Neepsend Craft Beer Festival, held at Peddlers Warehouse on 27 and 28 February, predominantly features brewery bars and street food traders, however one of the attractions hosted by the festival organisers is a dedicated cask ale bar showcasing breweries from around Sheffield and North Derbyshire with the ticket price including a complimentary drink from this bar.
Announced as supplying this bar so far are Heist, Triple Point, Intrepid, Tapped Brew Co, Bradfield, Abbeydale, Little Critters, Duality, Ashover, Neepsend, Blue Bee, Loxley and Temper.
Visitors are also invited to vote for their favourite cask beer on the bar.
I was recently invited by George Bushell from the Shakespeare to join him and his colleague Charlie Slack at Loxley Brewery for a brewday. As part of Sheffield Beer Week, the Shakespeare is currently working with several Sheffield breweries and local businesses to produce a range of collaboration beers which will be available during Beer Week – watch the Shakespeare’s socials for details, but at time of writing these were planned to include:
Loxley – Bitter
Abbeydale – El Dorado Deception
Little Critters with Nam Song (Vietnamese restaurant in Broomhill) – Vietnamese coffee stout
Little Mesters/Emmanuales – NZ Rye Pale
Duality Brew Co with Freak St (Nepalese cafe in Walkley) – Juicy IPA
Triple Point – Miso Caramel Mild (and some special pins)
Not all are yet brewed and some may change! A launch is planned for Monday 9 March.
Loxley Brewery was started in 2018 by David Woodhead in a disused garage beneath the Wisewood Inn in Loxley. David, a friend of Wisewood’s owner Stephen Wesley, home brewed before taking on the new role and now mostly supplies beer to Wisewood, Raven (Walkley) and No3 (Sharrow) as well as producing bottle-conditioned real ale on premises. With his assistant Christian, David brews about 3 times a fortnight on the 5BBL custom-built kit.
George, Charlie and I all arrived when the mash was already on, and got to have a good chat with David and Christian about the brewery, and David’s brewing history and prior life in the steel industry. We did a lot of standing around with further talk during the sparge phase – in advance of the day the major elements I knew of for the brewing process were the amounts of waiting involved, with intermittent bursts of cleaning – all of which proved true.
We took turns to ceremoniously shovel bins of spent grain from the tun, which all goes to a good home as animal feed. We also weighed up the hops for the boil, probably our only other contribution for the day! I found it to be a very interesting day and having only had a basic understanding of the steps involved, it was a good learning experience for all the hard work that goes into every pint we sit down with.
At this point the Wisewood Inn had opened for the day and we celebrated what should be an excellent bitter with a pint and a chip butty!
A huge thanks to everyone at Loxley, the Wisewood Inn and the Shakespeare – keep an eye on their social media for upcoming events and where to drink the beer when it’s out.
Recent brews at Blue Bee include a 4% pale ale brewed with a new hop called Karma and a red rye ale triple hopped with Mosaic, Citra and Ekuanot.
New from Drone Valley Brewery is “Route A61”, an American Red Rye Ale, celebrating the brewery’s 10th birthday. For those that don’t know the area part of the A61 road is the Dronfield bypass!
Another recent seasonal was Union Pale, a 4.1% ABV session pale ale brewed with Simcoe and Mosaic hops to coincide with the Six Nations rugby.
As is usual in February, Bradfield Brewery celebrated Valentines Day with their “Farmers Blushed”, a 4% ABV light fruity ale blushed with strawberries to give a sweet, refreshing finish. Then for March their Farmers Milk Stout is making a comeback in cask. Additionally they will be releasing a special beer for Sheffield Beer Week.
Chin Chin Brewery in South Kirkby near Pontefract is holding one of their regular open weekends from 6 to 8 March from 1pm to 9pm each day. It features craft beer, live music and food stalls. The brewery is a 10 minute walk from Moorthorpe railway station on the Sheffield to Leeds line.
Changes are afoot on the brewery side at Heist Brew Co. with the rented fermenting vessels being returned and new kit due to be installed.
Thornbridge has brewed a stout on their Burton Union kit for the first time and have gone big for this one – it’s a 7.7% ABV Imperial Stout!
Things have gone a bit quiet on the Eyam Brewery tap room front with planning applications required then once the conversion work is authorised there is then licencing to sort – it isn’t a quick process! In the meantime they may host another pop up or two using temporary event notices and of course there are a number of pubs in the area that sell the beer.
New from Tapped Brew Co in their single hop series is “Mandarina Bavaria”, a 4% ABV pale ale described as “fruity, fun and fresh!
Sam from Little Mesters Brewing has been over to visit Torrside brewery for a collaboration brew. The resulting beer is expected to be “a little liquid sunshine” – a New Zealand Pale Ale brewed with Nelson Sauvin and Nectaron hops.
We’re getting a bit excited that brighter days and lighter nights might just be on the way, so we’re welcoming the new season with Springtime! A 4.1% light and tropical pale ale single hopped with Vista. Sweet, fruity notes of tangerine, cantaloupe melon and orchard pear couple with an aromatic hint of green tea.
Continuing the theme, a new addition to our natural print inspired series is Daffodil (3.9%). A deliciously fruity pale ale, with the lusciously juicy combination of Sabro and Amarillo hops. Expect flavours of clementine and pink grapefruit with a light dusting of toasted coconut.
Our Travel Poster series of collaborations with breweries that hold cask ale in just as high a regard as ourselves has seen us team up with the incredible Elusive Brewing! At the time of writing, the recipe for Escape to Reading is still a surprise, but suffice to say for now that we can’t wait for this brewday.
