The following does what gives the output you want: 
for my $key (reverse sort keys %hash) {
   print "\n<b>$key chars</b><br>\n";
   foreach my $element (@{$hash{$key}}) {
       print "<a href=\"link.pl?=$element\">$element</a>"; 
   }
    print "<br><br>\n";
}

[download]
Although I'm not sure if this is what you were after (I got rid of the join)

Update: The solution given by atcroft below is probably the more "Perl-ish" way to do it.
Update 2:Fixed code so that <br><br> is printed after each set of array elements (thanks ysth).

Cheers,
Darren

In reply to Re: Custom HOA printing by McDarren
in thread Custom HOA printing by sulfericacid

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.