Author: Andy Cullen

Steel City haven’t brewed at ‘home’ since January – being temporarily homeless has that effect! However, Dave has been busy with collaborations near and far. After the Neepsend passionfruit pale ale The Passion of St Tibulus, and the two sours at Lost Industry (Golden Sour in A Moscow City Hotel Room and Peach Melba Sour), Dave decided he really should get out more… so 4 collabs ensued in the space of a fortnight. First, Dave headed to Huddersfield, along with Jimmy and Nate from Lost Industry, for a three-way collab at new brewery Beer Ink. Well, we say new… Dave brewed there 8 years ago when it was still Mallinsons! The brew was Star Beer, a Star Bar-inspired imperial stout with peanut flavouring, caramel and cacao nibs. A week later was a trip to Edinburgh to visit Jaan & Pan at Black Metal Brewery. Imperial Black Kvass was the order of the day, a take on a traditional bread-based ale brewed all over the former Soviet Union, but at 6%+ rather than the traditional 1-2%. ‘Kvassphemy’ is also more heavily soured, ph3.6 before fermenting. Next was a midweek trip to Mexborough to brew at Imperial, so as the brew coincided with Theresa Mayhem signing the Article 50 Economic Suicide Note the guys decided to brew a Euro IPA. ‘Ready… Aim… Fire!’ is 6.3%, pale, and features hop varieties Mandarina Bavaria and Huell Melon. Next weekend it was down to Raw, as Dave and David realised that despite regularly collaborating it had been years since they’d brewed the sort of hoppy pale beers both are known for. ‘Raw Steel III – Transatlantic’ is a 6.2% IPA featuring a British hop so new it has no name yet! Well, it has a name, but not one we can tell you just yet… Also featured are Chinook (UK) and Jester (UK), and mandarins, just because. Sheffield Beer Week was very productive with no fewer than six venues purveying Steel City beer, as well as Dave blagging future collabs at Yellowbelly in Wexford and Weird Beard in That London.

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!

The latest special in the ‘Hopjacked’ series of single hopped pale ales features Columbus hops, which should give it something of a sherbert nose and peppery finish. It weighs in at a reasonable sensible strength of 4.8% ABV and as with all Hopjacker beers is unfined and therefore suitable for Vegans. Another new beer brewed recently, unnamed at time of writing, a 4% session pale, lightly bittered but heavily hopped at flameout with Dr Rudi, Cascade & Ahtanum. Meanwhile Edd the brewer has been involved in a collaboration brew with RAW brewery of Chesterfield called MaiPA – a 6% Maibock inspired IPA brewed with German malts.

Did you know that there are 57 breweries in Sheffield and the surrounding area alone? According to recent statistics, the United Kingdom has in excess of 1700 breweries, producing anything from traditional bitters to white wine oak barrel aged cucumber saisons. When I started Emmanuales, I used to sit on my back doorstep brewing my 25L length batches, dreaming of the dizzy heights of what it must be like to be one of those commercial brewers. You can probably imagine what a nightmare it must have been, then, to be dumping my first industrial sized, 981L batch of Jonah and the Pale due to a technical issue: heart wrenching! This came the day after discovering our The Gospel According To… series failed to carbonate in bottles for reasons that still remain a mystery, and won’t be seeing the light of day any time soon. Hardly the stuff dreams are made of for an aspiring craft brewer. However, true to style, the story ends with resurrection and life. Having brewed it all over again, we have just launched our first round of cask and keg beer, with bottles to follow imminently. Two of our flagship beers, Jonah and the Pale (5.0% Transatlantic Pale Ale) and Ryejoice (5.4% Red Rye) are now available on tap for the first time. This has been a huge achievement two years on from launching Emmanuales. In addition, along with a revised version of Glory, Glory Aleluia (5.1% American Amber Ale) with a new hop schedule including Ekuanot, Citra, Mosaic, Columbus and Azacca, we will also be releasing Beer Thou My Vision, a session Pale Ale, just in time for running the bar at The Big Church Day Out music festivals in Stafford and Bath. It’s been a long, hard road. It’s involved sacrifice, being covered in yeast, moving two tonnes of malt in one day by hand, doing endless research and reading on microbiology, a lot of cleaning, late night design work, and drinking plenty of beer. But it has been worth every moment.

