Blue Bee Brewery
The collaboration brew between Blue Bee and Welbeck Abbey proved popular. Intergalactic had a combination of four hop varieties – Cluster, Galaxy, Stellar and Pilot. Look out for the return leg to be brewed at The Hive in January (it may have hops in).
Awards corner. The illustrious Lustin’ For Stout scooped top spot at the Sheffield Tigers Rugby beer festival at Dore Moor recently. “Really delighted with this one”, said Rich, “because there was some stiff competition from a lot of excellent beers from other local breweries. And well done to Tigers for putting on this great little event”.
This followed on from Nectar Pale taking top honours at the inaugural Beer and Curry festival at Insch in North-East Scotland. A fine performance indeed.
Blue Bee’s new seasonal is out there. Dark Blue is a bit unusual, and, er, a little bit ‘out there’. So, a 4.4% dark ale that has had 2kg of fresh root ginger added to the boil. The colour is an enticing deep burnished copper; the flavours are warming and spicy. The ginger is there in abundance, without being overpowering.
– Brilliant on bonfire night!
– Perfect with parkin!
– A hit at Hallowe’en!
The kind of beer to be savoured next to an open log fire. Look out too for the latest in the pUnK-tuation series. Dinkus is a 5.2% pale ale with a riot of hops going on. Admiral for bittering, and stacks of Chinook and Cascade to follow. Think citrus…
And finally, the Tangled Trail II. Six of Sheffield’s finest hostelries will each have an aged Tangled Up so you can try the different ‘vintages’ side-by-side. This time, head for the Rutland Arms, the Closed Shop, the Uni Arms, the Gardeners Rest, the Dev Cat and Shakespeare’s. In whatever order you fancy, of course.
Richard Hough