The last couple of years have been tough on cask beer, both for producers and the pubs that sell it. A combination of government guidelines and hesitation among the public at returning to venues and public spaces led to nationwide decline in the category, as consumers opted to stay at home and drink small pack beer instead.
With pubs reopening and a return to normal hopefully not too far on the horizon, things are starting to look up for cask. Legendary Derbyshire brewery Thornbridge certainly think so, unveiling their plans for a cask Year of Beer for 2022.
Started in 2017, Year of Beer is a project where Thornbridge announces a new draught beer for every month of the year. Originally envisioned as a way to give trade customers and consumers the means to plan ahead months in advance, it quickly evolved into something more ambitious: a showcase of the range of Thornbridge’s output, and an opportunity for their Brewing team to explore and innovate with different styles.
The rise of Covid-19 and national lockdowns in the UK seriously affected Thornbridge’s huge plans for their 15th Anniversary in 2020, where they had planned a year of highly innovative keg beer and cask collaborations with the best and brightest of British brewing. The continued stresses of the pandemic prevented a Year of Beer announcement for 2021, so 2022 is a triumphant return to form for a brewery that has always pioneered craft and cask beer.
We’ve already seen Hacksaw, an East Coast IPA with all the haziness and tropical fruit flavours that entails, and you might have had a chance to try the return of Twin Peaks, an Anglo American pale ale that when it was first released in 2013, was California brewing legend Sierra Nevada’s first UK collaboration. The rest of the year promises to go from strength to strength, with Thornbridge putting out everything from a Golden Mild to a Pina Colada pale, by way of returning cult favourite ice cream porter Salted Caramel Lucaria. Perhaps most excitingly, Thornbridge has teamed with rising star of Mexican Brewing, Cervecera Macaria, to create Carlotta, a Mole inspired Chili Chocolate Mexican Stout, in time for Cinco de Mayo. This is a truly excellent year for drinkers of cask beer.
Simon Webster, Chief Executive Officer of Thornbridge Brewery says:“Cask beer has always been in our DNA, from our very earliest days brewing at the hall to today. The last couple of years have unfortunately required us to make less of it than we’d have liked, but that’s why we’re all the more excited to get it into people’s hands this year. We’re so lucky to have such a talented team of brewers working for us and such an enthusiastic audience ready to sample their creations, and hopefully this Year of Beer will do them all proud.”
But cask is not all in Thornbridge’s future. Their Market Leading craft beer subscription Thornbridge Beer Club continues to grow at a steady rate, augmenting the online and direct sale aspects of their business that saw an explosion during lockdown. This is boosted by their growing output of packaged beer, including brand new projects and series that have been gaining momentum already. Combine that with the recently launched Thornbridge Experience at their taproom and brewery in Bakewell, and it looks like this legendary brewery has much more to give in 2022.
It’s a bold move to try and muscle in on Sheffield’s bustling beer market with so many great breweries in and around the cask-centric city. Despite a global pandemic also adding to the list of challenges he has faced (and will continue to face), Sam Bennett, owner of Grizzly Grains Brewing, is doing just that. A former charity worker, and now full time with the brewery, Sam is one of the latest producers trying to add to Sheffield’s broad brewing heritage, doing things the Grizzly way.
Only a stone’s throw away from the city centre, Sam is ideally situated when it comes to spreading his beer around the vast array of pubs on his doorstep. But, after looking at his operation, he is a one-man-band in the truest sense of the term. Sharing his premises with another project he’s involved with, a local beekeepers and honey producer, his brewing kit isn’t quite as big as you may think.
Sam initially started on a pilot kit in his cellar at his home in Walkley, before moving onto his current site now at Sheaf Gardens, “It was either a large home brewers kit or a very, very small brewing kit,” Sam explains as part of the recent podcast we recorded together. But he wasn’t phased by the scale on which he could initially produce and Sam appreciates the task ahead of him and how lucky he is to be able to supply his local area, “We really are spoiled in Sheffield for the quality and number of pubs that we have got.”
