Here’s a little story for you: last November, we had a mobile bottling company travel from the highland reaches of Scotland, fully loaded with a bottling rig on the back of an articulated lorry, to package three of our beers, one of which should have been our award winning Sheffield Porter.
The only problem was the combination of our relatively new brewer’s obsession with a London ESB yeast strain and lack of technical data on said yeast meant our award winning Sheffield Porter came in at a sessionable 3.5% ABV, instead of the 4.4% Porter everyone has come to know and love.
The labels were already printed, but the beer – which tasted lovely and true to character – was the wrong finishing gravity. No matter what we did to rouse the yeast (including recirculating it, warming it up, and playing it Arctic Monkeys on repeat for days on end… okay, I made that last one up!), the gravity would not budge; we were going to have to bottle this beer under a new name. Bugger!
For those unaware, The Sheffield Brewery Company resides in an original Victorian factory, now up-cycled into a brewery, renown for making polishes. Whilst stood by a table displaying the original tins used during our brewery tours, desperately seeking a name, we randomly noticed two little words that just rolled off the tongue: Brunswick Black. Of course! It seemed so obvious; what a great name for a beer. So much so, it inspired Nigel Williams (board member and ex-landlord of the Ranmoor Inn) to sporadically say, ‘Finely Polished Beers’.
And so, not only was a new beer born, which is available in bottle shops, restaurants, delis and farm shops in and around Sheffield. A new brand was born.
Why do we tell you all this? Because behind our beers and brewery is a great story; a story worth telling. So we have decided it’s time to tell the story – not only ours, but of all Sheffield, past, present and future – by rebranding our core range.
If you’ve ever visited The Sheffield Brewery Company on a tour, purchasing and collecting beer up from our off-licensed brewery, or when we’re open monthly to coincide with Peddler Night Market, you may have noticed some of the classic posters from Sheffield brands, Whitbread and Wards, among others. Along with the polishes and typography of the era, these iconic posters have inspired our new designs.
Not only did we want to capture all things Sheffield and draw upon our building heritage with the polish names, but we wanted to create something that looked both contemporary and classic at the same time.
Along with all this, we have relaunched our website, www.sheffieldbrewery.com, and released our now seasonal special, the truly hoptastic Get Thi’Sen Outdooerz, available throughout the spring and summer months, in both cask and unfined, naturally hazy, craft keg.
Exciting times for The Sheffield Brewery Company. When in Sheffield, drink Sheffield beer!