– Old And Dark Week
23rd November – 30th November 2015
These days it’s dark outside when you get out of bed. You potter about your flat wondering if it’s too late to have your first cup of coffee. Unsure of the time because your phone’s out of battery & the clock fell off the wall & has been stopped at 8.32 ever since. You haven’t bothered to get a new one yet but you like that clock in that space on the kitchen wall so you’ve just put it back up & now it hangs there useless & lifeless & silent. Much like you now staring at the stove still wondering if you should make a coffee. It could be the middle of the night. It could be 5pm. It could be 5am. It’s dark outside. That’s all you know. You charge your phone just enough to find out the time. It’s the evening. Maybe a bit late for a coffee. Maybe time for a beer. It’s getting colder. Maybe it’s time to dust off one of those imperial stouts you’ve been ageing. You’ve been looking forward to trying that one you brought back with you from a trip to America last year. You wanted to keep it a bit longer. Share it with some friends on a special occasion. It’d be a shame to open it now. You reconsider. If only there was somewhere you could go to get a decent stout & then you could save this bottle. You stop just before you open it. You remember a night in Port Street Beer House. You’re sure you were there around this time last year drinking some imperial stout with bacon in it or something. You remember really enjoying it. You remember there was a whole week dedicated to your favourite style of beer. Your phone now has enough battery. You start browsing the internet trying to find out if it’s happening again this year. You’re in luck. It is.
OLD AND DARK WEEK
A week long celebration of old and dark beers featuring highlights in the shape of…
Against The Grain 70K
Lervig Barley Wine
Moor Fusion
Siren Chocolate Caribbean Cake
Westbrook Mexican Cake
and many many more
P.S. There will also be young and light beers available.
– Christmas Hampers
Available now at the bar
You’re surrounded by loved ones & some other people you haven’t seen for a year. There’s a tree in the house. None of you have been sober for weeks. You’re all wearing torn paper hats & telling awful jokes. Later you’ll eat the worst cake you’ve ever eaten & you’ll have to wash it down with a beer that for some reason has loads of cloves in it. This doesn’t have to be the case. You could pick up a hamper from Port Street Beer House & actually enjoy something on the 25th of December.
THE PORT STREET CHRISTMAS SELECTION BOX £32.50
1. Leipzig Bayerischer Bahnhof – Gose
Because whoever cooks dinner is going to under season it!
2. Siren/Cigar City – Caribbean Chocolate Cake
Why would you want to eat a fruit cake in the first place? Let alone one with marzipan? Have a Caribbean Chocolate Cake as dessert instead.
3. Buxton – Red Raspberry Rye
You’ve never made jam before. That’s why you made a mess of it! Why do you think people want your awful home made jam anyway? Give them a Red Raspberry Rye instead. It’s far better than anything you’re going to make.
4. Evil Twin – Freudian Slip
You’ll probably be needing something a little more boozy later on to help you through that 4 hour game of Monopoly.
5. Northern Monk/Nomada – Frate Nero
I always find dark beer goes great with beef. You’re having turkey? Why would you have turkey? It’s just a bigger, uglier, horribly dry chicken!
6. Firestone Walker – Union Jack
Give the gift of hops this Christmas. To yourself. Go on. You earned it. You’re definitely more deserving than those ungrateful friends & family members who are all asking if you kept the receipts.
CANS £25.00
Cans are perfect stocking fillers. They’re also perfect for the long train journey back to the middle of nowhere that you grew up. You can even spread the Christmas cheer by sharing them with your fellow travellers. Or just keep the cans to yourself to make putting up with being crammed into a busy train, surrounded by people shouting at each other on phones, eating noisily & listening to music through headphones at a volume that must be causing them some serious ear trouble just that little bit more bearable.
No I don’t want a mince pie from you, thanks.
Oh, you’re just going to leave your bags on the seat while I stand for 2 hours?
It’s great that you find my shoulder so comfortable but could you please sleep somewhere else? Somewhere far, far away from here.
1. Vocation – Heart & Soul
2. Roosters – Yankee
3. Evil Twin – Molotov Lite
4. Firestone Walker – Easy Jack
5. Sierra Nevada – Nooner
6. Northern Monk – Northern Star
USA £35.20
Oh America, you gave us so many terrible things. You’re responsible for Black Friday, the Kardashians & Comic Sans. It’s a good job you produce some amazing beer, otherwise I could never forgive you. The one thing I will never forgive you for however, is saying “I could care less”. Why do you keep saying you could care less when you have no interest in something? What you’re actually saying when you say you could care less is that you do care. You have to care a little bit to be able to care less. I could care less about these beers.