“The original plan was to brew on a really tiny scale and see if it was good enough,” Sam continues, reiterating the quality of beer he finds himself surrounded with locally. Being local doesn’t grant you a free pass into the beer scene, you’ve got to prove yourself and that’s exactly what he did and continues to do. Faced with the closures of the pubs he was attempting to supply, like many, Sam had to change how he operated for a short time, “I wasn’t geared for anything other than cask to begin with. I brewed [roughly] every fortnight into casks, filled bags in boxes and did home delivery.”
Due to his scale, this may not have been the most profitable method of him shifting his beer, but it helped him continue to promote his brand whilst his outlets were closed. Following this success, he continued with small pack and bottled his beers into 2021 until pubs began to tentatively open their doors once again. “I started to do a couple of keg runs, but continued to do bottles as it was nice to get things into bottle shops,” Sam goes on to say, once again emphasising the availability of quality beer he is surrounded with and also competing against.
Now operating on a slightly larger kit, Sam believes he has found his niche with which to carve his own path and identity. “When I started, I thought I was going to do loads of keg beers that were really hoppy. The further I get with this, I’m happy to be a more traditional and cask led brewery, with 80-90% of my output now being in cask,” Sam tells me, which he is extremely pleased with. But, just like being local, shipping in cask doesn’t count if the product isn’t up to muster or pique the interest of potential customers, so how does he do that?
“I made four fruited saisons, a rauchbier and a sourdough fermented sour ale last year (2021), and I’m currently in the process of making a Roggenbier,” Sam proudly tells me, showing he isn’t afraid to do things a little differently. It’s this difference that sets him apart, which is demonstrated by his fruited saisons and his sour ale, Hunt for Bread October, as he works with local producers to source ingredients for his beers. Bread October was fermented purely on a sourdough culture from a local baker whilst a local orchard donated apples to be used in his apple saison that would’ve otherwise gone to waste. The brewery owner is also involved in a local program, the Sheffield Wheat Experiment, which is a community project that is trying to grow a wheat crop specific to Sheffield’s climate.
It’s these nuances that are giving Sam not only a great USP for his beers, but also allowing him to demonstrate his passion and commitment to his local community and trying to make a more sustainable future for his business and the industry as a whole. It’s this locality that has ultimately established him thus far, “Without the likes of Shakespeares and Walkley Beer Company buying my beer, Grizzly Grains wouldn’t be where it is today,” Sam concludes, with both companies stocking his beers on a regular basis.
There are many issues facing the beer industry right now, but sustainability is at the very forefront given the rising costs many brewers are currently facing. They may be small steps, but they are very important nonetheless not only helping Sam build Grizzly Grains’ brand, but also helping change the ways in which we consume and produce beer in the future.
If you want to learn more about Grizzly Grains, you can listen to the podcast I recorded with him on all major podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple and Google.
To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March, the women of Pivovar Bars came down to Sheffield to brew a beer with the Tapped Brew Co team.
Along with choosing the name and the hop for the single hopped pale, they helped to brew the beer. The beer is Dea Latis, named after the Celtic goddess of beer. This beer is a 4.5% single hopped pale using El Dorado hops.
To be launched at the Sheffield Tap and Pivovar Bars along with a guest appearance at the Market Cat in York on International Women’s Day, 8 March. Big Thanks to the staff from Pivni, York Tap and Market Cat for a great day in the brewery.
Ben, Tapped Brew Co
Discussing the malt billMashing-in teamHop additionDigging out the mashMashing InKeeping an eye on the run off
The consultation seeks feedback and views on lots of areas of the campaign. This includes our events, communications, complaints process, and the experiences of people volunteering with us and attending our events.
The review is about understanding our membership so we can look at our existing equality and diversity policies and processes, identify what we are doing we well, and where there are gaps, weaknesses or improvements that should be made. You can read more about the review, and the review group leading at camra.org.uk/inclusivity-diversity-and-equality-review.
The consultation will be running until Monday 14 February, please take the opportunity to have your say.
