Author: Andy Cullen

The weather may be getting colder but things are heating up at The Sheffield Brewery Company this November. The mash tun is steaming and the fermentors are in full flow as release several new beers this month to quench the thirsty people of this beautiful city. Our first autumn special, Bessemer (3.2% ABV) – a smooth and highly seasonable bitter – is a perfect for a quick lunch time pint on a rainy autumnal day. But the brewing madness doesn’t stop there! Celebrating the release of a salmon draft into the River Don, we’ve brewed up a very special draught beer for the occasion. To mark this momentous occasion, The Salmons Return is a Dark Rye IPA made with all the best kind of hops (Mosaic, Rakau and Ahtanum) and is our penultimate beer in our Ten of the Best range. As you are aware, this year is the 10th year we’ve been established as a microbrewery in Sheffield. Incidentally, we will also be brewing our 600th gyle this November. Well, you can’t miss an opportunity like that to brew a special 6.00% IPA, can you?! Ten Years and Six Hundred Beers will be a short run India Pale ale available in cask and bottles, hopped with a variety of lush hops, including Mosaic, Centennial, Chinnok, Rakau, Cascade and whatever else we can think to chuck at it. Also, this November, as a local independent business, we are proud to be serving Sheffield Brewery beers and local gin in the Winter Gardens and Millennium Gallery for the MADE 16 Festival’s aftershow event. MADE is the UK’s premier business event for entrepreneurship, offering an experience to educate, inspire and motivate early stage entrepreneurs and established business owners. Finally, our award winning Sheffield Porter, hoppy Seven Hills and malty Millowner’s Ale will be available in 500ml bottles just in time for Christmas. Details to follow at www.sheffieldbrewery.com

We’ve been busily brewing more new beers over the last month. Mosaic IPA (5.5%) is the latest in our series of single hopped IPAs and was brewed (and dry hopped) with a fairly silly amount of the the wonder hop, Mosaic, for big tropical, pineapple and blueberry notes. After the success of Manna, our mango infused tropical pale ale, we thought we would have a go with another fruit – this time oranges in Mandarin (4.3%) brewed with German Mandarina Bavaria hops and curacao oranges for big citrus bitterness and bags of orange aroma and flavour. Our latest stout saw us experiment with coffee and the result is Coffee Oatmeal Stout (4.8%), a seriously smooth oatmeal stout brewed with coffee from a local supplier with loads of roasted, coffee and chocolate notes. We also found time to fit in a rare repeat brew of Triton (4.5%), a pale ale tipple hopped with Citra, Cascade and Chinook with a brand new 4.6% American Red Ale coming up next. At the time of writing, our return collaboration with Hopjacker Brewery (a 6.7%ish Lemon and Earl Grey IPA hopped with bags of Centennial) brewed at the Dronfield Arms was freshly pitched and we we’re looking forward to trying it at the Steel City Beer Festival. By the time you are reading this the Wellington on Henry Street will finally (after one or two delays!) be open showcasing a range of our beers and we should have brewed our 100th gyle. Expect something 6%+ with one or two hops in it! Citra. Mosaic, Amarillo and Centennial have been put aside for this one… Gavin

CAMRA members are being given a rare chance to go behind the scenes of Stancill brewery during a special open day which is due to take place next month. Offering a chance to go behind the scenes at both the brewery, the special event will give members the opportunity to take part in a guided tour of the brewery, meet head brewer Dean Pleasant and learn some of the secrets which have helped to establish Stancill Brewery as one of the region’s fastest growing breweries. Meeting the Horse & Jockey Wadsley on Sunday 27^th November at 2:00pm, the special event includes transport to and from the brewery, two pints of Stancill Beer, as well as chance to enjoy a buffet which will be hosted at the pub. The event will be led by Adam Hague, who will share with visitors the history of the brewery, which can be traced back more than 200 years, as well as giving vistors a chance to find out how the different varieties of Stancill beers are produced. The open day being hosted by Stancill Brewery is one of a number of events taking place throughout November. Every Friday evening the Horse & Jockey will host live music and street food, as well as hosting a family fun day on 5^th November to coincide with the visit of Ipswich Town. A full range of events can be found via at: https://www.facebook.com/horsejockeyS6 The pub has recently entered into a partnership with Huddersfield-based Magic Rock, and as well as providing a comprehensive range of Stancill’s core range of eight beers and two seasonal specials. A variety of Magic Rock’s US themed beers will also be available. A 20% discount on all Stancill beers is available. Matt Weigold, Events manager, Horse & Jockey said: “Our brewery trip is a unique chance for CAMRA members to go behind the scenes of a working brewery and following the journey of the raw ingredients to the finished product available on the bar. The brewery has come a long way in just three years, and we wanted to give CAMRA members a chance to find out more about the work that’s been undertaken during that time. ”Since launching the Horse & Jockey, we’ve had a lot of interest in our range of beers, with many people asking about how they are produced. We wanted to thank CAMRA members in particular for their incredible support since we opened the doors of the pub and felt a special open day would create the perfect opportunity to find out how we transfer the raw ingredients to the beer enjoyed in pubs.” Tickets for Stancill Brewery’s open day can be purchased from the Horse & Jockey.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the Sheffield Beer Festival, and it is an event that certainly deserves all our support! We’ve got plenty to tell you this week including the re-launch of the Devonshire Cat! Some of you may have noticed that it has recently been closed for a refurb.  Well we are very excited to let you see what we have done with it and as we go to print, we plan to re-open W/C November 14th, but this will all depend on the builders finishing on time! In terms of our beers, we have a cornucopia of new specials to talk about, starting with ‘Frolicker’, part of our Beer Heads series, and this is a Sorachi Ace Session IPA at 3.9%.  Plenty of this mega hop in a very drinkable beer. Expect lots of tropical and citrus fruit flavours notable coconut and lemon. We also launch a new series called ‘Animal Vengeance’! Various animals have had a bed time with us humans, so now it’s payback! Starting with ‘Bear Hunter’ this 4.1% pale will be suitable hoppy with plenty of Mounthood and Azacca. We’ve teamed up with local electro-rockers 65 Days of Static, to brew a very special beer to commemorate their upcoming album release. As we go to print, the name of the beer is TBC, but what we can tell you is that it will be a 5.0% Belgian style Cherry beer.

Over the last two years we have released lots of beers in our Lost Treasure series, and like all good things, some have to come to an end. So we give you the last Lost Treasure beer, ‘Flor De La Mar’ a 4.2% pale beer single hopped with Centennial with some extra dry-hopping for good measure! We also have the last of our Birthday beers to release which we’ve given Black Mass the birthday treatment. Instead of ramping up the ABV like we did with the Brimstone, or doubling the hops like we did with Deception, we have done Baby Black Mass, a 4.8% stout with plenty of coffee! As a final nod to our 20th birthday year, we have decided to have all our core beer artwork redrawn, and we will reveal all in next months issue!

The first of Christmas beer will be launched as well toward the end of the month, so look out for Abbey Christmas, Slay Bells, Dr Morton’s Damn Good Stuffing, Dr Morton’s Paranoid Snowman and a Christmas Pudding Beer to get your mitts on! We are also hosting a special beer and food pairing at the Showroom on November 26th, tickets available directly from the Showroom and it sounds like they are selling very fast indeed! Cheers and Beers! Team Abbeydale