– Meet The Brewer with Mad Hatter / Monday 29th July 2013
5.30pm – 8pm (event starts at 6.15pm prompt)
SOLD OUT
Mad Hatter is the brand new and rather exciting brewery of Gareth Matthews a veteran home brewer of 20 years who finally saw the light and fled academia to start a microbrewery in Liverpool. His brand new and rather dinky brewery on average produces approximately 7 casks a week. Be assured that what his beers lack in quantity they make up for in quality with his favoured styles being those of the massively hopped persuasion or big stouts and porters. Port Street has had the excellent fortune of being the first to have his beer on draught this week we have his IPA (on at the moment and going very fast!), Mild, ESB and Rye Amber and look forwards to getting his beers on keg and in bottles too soon.
Gareth produces and plans to produce a wide range of beers with a number brewed with some exciting ingredients. Some that we at Port Street are looking forwards to are his ‘Imperial Porter’-the staff have already tried this and it’s a doozy, ‘Rhubarb and Rosehip Wit’-a refreshing and rather tart wit, ‘Gooseberry Fool’-a sour gooseberry beer, and ‘Minimal Difference’-black IPA with Cascade, Centennial and Columbus. But there are many more and Gareth has big plans regarding the sour side of life-fabulous stuff! In his own words “In terms of beer, I am glad to be around in a time when many brewers are making inroads into the world of experimental, thoughtful, truly artisanal techniques that refuse to conform to rigid style guidelines.” This is an apt description of both Gareth’s outlook and the kind of beers we can look forwards to getting from him.
For more information, head over here – www.madhatbrew.co.uk / @MadHatBrew
Artwork by Emily Warren – www.thestealthyrabbit.blogspot.co.uk
– Photos / An Audience with the ‘American Ambassador’ – Mr Andreas Fält – Monday 24th June
A great start to our American Beer Festival, Andreas Fält hosted an evening of tasting beers which included Rogue – Good Chit Pilsner, Ska – Modus Hoperandi, Sierra Nevada – Belgian Blonde IPA, Southern Tier – Iniquity and Flying Dog – Imperial Green Tea Stout.
Thanks to everyone who came down and enjoyed the beers and our very tasty chilli dogs!
You can sample all of the above beers and plenty more until Sunday 7th July 2013.
– American Beer Festival 2013 / Even more highlights
Less than a week until the launch of our fabulous American beer festival and it seems about time to give a bit more of a tantalising peek at some of our selection, watch out for further up dates…
Southern Tier – 2x Stout – 7.5% / Lakewood, New York
A double milk stout, which as everyone knows is twice as good as your standard-roasty, chocolatey and pretty darn smooth.
Maui – Lahaina Town Brown – 5.3% / Maui, Hawaii
A light, crisp and very drinkable brown ale with the malt balanced nicely by some scrummy cascade.
Flying Dog – Imperial IPA – Citra Single Hop – 10% / Frederick, Maryland
A classic American style IPA with a healthy dose of bitterness from a sizeable chunk of citra, be warned it is slightly deceptive!
Sierra Nevada – Torpedo Extra IPA – 7.2% / Chico, California
One of Sierra Nevada’s best and brightest has made an outing over here in cask. Yum.
Against the Grain – 70K – 13.1% / Louisville, Kentucky
Bourbon barrel aged imperial stout-extremely roasty, chocolatey, creamy, so basically another fabulous treat from the ATG guys.
SKA – Special ESB Ale – 5.7% / Durango, Colorado
An excellent combination of tasty and quaffable for those who want to get into the beery zone at a sedate pace.
– Kent and Beyond – Caveman, By The Horns and Foundry / by Euan Summers
Kent? What do you think of when you think of Kent? Clark Kent? That’s what I think of, only because I have no frame of reference for anything in the real world. But if you love beer you might think of the WORLD FAMOUS hop variety East Kent Golding.
This week you might also think of something else. Over the course of the next week or so we are going to be having a large amount of beers that are all from the Kent region! The good folks over at Caveman Brewery have organised a mixed bag of local beverages that, on paper sound good and in a glass taste fantastic (Don’t try to drink out of paper, it’s difficult to not make a mess and the beer loses a lot of aroma).
Beers from Caveman themselves including Palaeolithic and their Prehistoric Amber. Based out of the George and Dragon in Swanscombe, Caveman Brewery is brand new on the scene, starting earlier this year with a few cavemen employed for heavy lifting and regular men for handling hops and sterilizing where the cavemen leave their musty trace, we hope and expect big things for these guys!
Foundry, or Canterbury Brewers, have sent along some interesting stuff including a Belgian IPA in cask called Galactic. Based out of a Pub in Canterbury, Foundry are fantastic at simple stuff made well and complex stuff made amazing.
Kent Brewery, whom you might have seen around the north before have sent a few treats including a cask black IPA named Enigma and Beyond the Pale, an EXTREME PALE ALE!
And lastly, By The Horns Brewery. Not quite from Kent, but down south is all the same in my brain (my sweet ignorant brain) By the Horns are from London and proud of it. Beers such as Diamond Geezer, a double red ale, and Lambeth Walk, A Dark Porter.
So much good stuff, are you excited? I’m pretty excited. Although I’ve known about this for a while, I guess that’s why I’m not all like “Oh my god! You just blew the sweet ignorant brains right outta my head! Woaaaaah” but you are right? Right?!
Words by Euan Summers