We have two beers out to celebrate Sheffield Beer Week, taking place from 7th-13th March! It’s always a wonderful time to go for a few pints in our fantastic home town with absolutely loads going on, and we’re paying homage to our city’s brewing traditions with Sheffield Rocks (4.1%), a heritage pale ale given our own modern twist. A balanced beer, completely characterised by drinkability and made using all UK ingredients. We were joined by Sheffield brewing legend Stuart Noble in the brewhouse for this one, who has been in the industry since 1974 and has a wealth of knowledge and experience to share from his time at breweries including John Smith’s, Courage and Bass.
And we did tease you with this last month, but do also look out for Wanderer – Cryo NEIPA (6.0%), which is the new name for a rebrew of our popular collaboration with Peddler Market, previously known as Cryo Huckster. Super juicy, hazy, and delicious.
Our springtime special, Reverie (4.2%) makes a return this month with a tweaked recipe, notably a hop boost from Centennial Cryo. The result should be a refreshing pale ale with notes of zesty citrus and resinous pine.
For something a little different, we’re incredibly excited that for the first time in our 26 year history, we’ve made an ESB! This one is the next in our Restoration series and we’ve kept it classic, with Fuggles and Goldings hops. Just super drinkable, timeless and tasty.
Lastly, and something we might be even more excited for – Voyager: There & Back Again. Effectively a double Voyager, this Triple IPA weighs in at 11.2% and features the same West Coast bitterness/East Coast fruitiness hybrid that you know and love, but with all those juicy tropical notes singing even more loudly and an extra intensity in the finish.
Hope to catch plenty of you for a pint either at Indie Beer Feast (4th & 5th March) or during Sheffield Beer Week itself!
After a tumultuous 2021, Sheffield Beer Week sees a welcome return to the city, 7-13 March 2022. The event will be a much-needed boost for the city, the hospitality and brewing sector.
Sheffield Beer Week’s ongoing strands include Beer & Food, Community & Heritage; with additional 2022 strands including our Harrogate Beer Week collaborative focus, creating welcoming spaces for everyone in the beer scene with Out & About (@outandaboutsheff) and International Women’s Day events and celebrating our access to vital green spaces under The Outdoor City banner.
There’ll be a continued intertwining via a hybrid of online and in-person elements with a key online talk exploring beer and brewing research with leading international professionals. From Lars Marius Garshol (Norwegian farmhouse brewing), Dr Christina Wade (Irish beer history), Ron Pattinson (beer historian), Tim Holt (Brewery History Society) and the Sheffield Feminist Archive. Our collaborative partnership with Harrogate Beer Week will showcase North Yorkshire breweries in South Yorkshire with a friendly cross-county beer week focal point, highlighting the positive nature of beer tourism.
Sheffield breweries Heist Brew Co. and Lost Industry will be brewing up beers for International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day (@IWCBD/unitebrew.org) on International Women’s Day – 8 March (look out for additional events). As Visit Sheffield’s The Outdoor City hosts a month long celebration of the green spaces and adventure trails in the city through March, Sheffield Beer Week will showcase beer and history walks (via local historian Dave Pickersgill, editor of CAMRA’s Sheffield’s Real Heritage Pubs), a running and beer social club and highlight the ‘Right to Roam’ campaign (righttoroam.org.uk) alongside the 90th anniversary of the Kinder Mass Trespass with Sunday Times best-selling author Nick Hayes (The Book of Trespass), Brewery of St Mars of the Desert, Sheffield Beer Week and Hop Hideout.
On the weekend of 4-5 March, to kick-off the week, Sheffield’s craft beer festival, Indie Beer Feast launches. A celebration of great independent craft beer with brewery bars, street food, low intervention wines and fine cider. The beer festival champions and supports The Everyone Welcome initiative. British Guild of Beer Writers’ member and leading UK award-winning beer writer Adrian Tierney-Jones will be heading up to host pop-up tastings and to judge the Indie Beer Feast Beer of the Festival; this year’s theme is hope. Breweries pouring include Sheffield outfits St Mars of the Desert, Lost Industry and Abbeydale. Plus bars from Women on Tap showcasing female led breweries and beer collaborations and Craft Beer Newcastle highlighting a myriad of brilliant breweries from the North East. In addition to Manchester’s Pomona Island, Liverpool’s Neptune, Derbyshire’s Torrside and Pentrich, Norfolk’s Duration, Cheshire’s Mobberley Brewhouse, Nottingham’s Black Iris, Wales’ Wilderness, Scotland’s Fyne Ales and Donzoko Brewing, London’s Rock Leopard and North Yorkshire’s Turning Point Brew Co. They’ll also be a bigger focus on cider with both Ross and Hogan’s hosting bars and low intervention wines with Naturally Wines showcasing their Italian portfolio.
