Session Notes: Port Street Beer House, Manchester, 21.01.12

Walking up to the bar in Manchester’s Port Street Beer House requires an exercise of willpower. The temptation is to cast your eye over the bewildering array of pump-clips, start seeing beer-flavoured stars and just blurt “one of everything!” then just hope your liver (and your wallet) can take it. It just all looks so good.

My top tip: they have three blackboards up on the wall behind the bar: one for their cask ales, two for their draught beers. Focus on one of those boards at a time, and just pick one. Assuming you’re in for a session, you’ll have plenty of time to switch boards later. Try not to worry that you might miss a really good one on another board that runs out just as you come back for your second pint – c’est la vie. Plenty more top-notch beer in the cellar. And for the love of all that’s hoppy, don’t even think about looking at the bottled beer menu, not until you’re settled in with your first of the evening. Quite apart from the fact that some of the prices in there will send you screaming out the door, it’s the start of a slippery slope to decision-making madness.

Of course, I’m a great one for ignoring my own advice, so I usually end up trying (and failing) to take in all the on-board options at once and make some sort of plan for the evening. Which almost never works, especially given my habit of changing my mind six or seven times before I actually get to the bar. Anyhow, here’s where my decision-making process (such as it was) took me last Saturday night:

Magic Rock Dark Arts
I’ve had Dark Arts a couple of times before and for me it’s the dark star of the Magic Rock range. It’s a wonderfully deep-flavoured stout, delivering a big hit of dark chocolate, coffee, charcoal-smoke and toasted nuts, wrapped up in a smooth, satisfying mouth-feel. At 6.0% ABV it’s not a quaffer, and maybe it was a bit adventurous as a session starter, but what the hell, too good to risk missing out on.

Thornbridge Halcyon Imperial IPA
Last year I tried and loved a bottle of the Halcyon 2009 Harvest, so when I saw this one on the board – presumably the new, 2010 Harvest vintage – I jumped at the chance top sample a half on draught. Halcyon is a very, very impressive beer indeed. A 7.4% ABV Imperial IPA, it delivers bucketloads of big, fresh green-hop flavours, topped off with an enticing honey aroma. In the glass and on your tongue, sticky sugars mix and merge with all those sharp, citrus hops in a perfect blend of sharp and sweet. Big flavour, big impact, always a beer that’s worth seeking out. Great stuff.

BrewDog Winter Porter
I fancied something dark and roast-malty again after that big blast of hops and this one leapt off the board at me. Come on though, ‘Winter Porter’ is their Christmas porter with the tinsel taken off, isn’t it? It’s the same blend of dark, smoky roast malt and fruity, spicy notes from a dash of chili, if I remember correctly. Yeah, thought so. Not that I’m complaining, mind. It’s a lovely drop and at 6.0% ABV it packs a satisfying kick as well. Grab the chance to try a drop of this one if you see it anywhere.

Moor Illusion
I wanted to dial down the alcohol content for my next one, so I went for a pint of Moor Illusion, a 4.5% ABV black ale that I’ve enjoyed before. So what went wrong this time? I’m really not sure, but for some reason I was just over-powered by a blast of coffee and hops, lots of coffee, lots of hops and then more coffee and more hops on top. It was very sharp, very dry, with a burnt, charcoal-taste to finish. I was bemused, befuddled and frankly gutted, but I just couldn’t finish it. Bizarre, but true.

Brasserie Lefebvre Barbãr Bok
For my last half pint of the evening I opted for a Belgian beer that I’ve tried and enjoyed in bottled form couple of months ago. Barbãr Bok is a dark ale that’s brewed with honey, which the brewery website says is “from Yucatan in Mexico and is hardly noticeable”. I’d argue that second point, I thought there was a lovely, deep honey tone, that blended well with the Belgian yeast tang and the toasted malt flavours. All in all, a sweet and delicious strong ale that I’d be happy to sit and sip any time.

Good session, all things considered. But then that’s one thing you’re pretty much guaranteed at the Port Street Beer House, whatever you end up choosing.

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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Brewery: St Peter’s
Location: Bungay, Suffolk, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Slattery’s, Prestwich

Having thoroughly St Peter’s Old Style Porter, I had high hopes for their Honey Porter, thinking that it would smoothly blend the characteristics of the former with just a touch of honeyed sweetness. Their website declares it to be a “traditional English porter finished with honey for a truly unique aroma and taste”. Sounds quite pleasant…

Alas, it was not to be. The bottle opened and released a suspiciously chemical reek. After a second, cautious whiff it reminded me most strongly of those distinctly unpleasant, cheap & nasty honey sweets that you can pick up in Mediterranean airports on your way back from holiday, if you’ve forgotten to buy proper souvenirs for the folks back home.