1. Stillwater – As Follows
2. Two Roads – Workers Comp Saison
3. Against The Grain – MacFannybaw
4. Founders – Centennial IPA
5. North Coast – Old Rasputin
6. Sierra Nevada – Hop Hunter IPA
UK £31.80
& what were we doing in the UK while America was coming up with Comic Sans? Not a lot. We were all too busy playing cricket to notice one of us had come up with the pay toilet. Yes, we’re to blame for there being toilets in train stations that earn more money than most people. Bravo UK. Well done. We’re also responsible for you having to pretend you care about one another at Christmas by exchanging bits of card with people you’ve only spoken to in the last year to complain about their cat doing its business on your lawn.
1. Northern Monk – New World IPA
2. Siren – BA Forgotten Journey
3. Magic Rock – Salty Kiss
4. Partizan – Porter
5. Buxton – Ace Edge
6. Mad Hatter – Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte
GLUTEN FREE £28.00
There are some people who can’t drink beer. Seriously. I hope you folks find some comfort in the fact that there’s some people out there making some amazing beer that you can drink!
1. Mikkeller – Peter, Pale & Mary
2. Mikkeller – I Wish IPA
3. First Chop – DOC
4. First Chop – HOP
5. Green’s – Premium Pils
6. Green’s – Dark Ale
The only Christmas spirit you need is whisky.
Thank you.
Merry Tuesday 24th November!
PS. As a special gift to you all this Christmas we’ll be throwing in an extra bottle to every hamper. I suggest you drink these yourself rather than giving them to the people you bought the hamper for. You already bought them six beers. They should be grateful enough for that. I’d be pretty happy if someone bought me six beers. Well, maybe not happy, but you know, drunk?
Words by James Moffat
– Wylam Double Jakehead IPA launch
DOUBLE JAKEHEAD IPA LAUNCH // Friday 13th November // Port Street Beer House // 7pm // free entry
You know a beer is going to be good when it has its own promotional video. Well, that’s maybe not necessarily the case (got the gondola-based Boddingtons advert in mind now) but IT IS this time. Wylam brewery, of Northumberland, are bringing to Port Street the amped up version of their much-loved Jakehead IPA: Double Jakehead imperial IPA. Clocking in at a heavyweight 12% ABV, the promotional material from Wylam instructs the drinker to absorb by 1/3 pint measure and to follow up with equivalent tablespoons of water. You’ll be able to compare and contrast as we’ll be serving Double Jakehead on keg AND cask.
We are the exclusive Manchester bearers of this great gift from Wylam. Come down to the launch on Friday 13th and spook out!
– Cloudwater Double IPA Day
CLOUDWATER DOUBLE IPA DAY // Saturday 7th November // Port Street Beer House // 7pm // free entry
What’s twice as good as an IPA? A double IPA! That’s how it works, right? Not sure but I can tell you this for certain: we are emphatically looking forward to tasting Cloudwater‘s new special edition, super fresh 9% DIPA. As well as pouring their eagerly anticipated double IPA on keg, we will also be pouring their similarly anticipated new IPA on cask. Now that’s what I call a double IPA day!
Join us Saturday 7th November from 7pm to taste both of these new Cloudwater offerings. Here’s some words direct from the brewery to get you juiced,
“The 7th of November marks the first year anniversary of residency in our warehouse in Manchester, and what an eventful year it’s been since we got the keys. Still three months from our first birthday, we’re up to gyle 101, and have made our way through nearly three seasonal ranges.
Back in early September, following a tasting of some excellent, fresher than ever before IPAs and DIPAs brought back from the States, we plotted to brew two hoppy beers that were more balanced, more flavourful, more hoppy, and that would hit our targets more squarely than anything we’ve brewed so far.
DIPA 9%
1500kg of malt, 70kg of the biggest, juiciest aroma hops.
Even a 2oC, with less than 1/3 of the carbonation we’ll package it with, this beer smells and tastes fantastic.
IPA 7.2%
1500kg of malt, 70kg of the biggest, juiciest aroma hops.
This beer is destined to be a very hoppy cask beer that will have cask aficionados and craft beer geeks alike quaffing half after half of what we’re sure will be one of the most impressive cask releases from us yet.
Originally destined for release as part of our Winter range in early December, we’ve decided to release both beers a month early, to celebrate beer at its freshest on our anniversary with the hoppiest beer we’ve made to date, brought to you as early as we possibly can. Both beers are being packaged this week (Wednesday and Thursday respectively), will be cold stored over weekend, before being dispatched early next week to arrive with you as fresh as they can be.
We’re incredibly proud of these beers, but they’re just the start of our next phase, an effort to make some of the best hoppy beer in the UK, and the beginning of a series of one off Drink Fresh, Hibernate, and Small Batch beers you’ll see from us in the coming years.”
Colour us excited.
