The Southsea Alternative Choir had a very successful Christmas, raising just under £1,500 for Samuel’s Fund, a local cerebral palsy charity. With Christmas 2012 ten months away, the local octet already intend to up the ante by releasing their own version of The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’, which proved a highlight of the band’s set of indie/alt rock classics, which also included covers of tracks by David Bowie, Brian Wilson, Primal Scream, Bob Dylan, Blur and The Band.
The Southsea Alternative Choir have launched a Fairytale of New York website, which they will embellish as the year goes on. The choir is led by Southsea photographer Stuart Scott and also features the talents of Adam Collier; former Bluesky Research trio Charlie Waddington, Sam Richards and Matt Gill; former Kid Idiot duo Sam Davidson and Ashley Till; and former Ricky singer Jim Lines.
The Southsea Alternative Choir will record ‘Fairytale of New York’ later in the year, but in the meantime you can see the band performing the track outside The Belle Isle, mid-way through an epic six-hour session of drinking and busking that culminated in the band gate-crashing Little Johnny Russell’s one Saturday in December.
Right Ladies and Gents here’s a nice little project for you to get your teeth stuck into over the winter months. The 2nd annual Strong Island Home Brew competition will see you have a bash at brewing your own beer to be entered into a competition which will be judged by a panel of experts with the winner potentially having their brew/recipe brewed by Irving & Co. Brewers and made for distribution around pubs in the Portsmouth area. This is all providing you have what it takes to be a brewing master of course! Who knows, we may even coax a beer brewing superstar out of the woodwork!
There are 2 categories to enter in this competition:-
1st – The Specified Home Brew Kit category. This is for all the beginners out there who have never attempted anything like this before but are still willing to have a bash at becoming Strong Island Home Brew champion. We’ve specified the Young’s Home Brew Kit available from Wilkinson’s as the kit to use for this category. To enter this all you have to do is pop down to Wilkinson’s or follow the link, purchase the specified kit and then start brewing. A receipt of your purchase will have to be provided as part of your entry form on the night.
2nd – The Unrestricted Brew category. Whether you already are a home brewer or you really want to go to town and build your own micro brewery this is the category for you. Designed to make no boundaries for the brewer, this category is designed to really let the skills be shown of your home brewing talent. Any kit and brewing process is allowed so go for your life.
Rules
The categories to which your final brew will be judged on are -
TASTE
AROMA
COLOR
CLARITY
DRINKABILITY
NAME/PRESENTATION/LABEL
The judging panel will consist of Malcolm Irving from Irving & Co. Brewers in Portsmouth, Stuart Ainsworth who is Landlord of the Leopold Tavern which is Portsmouth & South East Hampshire CAMRA pub of the year and myself, Ben Mills proprietor of LJRs and The Belle Isle.
Any brew is welcome to enter be it Ale, Bitter, Ginger Beer, Cider, Lager etc. (Note this only applies to the Unrestricted Brew category)
There are no limits on team numbers so you can enter as a solo brewer or as a team
Over 18′s only can enter the competition
Final entries are to be presented to the judges in bottles. 3 bottles are to be submitted to give a fair representation of your batch.
Your receipt of purchase MUST be presented with your entry form on the night (for all Specified Home Brew Kit entrants)
A list of all ingredients and a brief description of the brewing process MUST be submitted with your entry form on the night (for entrants of BOTH categories)
Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places as well as best in show. Remember we won’t just be looking at the brew but also the presentation, name and label design of each entry and don’t forget the golden carrot if the winning brew’s up to scratch you could well see your recipe brewed up by Irving & Co. Brewers and distributed to pubs in and around Portsmouth as happened last year with Strong Island Hopper.
The judging evening will be Wednesday 1st February at Little Johnny Russells, Albert Road, Southsea. Make sure your brew is ready for then along with all the requirements for entry.
Any questions or queries please email ben@littlejohnnyrussells.com
Paul will be posting details at the end of the week about how to do the initial sign up with an online form but until then you can get brewing from now. Get your friends or family involved, spread the word and good luck brewing!
A brand new beer festival organised by Portsmouth’s only brewery, Irving and Company will be upon us this October. Beers, Ciders and Perries from all round the UK will be on offer as well as many local favourites. You’ll be able to enjoy live music, food and a great atmosphere all being hosted at the Groundlings Theatre in Portsea.
Friday 14th October 12-4pm is a preview session at £2 and 6-11pm is £8. Saturday 15th October sees the day session 12 – 4pm at £4 and 6-11pm session is £8. I wonder if this fest will be drunk dry just like the previous Portsmouth beer festivals?