For details of public transport options linking the venues head over to Travel South Yorkshire. “CityWide” All day and weekly unlimited travel passes that work on all the buses and trams in the city are available from Travelmaster.
After a relatively quiet year for obvious reasons, Steel City had a late resurgence in activity starting with the latest iteration of the Megacollab. This year’s concept had been kicking around for a while between Dave, Niall off of the Wellington, and McGregor off of various facey beer groups, and was brewed with Lost Industry, Bexar County, Neepsend, Doomed, Top Rope and Ramsbury, plus Lewy off of Lewis Ryan Art, who designed the epic label. Sour was the aim of the game, with a three day double pitch lacto steep and the addition of grapefruit, redcurrant and an unholy quantity of citric acid. A limited edition spinoff, Drop Acid Not Bombs, was brewed with Lemondrop hops in place of the fruit, with just one keg for the Welly and a few cans produced. Brewday was great fun though rain put paid to the usual barbecue and cricket so instead it was a big pot of curry and a nerf gun battle…
Also release in the autumn was the long-awaited Sour Wars first trilogy, with a keg launch at the Crow followed by cans at selected dealers – Hop Hideout may have a few left though maybe not by time you read this! The variants are: Episode 1 The Cranachan Menace – raspberry, mead and a touch of vanilla in a highland whisky barrel; Episode 2 Attack of the Stones – cherries in a red wine barrel; Episode 3 Orange of the Sith – hurricane sour with passionfruit, lemon, lime and orange in a rum barrel. Planning is now underway for the second trilogy to be brewed shortly and released Autumn 2022. A few kegs of the first trilogy remain for future events planned in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester.
The latest in the frankly ridiculous series of one-off brews with Lucienne off of the Shakespeare surpassed even the previous brews (barbecue stout and hoi sin stout) for silliness, being a branston pickle porter! After ‘deconstructing’ the ingredients of the pickle, Dave and Lucienne procured a load of dates, apples, tamarind, mustard seeds, molasses, brown sugar… even they drew the line at pickled onions though! It was certainly, erm, interesting! Opinion was certainly divided, as expected some low Untappd scores but also some decent scores from those who rated it for what it is – nobody could deny it tasted of pickle! Dave and Lucienne certainly proved that they could, but not necessarily that they should…
Plans are afoot for 2022 including a tonka stout ‘I’ve Had My Fun And That’s All That Matters’ (and a BA version ‘I’ve Had My Rum And That’s All That Matters’), a sour NEIPA ‘Exercises in Futility’, plus Steel City’s first band collab, and no doubt more crazy stuff for the Shakey…
Happy New Year everyone and here’s hoping that at the time of reading this you’re sat in one of our wonderful local pubs enjoying a delicious pint!
At the time of writing, it’s fair to say that our plan is a little bit up in the air as we are doing our best to remain flexible and adaptable in light of ever-changing circumstances, but here’s what we’re hoping you will be able to find on bars throughout February!
Dr Morton’s Duck Baffler (4.1%) is a staple of our range at this time of year, so we’re looking forward to having this Citra single hopped pale ale back in our lives! Also on the pale ale front, we’re teaming up with Charles Faram, one of our excellent hop suppliers, to try out an experimental hop for the next of our Hopback series. Tantalisingly titled CF247, it’s one of the stickiest, oilest hops produced in the UK to date and should hold dank, tropical notes alongside yummy berry flavours.
The next of our Salvation series will be an Irish Stout (4.5%), classic and more-ish with a smooth, roasted malt character and soft notes of chocolate and coffee. Bitter and sweet in perfect balance!
