A year older!

Holy smoke! What was that???? A year???
Yes that’s right folks, we have be open a full year and what a year it’s been! Thanks to everyone that joined in the first year celebrations. That Little Casino really does get you by the short and curlys doesn’t it?

The Wednesday before our birthday, myself and our head chef, Jason Bellord, hosted our first beer and food pairing dinner. 90 of you good souls were in attendance and the night went with a bang! It has given us loads of inspiration for future events of this nature so keep your eyes peeled for details of the next one.

On the beer front there is loads to report on too! Perhaps most excitingly our first sour beer! The project came from a well oiled chat with our great mate and talented brew-meister Dave Mackie (Flowerpots brewery) at last years pie making competition in the Butchers hook. Dave was keen to brew something sour and suggested that we collaborate. As myself and the staff at Dancing Man HQ have been getting somewhat obsessed by all things sour, I excitedly agreed. Dave wanted to do a Gose style beer with the twist of a massive Nelson Sauvin dry hop. Naturally I thought this was a great idea, so after a little research, a bit of head scratching and a couple of emails back and forth we had worked up a plan and a recipe. The brew day was great fun and it was awesome to have Mr Mackie around for the day. The resultant beer will be available very soon so watch this space! Very exciting!!!!!!

Next was our collaboration with the Butchers Hook Brew Club. This is a collective of home brewers that did a wonderful IPA at Vibrant Forest some months ago, and now they wanted to do a Chocolate Milk Stout with us. Magic!!!! The boys came up with a fantastic recipe and we got brewing very early on a Sunday morning back in January. I have to say what a pleasure it was to get to know Nick and Jason and all the lads. They truly are beer obsessed geeks of the highest order. They all got stuck in and made a great job of a very indulgent, truly beautiful beer. Well done fellas! The beer is available from cask, keg, and bottle from all good Southampton outlets. Move quick or you will miss out big time!
Get more details and check these guys out on Facebook under Butchers Brew Club.

As mentioned before, our first annual brew of Little Casino IIPA 7.5% is available on keg from The Dancing Man. Being a double IPA it uses twice the amount of hops of our regular Big Casino IPA and the strength is ramped up to cope with all of the extra hop action. Expect toffee, citrus, fruit and resin. I’m sure you’ll agree this is a fine drink!

I have promised to blog more frequently from now on so I’ll stop there and repeat my new mantra to beer drinking and blogging. Little and often….. Little and often.