Ticket sales are available at Irving brewery 02392 738507 or Groundlings Theatre, Curzon Howe Road, Portsmouth, PO1 3BS 02392 737370 and The Belle Isle, Fountain, Leopold Tavern, Rose In June and The Stags Head at Westbourne.
The beers will be coming from local brewers such as Irvings, Oakleaf and Bowman as well as further afield like Dark Star, Vale, All Gates, Great Oakley and Ramsgate to name but a few and the range of the Ciders will be from Whiteheads of Selbourne.
So don’t hesitate good people of Portsmouth, get your tickets and let’s have a knees up!
The guys at Belle have had a bit of a revamp of their website and added a few new key points like reservations, updated news, special offers etc. Make sure to head on down to Osborne Road, Southsea and sample some of the finest food in town in a very popular and relaxed atmosphere.
Keep an eye on things for their new venture in Chichester too over at www.thebelleisle.co.uk
The Belle Isle offers some of the best food around in one of the nicest environment in town. If you still haven’t been i highly recommend it and what better way to entice than the opportunity to WIN a free meal for two. Simply head HERE and follow the Facebook instructions for your chance to enjoy a lovely free meal. Noms.
Excuse the really long picture post again. It’s another little update to keep you up to speed with our 2nd Birthday Party at The Belle Isle this Thursday 30th September and I thought you would like to know what’s on offer as the date gets closer.
The tickets will be £1 each or £8 for 10 and will be available on the door on the night only, so grab a strip with your FREE Strong Island Ice Tea (limited drinks so get there early). Pet Sounds will provide the background music with a Strong Island VS Pet Sounds Playlist to accompany this relaxed social.
We will call the winning numbers sometime around 10pm. Listen for the bell…
We hope you can all make it along to our 2nd Birthday Party at The Belle Isle next Thursday 30th. It’s shaping up to be quite a nice evening with a few friends new & old, accompanied with some drinks and a cheeky Raffle.
Raffle tickets will be available on the door on the night only, so grab a strip with your FREE Strong Island Ice Tea (limited drinks so get there early). Pet Sounds will provide the background music with a Strong Island VS Pet Sounds Playlist to accompany this relaxed social.
Prizes have kindly been donated from the following people: The Belle Isle / Bored / Portsmouth University / Paul Gonella / Claire Sambrook / Desperados Beer / Ian Parmiter / Rob Trigg / Wallspace gallery / Head Hairdressing / FarkFK / Southsea Fixed Gear / James Weaver / Mikee Ayling / Matt O’Neill / Diana Goss / Caleigh Illburn / Cat Vaughan / Steve Bomford / Owain Harris / Miki Organic / Louise Bush / Nick Hicking / Candice @ Inksquatch / MyDogSighs / Paul Thurlow and more to come. Prizes include tee shirts, drinks, hair cuts, photo shoots, art, prints, meals, photography and more besides. Check the photos below for just a taster of what’s on offer.
Sign up to the The Belle Isle or Little Johnny Russells mailing lists by clicking the links and you get a voucher to eat for a mere £1 at The Belle Isle. Just buy a single meal at the regular price and your quids in. Bloody lovely.
We’re all on to a winner here that’s for sure. Good breakfast joints are plentiful in Southsea, we all know that, but few offer what we all want deep down alongside the classics. Eggs Benedict.
The Belle Isle in Osborne Road is now open from 10am every Saturday and Sunday for breakfast and starting tomorrow they will have a choice of Eggs Benedict – Poached egg with Hollandaise sauce, Asparagus and Smoked Salmon or Ham served on a bagel for £4.50 or the classic Belle Isle Full English – Sausage, Bacon, Egg, Mushrooms and tomoatoes served with toasted Ciabatta £5.00. Both options come with Tea or Coffee.
The Belle Isle is off to a seriously winning start. If you haven’t been there yet, or eaten there I highly recommend it. A unique bar with a very relaxed attitude that takes in the sunshine all day long.
See you there. I’m all over the Eggs Benedict, that’s for sure.
The Strong Island Company crate for The Belle Isle is coming along nicely, but I’ve been stuck for a while now as of what to put on the other sides. The main logo I painted on is going to be hidden by peoples legs most of the time so I needed to add something that could be seen from other angles. A lot of messing around and researching old posters and adverts left me no where so I decided to keep it simple. Keeping up with the the whole shipping crate theme and making something that made it more in keeping to it’s surroundings.
Once I figure out how to age paper and make it look all knackered I’ll apply a print to each end of the crate. Now……I’m still not sure what to put on the front! I’ll get there in the end. Think I’ve got about a week left.
How good would stickers look? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…
We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:
- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.
- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.
- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!
- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.
- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.
Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.
Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.
You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.
Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.
The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.
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