![](https://www.portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk/app/uploads/2012/09/neil-web.jpg)
– Port Street Pop Ups with Great North Pie Co. and Dirty Dogs
To celebrate the launch of our amazing beer festival Indy Man Beer Con, we are giving you a sneak preview of the mouth-watering delights that will be available at Victoria Baths. Setting up in our lovely beer garden, it’s limited supplies of the finest pies and dirty hot dogs around, matched up with some fantastic beers.
Great North Pie Company – Thursday 20th September / 6pm
For the first time in Manchester as a ‘pop up food stall’ we welcome Great North Pie Company. Serving up their new autumn menu, all the pies will be served HOT with the finest peas and gravy.
Their new menu will include Goosnargh chicken, roast yorkshire pudding and bacon cream pie, scotch style steak and Red Willow ale pie with pearl barley and root vegetables PLUS the classic Lancashire cheese and onion. All their pies are hand crafted using all butter pastry.
We had the opportunity of tasting some of their pies for the forthcoming IMBC event, the quality and standard is very high indeed! We cannot wait to get them set up in our beer garden and serving you their latest creations, all the pies are limited and are served from 6pm onwards.
Here are some lovely quotes about their pies:
“There’s no plans for world domination, just a pure focus on quality and taste” – Neil Broomfield
“Just unbelievable, I was blown away by the quality of the pies” – Simon Rimmer, TV Chef and owner of ‘Greens’ and ‘Earle’ Restaurants
Best Vegetarian Pie in Britain – The British Pie Awards 2011
“The best cheese and onion pie I have ever tasted!” – Robert Owen Brown
Dirty Dogs – Saturday 22nd September / 1.30pm
Dirty Dogs are hot, that’s the tagline, but they definitely are in more ways than one. Having appeared at Port Street IPA day (and selling out in under two hours) this fledgling pop-up are back again on Saturday 22nd to serve up more of the best dogs in town.
The dog list is ever evolving, previous toppings included Pulled Pork, Mexican style Salsa and Beer steeped Sauerkraut, all on the finest franks of beef and pork (there was also a massive smoked pork polish style option) to find out where, when and what they’ll be cooking up on the grill, you’d better follow them on twitter @dirtydogsarehot
Excitement mounts as to what dogs they will be cooking up, check them out exclusively at Port Beer House!
Dirty quotes :
“Catch them if you can!” – Northern Quarter Manchester.COM
“Doesn’t matter if it’s on trend at the moment; Dirty Dogs’ hotdogs taste good and I don’t care if it’s so now, so last week, or if it was never in anyway – the food tasted good and that’s all I care about.” – North West Nosh
![](https://www.portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk/app/uploads/2012/08/norwegian-wood2-593x363.jpg)
– Review – Haandbryggeriet Norwegian Wood / By DJ Adams
Haandbryggeriet – what a mouthful, and we haven’t even got to the name of the brew yet! Actually, when you break it down, this name is from two Norwegian words and simply translates to “Hand Brewery” – in other words, an extremely small scale operation. Four guys, working on a voluntary basis, brewing by hand in a small building in Drammen, southwest of Oslo. At this scale, and with the enthusiasm that oozes from the pages of their modest website, it’s clear that the brewers are fantastic amateurs, in the original, complimentary sense of the word – working the brewery for the love of it. (If you’re curious about this reclaiming of the word ‘amateur’, read Paul Graham’s essay “What Business Can Learn From Open Source” here: http://paulgraham.com/opensource.html)
For a small operation, Haandbryggeriet has certainly produced a wide range of beers – from a wheat stout called “Dark Force”, through an Akevitt barrel aged porter, to a hop-free Gruit beer made with herbs, brewed as a guest beer in cooperation with the de Molen bewery.
Norwegian Wood is a Haandbryggeriet beer available at Port Street Beer House on tap, and is brewed all year round. It’s a traditional Norwegian beer that has been recreated in memory of the farm brews that abounded when old laws required them to produce ale (farms were sometimes confiscated and went to the church and the king if they didn’t). In fulfilling their requirements, the farms usually kilned the malt over an open fire, giving each brew a smokiness that has been recreated here. The brew was enhanced with the traditional spice for all Norwegian beer at the time – juniper. The juniper spice comes not only from the berries themselves, but also from the twigs that are placed in the mash tun.
