Six Beer Links to 01.07.11

In which I post another half-dozen links to items of interest I’ve spotted around the Beerblogosphere since my last Six Beer Links post.

1. Now this is what I call attention to detail. Portuguese brewer Sagres wanted something special to promote their new chocolate stout, Chocolate Preta so they made a promo website entirely out of chocolate. “Every banner, every button, was meticulously crafted by chocolatier Victor Nunes, then photographed, digitized, and coded.” Even the Flash loading page is chocolate melting in reverse. Wow. [via Magic Rock Brewing chaps hosted their official launch last Tuesday at The Grove in Huddersfield and earlier that day they brewed up a special collaborative beer with colleagues from Hawkshead and Marble. Human Cannonball is a double-IPA, and initial reports are favourable, the cooled wort being: “extremely hoppy to say the least, reminiscent of the smell of pine floor cleaner but also with a massive malty sweetness and extreme bitter finish”. The first in a planned series of specials, Magic Rock say the beer “should be ready in a couple of weeks and is mainly destined for bottles although there will also be a few key-kegs about and there’s a rumoured special guest appearance on cask at Hawkshead’s excellent beer festival in July.”

2. Over at I Might Have a Glass of Beer, Barm talks to a group of four students from Edinburgh Herriott-Watt University who have been developing their own brewing company – Natural Selection Brewing as part of an MSc Brewing and Distilling Master’s Thesis project. The beer in question, Finch, is a “Robust Red Ale” at 6.5%, and will be available in the Edinburgh area from round about July 20th.

3. I always enjoy Martyn Cornell’s Zythophile blog and I’m a huge fan of Imperial Stout, so Imperial Stout – Russian or Irish? was right up my street and statements like “‘Russian’ seems not to have been attached to ‘Imperial Stout’ until the early 20th century. Indeed, the first nation to have its name linked to Imperial stout looks to be Ireland” are bound to get my attention. Well worth a read if beer history is your cup of tea.

4. As I mentioned in my last Six Beer Links post, Robert Gale of Beer Lens fame visited the Marble Arch and 57 Thomas Street in Manchester recently. Turns out he also posted longer write-ups of another couple of Manchester pubs over on www.travelswithbeer.com, namely The Crown and Kettle and Micro Bar (in a couple of those shots you can see the selection that makes it the best bottled beer shop in Manchester).

5. The Keg vs Cask debate has been rumbling for a while now. Tandleman opens a new, price-based front with a visit to the Port Street Beer House…

I’ve been rather lazy on the beer blogging front since getting back from Tenerife at the end of October, I know. That goes double for beerblogosphere link-harvesting, but I’ve finally pulled my finger out and pulled the latest batch of links-of-interest together. But this first post-holiday round-up of beer-related blog-posts is going to be a bit of a monster so why not crack open a bottle of your favourite ale while you settle in for a skim-read?

Oh, incidentally, the big buzz while I was away was obviously all around the launch of Brewdog’s Equity For Punks share scheme, but I’m hoping to round that one up in a separate post as there’s a tonne of material to digest and I think it rather deserves a stand-alone.

Right then, without further ado…

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