Author: Andy Cullen

Wait ages for a Steel City beer then three come along at once… sort of! Three collaborations, two ‘away’ and one ‘home’. Firstly, away at Imperial in Mexborough along with Isaac from Catalan brewery Reptilian. Isaac’s favourite style is Double IPA (His IBUprofano weighs in at 9.5% and 256IBU!), so Dave and Dale were happy to indulge… As it was brewed the weekend after Britain lost its collective mind, the brew is named ‘Turkeys Voting for Xmas’, and is 8.5% and a slightly more restrained 130IBU. A base of pale malt and oats keeps the colour as light as possible, while fermenting out as far as the yeast would go means it avoids the stickiness and booziness found in many DIPAs, allowing the Centennial, Citra, Chinook and El Dorado hops to shine. Next day, back at ‘home’, Dave and Isaac (with cameo appearance from Steel City & Hopcraft brewer Gazza and Waen Brewster Sue) brewed Forked Tongues, a Grapefruit Transatlantic Pale Ale. Dave had been planning a grapefruit beer for some time, but as always seems to happen before he got round to it every other brewer in the country did one…! Forked Tongues is 5.5% and 120IBU, with a pale malt and wheat base, Columbus and Magnum hops for bittering, Chinook and Mosaic hops for flavour, and of course an obscene amount of grapefruit. A special one-off keg was produced for Cotteridge Wines’ 21st birthday bash with the addition of orange, and according to Untappd is one of the best-received Steel City beers ever! Forked Tongues will be harder than usual to find, as most of it is being shipped to Catalunya, but the usual suspects (Shakespeare, Devonshire Cat and Dronfield Arms) will be getting some. The beer is unfined, so is likely to be hazy, if this is successful Steel City will probably go unfined permanently – who wants fish in their beer anyway? Finally, back to Mexborough for a four-way collab (originally planned as nine-way but trying to get that many brewers in one place is like herding cats…), involving Imperial, Steel City, Raw and James & Kirkman. Named If Tha’ Brexit, Tha Fixes It, the brew is a Transatlantic Pale Ale featuring a multitude of hops including Dana, Centennial, Summit, Topaz and Ahtanum. Unfortunately given the theme for the names, the guys didn’t have any European hops to hand! Dave Szwejkowski

With summer well and truly here we’ve been struggling to keep up demand for our core beers, but have managed to sneak in one or two exciting specials for your enjoyment!  First off we have our Session IPA, brewed in collaboration with Stuart from North Riding brewery and heavily hopped with Comet, Cascade and Chinook for a tropical fruit aroma, an intensely citrussy flavour and a long dry finish. We’ve also just racked off ALMIGHTY ZEUS, a 7.2% triple dry hopped IPA, which, as the name suggests, is packed full of Zeus hops, but with the addition of a little Comet for a more celestial feel.  Expect orange notes, followed by a big pine hit before a lightly spicy finish.  The ABV is well hidden, so treat Zeus with respect or feel his wrath! We’ve lots more exciting beers in the pipeline, including return collaborations with North Riding, Steel City and Neepsend, so watch this space! Edd Entwhistle.