infamously?) used in Anheuser Busch’s Budweiser pale ale. Adjuncts are used for a number of reasons, from cost saving measures (rice is cheaper than barley) to introducing taste, body and mouthfeel features. The addition of red rice is additionally interesting as traditionally it is regarded as ‘weedy’, in other words a variety that produces fewer grains per plant than cultivated rice, and is considered a weed or a pest that grows despite, rather than because of, cultivation.
That the red rice starch adjunct is considered a weed becomes completely irrelevant when you consider the immensely positive impact of it’s addition to the brew of this amber ale. With a pinkish pale colour and impressive soapy-white head, a light sweetness is at the heart of Red Rice Ale, with a fruity rice aroma on the nose reminiscent of rose water, and a subtle strawberry-laced experience throughout. I never thought I’d say this as something positive, but a waxy mouthfeel lends a distinctively pleasant note to the drinking experience. None of the 7.0% ABV strength is evident (except when I walk from the bar to a nearby table to write this review), and the beer is a very easy drinking experience.
Hitachino Nest has been established in the USA for a decade or so now, and rightly so. With its distinctive Owl logo, quality top-fermented beers and innovative techniques, it’s only a matter of time until they’re established over here too. Until then, get yourself down to Port Street, and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.
Brewer: Hitachino Nest
Brew: Red Rice Ale
Style: Amber Ale
ABV: 7.0%
Words by DJ Adams http://www.pipetree.com/qmacro/