Spring specials from Stancill Brewery Stancill Brewery have been exploring the ebony and ivory of the beer world and have spent time developing a new, not-to-be-missed chocolate porter as well as experimenting with a new hop variety to create what promises to be one of their hoppiest beers to date. Jarrylo is a new pale 4.8% brew and takes its name from the US hop variety featured in the new beer. It is the first time Stancill has brewed with the Jarrylo hop variety and the result is a fruity, slightly spiced beer which is as refreshing as it is unusual. The hops are named after Jarilo, the Slavic God of springtime and in folklore the God is celebrated with spring festivals held in his honour. Unlike many US hop varieties which can often be intense and overpowering, the Jarrylo hops add plenty of subtle flavours, resulting in a dry aftertaste. Dean Pleasant, Head Brewer at Stancill Brewery said:  “Jarrylo is a relatively new variety of hop which provides a hint of banana and pear which also adds a little spiciness. It’s commonly used in saison and Belgian-style beers. The result of our latest brew is a very pale beer which is packed with flavour. Since unveiling the brew it’s created a lot of interest and I can’t see it hanging around for long” The delicate flavours found in Jarrlyo are a stark contrast to Stancill Brewery’s other new spring special, which has been developed with chocoholics in mind! Coco is a new 5.0% chocolate porter, which brings together everything you should expect in a typical porter with an intense chocolate finish. Brewed using a selection of dark chocolate and cocoa nibs to intensify the flavours of the chocolate malts featured in the beer, the result is a well flavoured brew. The coffee flavours of the brew give way to a powerful chocolate finish, resulting in a well flavoured beer which is already shaping up to be something very special. Jarrylo and Coco are both available at Stancill’s brewery taps: The Norfolk Arms in Grenoside and The Horse and Jockey in Wadsley, as well as at selected pubs throughout Sheffield. CAMRA members can benefit from a 20% discount on Stancill ales in both pubs, which makes a pint just £2

Monday 10th April 2017 saw the worldwide launch, in bottle, of Thornbridge’ s Mango Halcyon. Halcyon Imperial IPA has been a successful core beer within the Thornbridge range for a number of years and has gained a committed and loyal following. So why brew a mango version? Rob Lovatt, head brewer at Thornbridge, tells us why. “One of the main fruit aromas I always get from Halcyon is mango and so it seemed a natural choice to use mangoes in trying to develop a fruit version of this IPA. To produce a beer like this is not without a challenge to ensure that when using real fruit, as we have done, that the sweetness does not clash with the bitterness. We want a harmony of flavours but in a drink that is still unmistakably a beer despite us using over a tonne of mangoes into 20,000 litres of beer during the secondary fermentation process. ” Rob and his team recognised that haze in a beer of this type was always going to be evident but that was part of the challenge. “It’s pointless even considering trying to get it bright,” says Lovatt “so we centrifuged the first third of the beer and then transferred the rest of the raw beer back on top. This results is the perfect level of haze and yeast count whilst still retaining bags of juicy mango flavour.” So a challenge yes but, one we think we have met and are delighted with the finished beer.” The marketing campaign surrounding this beer launch included the opportunity to win the experience of being a ‘faux Lord’!

If you are reading this before May 6th, don’t forget to buy your tickets for our ‘P*ss up In The Brewery’ (assuming there are tickets left!) for a unique experience to drink our beer just yards away from where it was brewed! If you are reading this after May 6th, then we hope you enjoyed yourself! Right then! Onto beer news! Our mega collaboration with Magic Rock, Northern Monk and Siren was a monumental success, with all cask and kegs being sold before the release date, and the cans selling out (from the brewery) fairly soon after! You should still be able to grab a one from your local reputable bottle shop. We’ve got some new specials and some old favourites returning, some with a facelift! Both Larceny (4.2%) and Revelation (4.1%) have had facelifts and a tweaking of the recipe, and we are delighted to be bringing them back to your local.  Fabulous new designs from Luke Bailey and Ross Evans, and you’re sure to see more of their distinctive work on our pump clips coming up. Last year, Pat and Sue took a trip to Barcelona, and on their travels happened upon a brewpub called Abirraderro who brew beers under the name Istituto de la Cerveza Artesana. They brew a beer to a Neolithic recipe that was unearthed at a nearby archeological dig. This was an unhopped ‘Gruit’ beer (meaning herb), very popular in medieval times prior to the Reinheitsgebot purity law in 1516. Pat and Sue were so impressed with this beer, they invited Daniel and Iñigo over to brew with us and we have done a slightly modified version! Instead of hops, we have used mugwort, yarrow, juniper berries and heather flowers, alongside some lightly smoked malt to emulate flavours garnered from more ancient malt drying techniques.  It’s ABV will be quite high at 7.4%, and has been fermented with both our own house yeast strain and a Belgian Abbaye strain. We are splitting the brew half into some oak barrels to be mixed with wild yeasts and bacteria to age for nearly a year, while the other half is has had copious amounts of fresh raspberries and Brett Lambicus. This will be our ‘Encantada’ and should be available from the start of the month.