Remember Huckster Cryo, our collaboration with Peddler Market? Well it’s back, but with a new face! We’ve brought it in line with our Brewers’ Emporium range and it will soon be released as Wanderer – Cryo NEIPA (6.0%). The recipe has stayed exactly the same so expect all the juicy, tropical good vibes you know and love.
We’re also lining up some exciting releases in time for Sheffield Beer Week, which we’re really looking forward to in March, so keep your eyes peeled for more news on that!
…And if things don’t play out in quite the way we’re currently hoping, we will of course have plenty of beer out in can too, so please do pay a local beer shop (or our online store) a visit!
I last wrote about Ukraine for this esteemed publication in 2013 – I booked a follow-up trip for 2014, and two days later Russia invaded/liberated (delete as applicable) Crimea, and by the time we were due to fly from Donetsk airport it had been reduced to rubble. The Curse of Unpro strikes again! I then planned a trip in 2020, didn’t end up going, can’t remember why… then last month I was idly browsing Skyscanner for inspiration when I saw Manchester to Lviv, out that Friday morning, back Monday night, fiver each way – I couldn’t say no!
I’ve never been a fan of morning flights, I’d have far rather flown Thursday night, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that… the 0245 alarm to get up for the 0325 train to the airport did nothing to change my opinion though! Flight was pretty empty and so I took advantage of a row of three seats to get my head down for a couple of hours. Landed on time at Lviv airport, showed my passport and vaccination certificate and I was in, no longer have to fill in any forms unlike previous visits. Got some cash out as wasn’t sure how widespread card use would be (practically non-existent apart from bigger hotels and restaurants in 2013) and bought a SIM card (200 hryvnia/£6 for 20GB valid for a month, bargain) from what looked like a market stall selling knock-off DVDs, then went outside and summoned an Uber to town for the princely sum of £3.
I’d done some preliminary research on Ratebeer and Untappd, and for Friday focussed on Untappd ‘verified venues’ (i.e. ones with real time taplists so knew what beers were available). First up was the Drunken Duck, nestled in the old town, a smallish place but with about 16 taps and a fridge of interesting cans and bottles, the food looked good but I didn’t have time to partake. As well as the 0.3l and 0.5l measures seemingly standard in Ukraine, they also offer 150ml (just under a third of a pint) so I set about trying as many as possible in the time, as well as grabbing a couple of ‘train beers’ for my journey to Ivano-Frankivsk. I tried a couple of sours, but they missed the mark a bit with some odd aftertastes, several stouts and porters, and a somewhat bizarre Borsch (yes, as in the beetroot soup!) gose from Red Cat.
From here it was a short walk to Choven, a few steps down from the street in an old building, and with 18 taps of local craft. I didn’t have long here so I focussed on having a beer from each brewery I hadn’t encountered at the Duck. This led to a variety of IPAs, an imperial stout from Gentlemalt, and the best beer so far Ten MenNot For Breakfast, a raspberry sour absolutely packed with fruit.
Third and final bar for the day was Lviv Craft Beer University of St Christopher, another downstairs bar, where among others I had Double Travmato from Didko, Hot Salsa V3 from Hoppy Hog and Blackberry Rolls stout from Kyivska Manufaktura. The former was one of several beers I found made with tomatoes, seems to be a big thing over there, but what can I say when I just brewed a Branston Pickle beer…
I then took the train to Ivano-Frankivsk, again far easier than previous trips – in 2013 you could book online but had to take the booking to a ticket office to get the actual ticket issued, and in 2008 there was no online booking at all, you had to go to the ticket office to try to communicate what you wanted, and if you resorted to writing it down it had to be in Cyrillic… now you simply book online and show your ticket on your ‘phone to the provodnik/provodnitsa (each carriage has its own attendant) along with your vaccination certificate and you’re good to go. Another advantage of the online booking is you can choose your place, so I’d made sure to pick a compartment with nobody else in. Drank my train beers, an excellent Black Bean tonka imperial stout from Varvar, and Apricot Sorbet Sour from Underwood.
