Steel City’s latest brew is, would you believe, a collaboration… their cuckoo brewing caught the eye of Bulgaria’s Alchemik, who cuckoo brew at Sofia Electric and another smaller site. Alchemik are best known for their dessert sours, so the three-way collab (Lost Industry being the third brewery) is a lemon cheesecake sour. The brew features a lot of oats for the biscuity base taste of the cheesecake, followed by lactose, vanilla and lemon zest. Fermentation was with Voss kveik yeast, a new one to the UK breweries but standard for Alchemik, so who were we to argue!
Yellowcake is out now in keg and can. Steel City and Lost Industry are off to Sofia in February for the return collabs, namely an imperial version of Yellowcake and a new dessert sour yet to be decided – both versions should make their way to the UK, along with a few of Alchemik’s other puddingy wares.
Nothing else may have been brewed for a while, but some barrels have been sitting quietly in the corner for eight or nine months, and were opened just in time for December. Firstly, Astral Mariner Baltic porter had been in a brandy barrel, emerging as Rime of the Ancient Astral Mariner.
Shortly afterwards, a big imperial stout went into brandy and rum barrels, emerging as Cask of the Red Death and Rum to the Hills respectively. All three are out now in keg and can and will be available in cask exclusively at the Shakespeares’ festival in January. There is also a single mega-blend (40% Rime, 40% Hills and 20% Red Death) at Shakespeares.
Other 2023 plans include a collaboration with Ukrainian brewery Didko to raise more funds for Brew for Ukraine – Didko also entered a can each of Steel City’s two previous fundraising beers into a charity auction, raising over £100 for the cause.