Back in October at the opening night of our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival we judged a cask beer from most of the breweries in the Sheffield & District CAMRA branch area in our Champion Beer of Sheffield competition. We mentioned the winners briefly in our festival review last issue, but here is a closer look at them!
BRONZE WINNER – Little Critters, Great Danish
This is a 7.4% ABV pecan and maple stout that brings you chocolatey richness, bolstered by a subtle hint of pecan and finished with sweet maple. It is brewed with English malt grains, pecan extract (nut allergy free) and maple syrup.
SILVER WINNER – Tapped, Brook
A porter called Brook (Porter Brook – the Sheffield river, get it? Groan!)
This London Porter is brewed with a generous mix of brown malt and chocolate malt to give depth in flavour and colour, dark brown with ruby hints when held to light. The mix of the dark malts give aromas of chocolate, caramel and subtle notes of coffee which develop in the flavour. Hopped with two UK hops, Phoenix and Goldings.
GOLD WINNER, CHAMPION BEER OF SHEFFIELD – Heist, The Bad Part of Gnome Town
A 4.6% ABV hazy session IPA. It is juicy and refreshing and the aroma is an immediate explosion of citrus and tropical fruits thanks to the generous use of Citra hops. Balance by subtle pine and earthy undertones from the Simcoe hops. As well as the usual keg and can this beer saw a limited quantity go into cask for the beer festival with Heist really proving they can also do that well!