So many miles and years away from these traditional Norwegian farms, I sit here with a serving of Norwegian Wood. As I observe the hazy copper colour and the fading creamy head, there’s an intense aroma of pine and smokiness. Not an unpleasant or strong smokiness, but something more subtle, akin to pipe tobacco. There’s a taste of pine and a hint of cooked juniper berries, and rather than smoky, the flavour is more nutty and slightly sticky sweet, with an undercurrent of charcoal or cinder. The first sips also had a fruitiness about them but towards the bottom of the glass this had been replaced with a decent hint of malt that was very pleasant.
Haandbryggereit brews Norwegian Wood with smoked malt from Germany, along with other malts including crystal and chocolate. There’s a wealth of aromas and flavours in a small glass of this traditional ale, and the smokiness is by no means the dominant feature. I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan of smoked beer in the classic “Rauchbier” sense, but I definitely would order this again. With pine, hazelnuts, juniper and cinder in there, this beer is not only a mouthful to pronounce, but a very pleasant mouthful to enjoy.
Brewer: Haandbryggeriet
Brew: Norwegian Wood
Style: Traditional Ale
ABV: 6.5%
Words by DJ Adams www.pipetree.com/qmacro/
![](https://www.portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk/app/uploads/2012/08/IMBC-web-593x363.jpg)
– Independent Manchester Beer Convention – 5th and 6th October 2012
You may have heard that we are planning a beer festival in October, it’s called the Independent Manchester Beer Convention and it takes place at the wonderful Victoria Baths, over the past few weeks we have been busy booking in breweries, food stalls and some very special events. You can read loads more about the festival via the IMBC website.
The event is just under six weeks away and we are getting super excited about what we have planned for you, over the course of the two days the convention will host a swimming pool full of more than thirty keg beers, with the breweries manning each stall. This will include: Brewdog, Thornbridge, Magic Rock, Tempest, Hardknott, Lovibonds, Summer Wine Brewery, Camden Town Brewery, Ilkley Brewery with more beers selected by James Clay and Portable Street Beer House.
The IMBC meal with Aumbry has been announced, the beer and food pairing menu will include Welsh Rock Oyster, Home Smoked Mackerel, Cumbrian Wood Pigeon, Grapefruit Posset and Petit Fours. Each course has been carefully selected to match beers provided by Port Street Beer House, the full menu can be viewed here. Places are limited to only 35 tickets and are selling fast!
Over the next two weeks we will be announcing our full cask list, events schedule and food stalls! Can this get any better? With over a quarter of the tickets sold, IMBC is set to change the beer festival landscape!
Some beery loving :
“We think it’s going to be the most interesting beer festival outside of London to date, if not in the UK… IMBC is a refreshing and much needed change to the formulaic UK beer festival concept and we salute the guys from Port Street for organising it!” – Brewdog
“(IMBC) share our passion for all things beer and so we know the Fest will be very, very good. What more can anyone ask” – Thornbridge
“The UK has been crying out for this type of festival showcasing the more innovative end of the beer market and we can’t think of better people to be organising it” – Richard Burhouse, Magic Rock
“It’s an awesome opportunity for anyone involved with beer, be it drinking it or brewing it to be part of an event that is truly open” – Tempest
“We feel that although there are many great beer festivals all over our Great British Isles, there is something lacking with respect to the increasingly important Craft Beer Sector. We are not only delighted to see that there are now festivals like the Independent Manchester Beer Convention, but also excited to have been given the chance to join in” – Hardknott
“This is going to be a great meeting of the finest British craft brewers. I’m honoured to be invited and I can’t wait” – Lovibonds
“A new-breed of beer festival which becomes an interactive, all encompassing event that celebrates not only the beer, but the ingredients, those that brew, ‘those that serve’ and those that drink it” – Summer Wine Brewery
“We’re super, massively, ridiculously excited about it! Britain has been waiting for a beer event like this for too long” – Camden Town Brewery
“The brewery has been abuzz with ideas and excitement ever since we received your invitation to be involved with the IMBC” – Ilkley Brewery
IMBC – 5th and 6th October 2012 / Victoria Baths, Hathersage Road, Manchester, M13 0FE
![](https://www.portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk/app/uploads/2012/08/Schlenkerla1-WEB-593x363.jpg)
– Monday 24th September 2012 / An evening with Schlenkerla
5.30pm until 8.30pm / £10 advance from the venue or 0161 237 9949
Schlenkerla is a historic brewpub in Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany renowned for it’s ‘Rauchbier’ or smoked beer. For the first time in Manchester the rauchbier will be served straight from an oak barrel on the bar top in the traditional manner, Matthias Trum from Schlenkerla will be there to host the evening.