A first taste of the Honey Porter confirmed my initial impression: not so much a hint of honeyed sweetness as a shovelful of horribly artificial, quasi-honey tang… a belated examination of the label revealed the dreadful truth: “contains honey flavouring”. Not honey. Honey flavouring. And lots of it, judging by the way my taste-buds were screaming at me. After a while it calmed down a bit and the whole thing started to taste like honey cake. But it was still far too sweet and sickly, and far too artificial-tasting, for comfort.

I’m sure there was beer in there somewhere, but it was so drenched in sugars that I couldn’t really say with any confidence what it tasted like. Could’ve been a porter, it was the right colour, after all. But that’s as much as I’m prepared to say on this one. Frankly, if I hadn’t paid £2.95 for the bottle I’d have poured it down the sink and cracked open something to take the taste away. Afterwards, I rather wished I had.

So: steer clear would be my advice on this one. By all means pick up (indeed, seek out!) the aforementioned Old Style Porter, that’s a very nice drop indeed. And I’ll be re-visiting their Cream Stout before too long and am confident of an extremely pleasant renewal of acquaintance. But this stuff? Not the best. Really not the best.

Brewery: Joseph Holt’s
Location: Manchester, England
ABV: 4.1%
Version: Draught pint
Source: Woodthorpe Hotel, Prestwich, Manchester

Humdinger is available as part of Holt’s bottled beers range, but I actually tried this one on draught a few weeks ago at Holt’s flagship pub The Woodthorpe Hotel, which is just up the road (and round the corner a bit) from my place. It was their seasonal ale for August, if I remember rightly, or maybe July.

Anyhow, it’s a honeyed beer, but unlike some honey-based brews, is possesses a strong, hoppy character that’s allowed to dominate the honey tones and keep the sweetness at bay. Net result: a light, summery ale that’s very refreshing and easy-drinking that, whilst sweet, isn’t too cloying or over-syrupy.

Brewery: Sharp’s
Origin: Rock, Cornwall, England
ABV: 6.0%
Version: 330ml

Following up on Darren’s earlier review of Sharp’s Chalky’s Bite, it falls on me to cover their catchily named Honey Spice Wheat Beer. A quick browse of their website shows no sign of any reference to it, and I’ve already left the recycling box out and can’t be bothered going to retrieve the bottle, hence no photograph at this stage to illustrate.

So basically, they’ve taken the hops and wheat and barley malts, added some honey, stuffed the spices in and then left it all for 6 months to mature. The final bottle-conditioned product pours an unsurprising cloudy, light honey colour, initially very frothy but quickly settling to a much thinner head. The aroma is very much of fruit, hints of orange in there. The flavour starts off slightly malty, quickly followed with some well controlled honey sweetness and a hint of bitter sneaking in. No idea what spices have been used as they appear so well integrated into the flavour I had difficulty detecting them. The same could be said of any expected wheat characteristics; only for the label I wouldn’t have known this was a wheat beer. All in all quite an enjoyable drop and certainly worth checking out but I’m not sure I’ll be rushing out to repeat the experience.

Brewery: Fuller’s
Location: London, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Sainsbury’s

With a giant bee on the honeycomb patterned label and a major clue in the title, there are no prizes for guessing the predominant flavour of Fuller’s organic summer beer. It pours like liquid honey as well, settling to pale gold with a thin head of small bubbles and possesses a sugary, citrusy aroma that offers just a hint of what’s in store.

And that’s a syrupy sweetness; whole gobfuls of the stuff. In fact it’s so sweet I’d hazard a guess it’s practically an alcopop (or I would do, if I’d ever drunk such a thing on which to base a comparison, but I’m proud to say I haven’t). It could even be verging on mead territory? It’s been a few years since I last sampled actual fermented honey though, so again I’m not 100% confident on that one.

Okay, sticking to what I do know: despite the honey, honey, honey, there are more complex malt and hop tones that develop as the drink goes on. And at 5.0% abv it’s deceptively strong as well: the buzz creeps up on you quite pleasantly, even as that sweetness continues to lull you into a false sense of security (“see how light and tasty I am..? Why, I’m practically a shandy… Go on, have another…”)

So, potentially dangerous stuff, then. Luckily though, it’s so sweet that your tooth enamel will most likely start screaming for mercy after a pint… Or two, tops. But it’s damn tasty, all the same, so I’d be prepared to take the risk with a draft variant sometime. You know… for the team.