Arrival at Ivano-Frankivsk was around half an hour late, unusual for Ukraine, and by the time I’d walked to Hotel Nadiya and checked in it was past 11pm and as I’d been up since 3am I called it a night rather than seeking any of the bars, even though they were close to the hotel.
Saturday I partook in the excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel (it cost 50p more to book with breakfast than without so I had to get my money’s worth…) before heading out to explore the surrounding area – train to Vorokhta, another to Kolomiya, then a third back to IF to complete a triangular trip. Not much beer-wise at Vorokhta but was a scenic journey. At Kolomiya there’s nothing on Ratebeer or Untappd, but I stumbled upon Beer Zhe (Beer Men) opposite the station, a ‘draught bottling’ bar similar to the one I discovered in Luhansk in 2013, where beers are dispensed from kegs into PET bottles between 500ml and 5 litres, so I got a couple of small bottles for the next leg of the journey, nowt special, just a couple of pale beers from a local brewery.
Back in Ivano-Frankivsk, I had intended to go to the Tsypa Taphouse, the highest rated bar on Ratebeer, sadly at some point in the last two years it seems to have closed down. However I found a few other bars to keep me occupied for the evening and Sunday. First up was Pivni Klub Desyitka, an underground bar with a glass street level entrance not much bigger than a ‘phone box, indeed I walked straight past it before I knew what I was looking for, once inside it’s got a kind of German brauhaus feel. Only three craft beers so didn’t stay long, these were Hoppy Lager and Milk Stout from Varvar and Kohane lager from the bar’s eponymous local brewery but not actually onsite.
I then went in search of brewpub Pinta Pab, I found a pub in the right place but called Fyst Pab, guessing recently taken over as Untappd still showed the former identity. Similarly the house beers appeared as Moi brewery but on the beer menu were shown as Fyst Pab. Of their own I tried IPA One, a fairly 2005-era East Coast IPA being dark amber with sweetness and bitterness, and Stout, then from the guests had Apache red ale from Stanislavska Galba and Medova Rosa amber lager by Good Brewery.
Gost Bar is a fairly modern looking bar and has a couple of craft beers on draught, I had GonirIPA before moving to the fridge or bottles of MOVAStout V and CNRIPA. I got chatting to a local at the bar who spoke very good English, and she told me a couple of other places to try that weren’t on my radar. The first of these was Prom Bar, in a multi-outlet factory conversion – from outside it looks almost derelict with almost every window on the lower floors smashed, but the top floor has been renovated in a similar vein to Cutlery Works. At the far end is the bar, I only had time for a quick sour from 2085 brewery before they closed at 2100.
I ran out of time to visit Copperhead brewpub but had tried a couple of their beers in Lviv at least so my final stop was another brewpub, Bartik. The brewery is visible behind the bar, and a number of beers were available. Luckily they did a ‘desyitka’ (tasting board) of 6 x 150ml, unluckily it included the Ginger Ale! The beers were fairly German in style, apart from the last one I tried, Kriekbier, it lacked the sourness I could tell it was aiming for but was at least not alcoholic cherryade as so many non-lambic ‘krieks’ seem to be.
Sunday night I took a train back to Lviv, alas rather busy so I couldn’t get a compartment to myself, but still managed some sleep. After three days of cold but crisp dry weather, Monday was decidedly damp and later turned to snow. I spent the morning being touristy before heading to Re:Bro for lunch. This is a fairly modern setup, with a kitchen offering a wide range of traditional Ukrainian dishes as well as burgers, pizzas etc, and a bar with a dozen taps. Unusually, 0.5l is the only measure offered, but as prices were around 70-80 hryvnia (less than £3) it was no big deal, just meant I didn’t get to try as many beers as I would otherwise, just had the two sours: Didko Never Again, a citrus sour, and the slightly crazy Odd Brew (aptly named!) Smth Odd: Sea Buckthorn Tonka Lactose El Dorado Sour, which was very fruity, slightly sour with a sweet edge from the lactose and tonka.
