– What Is A Craft Beer? / By Steve Dunkley
To be brutally honest, no-one really knows. There are all sorts of articles and postings on the internet where people claim to know the definition of what a craft brewer is. It’s easy enough to define what an American Craft Brewer is, because they have an association and a definition: Small, Independent and Traditional. But for them small is less than 6 million barrels of beer a year. That’s a whopping 1.7 billion pints. Not sound so whopping? Here’s a bit of maths; in the UK each day 28 million pints of beer are consumed, which equates to 1.02 billion pints a year. And by beer, that’s all beer including lager and even stuff like Tennents Super and Special Brew. (more…)
– Event / American Beer Festival
Starting on Monday 27th June PSBH will be having its first festival. We will be celebrating ‘Uncle Sam’s finest, the most creative craft brewing scene in the world’.
There will be an opening event with the ‘Port Street Beer School’ which includes talks, exclusive tastings and lots of fun. This will be a ticketed event for just 60 people, tickets will be on sale next week. On Sunday 3rd July we are also having an American BBQ, if you came to Common’s ‘American Afternoon’ last year you will know what to expect!
On offer throughout the festival there will be cask, draught and bottles from Anchor, Brooklyn, Caldera, Coronado, Dogfish, Flying Dog, Goose Island, Great Divide, Indigo Imp, Kona, Left Hand, Maui, Odell, Rouge, Saranac, Sierra Nevada, Sudwerk, Uinta & Victory. The festival runs until the selected beers have gone!
Opening event / Monday 27th June – 6pm : Port Street Beer School American Beer Tasting – ticketed event
Sunday 3rd July : An American BBQ, beers, burgers, mega sausages and possibly sunshine.
Tickets for the ‘Port Street Beer School ‘are on sale NOW from the venue at £9 each.
You can purchase over the bar or call us on 0161 237 9949
cheers!
– To Keg Or Not To Keg / By Jonathan Heyes
Of late I’ve had a jolly old time picking through the various blogs written on the contentious, if imaginary keg vs cask debate, I say imaginary because personally I don’t think the versus part is real I think they should really be partners in crime. For those of you who have missed it here’s a quick recap, forgive the gross generalisations here but hey I’m short on space, CAMRA believe essentially all good beer/real ale comes in cask/container in which it is subject to a secondary fermentation, ie ‘IT’s ALIVE!’ and is dispensed via a traditional handpump. Keg is seen to not achieve this as the liquid in side is almost in stasis and is dispensed via a pressurised system, which provides a generally colder more carbonated finish. There is a third way, keykeg, but that’s for another post. As the bloggers and CAMRA seem soon to be locked in a deadly embrace which i fear neither will emerge with more dignity than they started with I thought it might be time for me to throw my hat in the ring. (more…)
– Event / Moss Cider Tasting
On Tuesday 24th of May we held our first ticketed event, an evening of Cider and Cheese with The Moss Cider Project. The room was set up beautifully, the guests filtered in and the fun began. After a brief introduction by the charming Dan Hasler, the tastings kicked off. Some expertly chosen cheese from Emma Cormack & Kate Ward matched the ciders put forward by ourselves. The Brie & Hovis with Dunkertons combo was my personal favourite, but many people would argue that.
The ciders tasted covered all the bases. Firstly Dunkertons, a 7.2% Organic real cider from Herefordshire. Basically think summer orchards in a glass, medium dry with a touch of oak.
Secondly Original Sin from NYC. A great 5.5% ‘hard cider’ from the most vibrant city in the world. It has great bubbly mouth feel due to the champagne yeast and a light balanced flavour.
Finally we tasted the Moss Cider, a hefty 6.5% that tasted like biting into a granny smith. The depth of flavour was really impressive. You could almost taste every apple pressed into it.
The evening was finished off with a presentation about the story of Moss Cider. It’s a great community project that started in a back alley in Moss Side, the aim to mash unwanted fruit into cider and build community spirit, through a product everyone could be proud of.
We are chuffed with how the event worked and how everyone seemed to have a great time. A big thank you to the people who came & enjoyed this great event with us & everyone who helped out.
Here is a short video from Message Creative showing how much fun we had at the Moss Cider tasting event… here’s to more!
Mosscider Tasting from Message Creative on Vimeo.