Next I walked to Lemberk, only to be defeated as the opening hours on google turned out to be incorrect, and it wasn’t open. Luckily, next door was Krani, another ‘draught bottle’ shop plus also had cans and bottles in fridge. I bought three draught and a couple of cans, drinking the draught ones as I walked to the next bar as I’m classy like that…
One of the few Ukrainian breweries known outside the country is Varvar, not seen them on sale in the UK but used to be able to order from Dutch website Beerdome until they stopped shipping to the UK for some reason… They have a taproom in Lviv (as well as at least Kyiv and Odesa), Mad, which is arranged over 5 floors, the concept being each floor up is higher in alcohol, so the beer bar is on the ground floor, then the wine bar, finishing with a spirit bar on the top floor. On this occasion I stayed on the ground floor, trying a couple of Varvar’s IPAs and taking away a bottle of a barrel aged wild ale which I ended up drinking at the airport.
100 yards from Varvar and opposite the impressive Town Hall in Rynok Square is Pravda Beer Theatre, formerly a brewpub but with the beers now brewed elsewhere. Beers are mostly served from tanks, and many are Belgian styles, not really my cup of tea but I had to try a couple, plus a mint wheat beer!
Less than half a mile from there are two more bars on the same pedestrianised street, where I was to finish my trip. First up, Bratyska is a fairly industrial looking bar, a dozen taps, I went for Copperhead Triple Berry Sour, Kyiv LocalMango & Passionfruit Sour and MOVAC.C.Citra IPA. Finally a few doors down is Zolotij Kolos (‘Golden Ear’), a beer and pizza place with a superb range of both, but one thing missing – seats! I’d been looking forward to sitting down with a few beers and a pizza but they only have standing tables, bizarre. Still the pizza was good, and I had some good beers including Volta Sangrita Red Orange Gose, Bad Beaver Double IPA, 2085 14 Kveik Vanilla Lemon Tart sour and finishing on another excellent smoothie sour from Ten Men, my favourite brewery of the trip, Berry Smoothie: MBR Blueberry Raspberry Marshmallow Gose.
All that remained was a Bolt to the airport, drink my remaining bottles and cans, and fly home… on the Saturday I’d seen the news that the PCR test scam was coming back and this time with quarantine requirement until result, fortunately by Sunday it had been clarified this would apply from 0400 Tuesday, so I beat the deadline by just a few hours! Another quiet flight back, making the last train to Sheffield by the skin of my teeth (why TPE can’t run a later train I don’t know, given how many flights land late at night…). An excellent trip overall, I’ve always enjoyed Ukraine and now it’s easier than ever to get to, and easier when you’re there (Bolt and Uber so much easier than communicating directly with drivers who speak no English, cards taken most places, SIM cards easy to acquire so can use google maps etc), and still cheap as chips with craft beer mostly under £3 for half litre (and unlike the neighbour to the west, smaller measures are correctly priced pro-rata), good hotels around £20 a night, a 12 hour overnight train in a sleeper around £20, Uber/Bolt £1-2 a ride, local trams and buses 25p a ride, etc. I can thoroughly recommend a visit and intend to head back early next year, Covid-permitting.
2021 – the year of our 25th anniversary! I think it’s fair to say it hasn’t been quite the year we’d planned (a Zoom night in, whilst very enjoyable – and you can watch it here – wasn’t quite the party we’d had in mind!) but we’ve made the most of it, we’ve celebrated in as many ways as we could, and most importantly we’re still here and ready to roll into 2022.
In amongst all the uncertainty and challenges, we have a lot to be positive about and thankful for. We’ve brewed over 2 million pints this year – mashing in over 330 times across a whopping 82 different beers. This means we’ve managed to increase our production levels back above those seen in 2020 by around 20% – although we’re still approximately 35% down on what we brewed in 2019. Cask now comprises just over 70% of our total output.
The beers we released in celebration of our 25th anniversary were definitely some of our highlights – bringing back popular old favourites Brimstone and Last Rites, plus twists on some of our much loved regular beers including Cryo Heathen & Double Deception, and some big hearty stouts for good measure. And our Funk Dungeon project joined in the celebrations too, including our first big bottle releases with the launch of our Cellar Master’s Reserve series (stay tuned for more of these to come!)
The cornerstone of our Brewers’ Emporium range, Heathen has had quite a year too, with Fresh Hop Heathen making a guest appearance as well as Cryo Heathen – which we’d initially intended to be a special brewed just for our birthday, but which you all loved so much we had to do again in the autumn! We’ve got a few more twists on our APA up our sleeves for 2022, so watch this space. And Moonshine is still by far our most popular beer, making up more than 4 of every 10 pints we make (although pre-Covid it was consistently over 50% of our total volume, which is a good reflection of how much we’ve diversified in this ever-pivoting world!).
Our canning line, which you may remember arrived in the first few weeks of lockdown in April 2020, continues to prove itself a very valuable part of our team. We’ve released 59 different beers in can (over 17,500 cases in total), which accounts for about 16% of our total output – interestingly, a very similar proportion to that seen in 2020. Minikegs were filled with just under 1% of everything we made… which is almost the exact same figure as what we were releasing in keg just 7 years ago – how far we’ve come!
We added some wonderful new members to our team this year, with Chris and Ewan adding to our little fleet of drivers who’ve been busy meeting and delivering to our 1000+ direct pub, bar and beer shop customers, and Ash, Thom and Dan joining our brewteam. They’ve all settled in brilliantly and we’re looking forward to them creating and sharing their first recipes in 2022! This little bit of this post does also give us the opportunity to do a huge shout out and enormous thank you to our wonderful staff: it’s their flexibility, patience, ingenuity and willingness to do whatever they could to keep us moving forwards and working together which has guided the business through these very challenging times. This of course includes the fantastic team at our pub, the Rising Sun, who have coped admirably with changing regulations throughout the past couple of years and continually provided a warm, welcoming atmosphere at the heart of the community.
And on the topic of new additions, in March, our designer James and his wife welcomed their baby boy Phoenix Johns Murphy to the world… so it was felt the naming of our last Geoglyph beer would be a suitable way of celebrating his arrival! The beers within this range of pale ales were all named after constellations that correlate with the Nazca lines of Peru (more on the series here). No Phoenix Geoglyph exists, but James wasn’t about to let that get in the way of his artistic vision and so created one! The actual Phoenix constellation can be found in the Southern Hemisphere during the winter months.
Collaborations have been a little trickier to co-ordinate this year, so have played a smaller part in our production than we’d have hoped, but we have loved hosting Queer Brewing along with Out & About Sheffield to create two beers with us (which have also been raising money for local organisation SAYiT, who we will be making a donation to early next year), and we’ve also made an as-yet unreleased cider-beer hybrid with the excellent Ascension Cider, so look out for that one in 2022. In addition, we have welcomed local tea purveyors Batch Tea Co and members of the Institute of Brewing & Distilling to brew with us over the course of the year. Our team have visited other breweries as far afield as… erm… still Sheffield, making a mountain IPA with our pal Scott, previously of Team Abbeydale and now head brewer at Heist, and also venturing down to London to create a Margarita inspired Gose with ORA Brewing.
For obvious reasons, events have also been just a small feature of our year, but we were privileged to be selected as one of three breweries to create a nationwide collaboration for Indie Beer Shop Day, producing a special beer to celebrate the wonderful independent beer shop sector in the UK. And we did manage to celebrate Funk Fest in style – this year we went mixed venue for our mixed fermentation celebration, with Sheffield becoming a city of sour for Halloween week! Looking ahead to next year – if, fingers crossed, things return to whatever anyone can remember as normality, we WILL be having that big party for our 25th-and-a-bit birthday! And hopefully will be able to get out and about a little more to say hello to you all in person too.
An ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who’s supported us this year – whether that’s as one of our amazing trade customers, by buying a pint in a pub, some cans from our shop or one of the fantastic retailers we supply, or simply sending us a little hello on social media – it really is hugely appreciated by us all. We’re a team that love what we do, and we hope that shows in the beers we produce. Once again, our staff, industry peers, customers and community have shown what an adaptable, resilient, imaginative and overall really rather wonderful bunch they are, and it’s that which has made our 25th birthday year one to remember.