And last but by no means least – in celebration of our 30th anniversary, we’ve brought back Vespers for the first time since 2015! A 4.2% classic English Porter, back from the archives with reimagined artwork as part of our Legacy Series. Full of rich roast coffee and dark fruit notes, just the ticket for as dusk starts to fall…
Abbeydale Brewery has recently announced the launch of Reverence – their first low alcohol offering. A 0.5% pale ale, the beer is designed to be low in alcohol, but full of flavour, without sacrifice.
Loosely inspired by Heathen, Abbeydale Brewery’s popular American Pale Ale, Reverence is hopped using Mosaic for refreshing tropical flavours and notes of zesty grapefruit. As with their other beers, Reverence is gluten free.
This news comes as the brewery – the oldest in Sheffield and the current holders of the title of Employer of the Year from industry body SIBA – begin to celebrate their 30th anniversary year. With the “no and low” category showing huge growth, Abbeydale Brewery believe it has become more important than ever to invest and innovate to ensure they’re offering something to all their customers. Having introduced Sparkling Hop Water as an alcohol free option in 2024, the release of Reverence expands upon this and fills an identified gap within their extensive range.
Brewer and Quality Manager Christie McIntosh, who also sits on the board as Abbeydale’s Employee Representative, says “the release of Reverence is the culmination of many months of hard work, extensive research, and meticulous lab analysis, coupled with being able to take advantage of an array of technological advancements in the wider field. Our ethos is to make sure we’re offering the same experience to all those choosing to drink our products, and we believe that the final result is something that looks like beer, tastes like beer, is brewed like any other beer… and simply is a proper beer, for beer lovers, but with just a tiny fraction of the booze.”
Reverence is available in 440 ml cans directly from Abbeydale Brewery and via independent retailers.
First up, we’ve got a new collaboration for you! Brewed with the excellent folk at Ticking Clock Brew Co., It’s Always Sunny in Shireoaks will be a 4.2% pale ale using Dolcita, a new hop whose name means “little sweetie”! Promising notes of tropical pineapple and juicy peach, our production director John was lucky enough to sample beers brewed using Dolcita on his trip to the Yakima Hop Harvest last October and so we’re all really excited to try it.
Antelabbit (4.1%) makes a return within our “Mythical Creatures” series! This was the beer that launched this series back in May 2024 so we’re pleased to see it return. A tasty and refreshing pale ale, hopped with Galaxy and Centennial for tropical flavours backed up by a robust, piney finish.
New to our natural print inspired series, we have Magnolia (3.9%), an elegant pale ale brewed using UK grown Jester and Harlequin hops, lending notes of zesty marmalade and ripe grapefruit. And if you prefer a dark beer to a pale ale we’ve got you covered too, as Steadfast Stout (4.8%) returns to our Salvation series – a classic, no-nonsense, stouty kind of stout and a great winter warmer.
Well-known beer bloggers Boak & Bailey have been writing about beer since 2007, and obviously know a thing or two. Each year, in common with a few other writers, they produce their “Golden Pints” post, rounding up their favourite beers, breweries, pubs and taprooms of the year.
We’re delighted to see local brewery St Mars of The Desert getting a few mentions for 2025. Here’s what they had to say.
“Our favourite keg beer of 2025
We ended up rewriting this post in mid-December after an encounter with The Brewery of St Mars of the Desert (SMOD) in Sheffield last weekend. We’d heard how good their beer was from many sources over the years but had never actually made it there ourselves thanks to the distance, the pandemic, and our preference for pubs over taprooms. Many of the beers were fantastic but the one that nearly made us weep with joy was Rotkäppchen, an homage to the Rotbiers of Nuremberg at 4.4%. It made us feel like giddy baby beer geeks again. Wonderful.”
They were no less complimentary of St Mars as a brewery in general.
“Our favourite brewery of 2025
We made this choice some months ago after we found ourselves walking into a pub, seeing several taps with this brewery’s beer on offer, and thinking: “Oh, excellent! This is going to be a good session…”
It’s Newbarns whose beers we’ve seen in Bristol quite a bit this year. We’ve been impressed by their precise, scholarly takes on Continental styles, and by their vibrant freshness. Only one or two have been anything less than excellent, catapulting Newbarns into the ‘reliable brewery’ category for us.
Honourable mentions: We’ve become quite interested in Ideal Day which, like Newbarns, has more hits than misses, and brews across an interesting range of styles; and if we’d been more than once, we can imagine the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert might have got the gong here.”
And finally, in case that wasn’t enough…
“Our favourite taproom in 2025
The Brewery of St Mars of the Desert shows what a taproom can be. It feels like a mountain cabin or a Bavarian village Wirtshaus. Or maybe it’s the one bar in a small town in Belgium. What it doesn’t feel like is an industrial shed in outer Sheffield, surrounded by mechanics’ yards and second hand tyre outlets. There’s assorted breweriana scattered about the place, a wood burning stove, and a dedicated Stammtisch next to the bar. The commitment to serving each beer in the right style of glass, with a perfect head of foam, was something else that won us over. It helps, we guess, that the owners are on site, working the bar, and working the floor.”
Their excellent blog and beer-related writings are highly recommended, as are their books, (The excellent Brew Britannia has a detailed family tree showing the influence of Dave Wickett and the Kelham Island Brewery on the Sheffield brewing scene) and can be found at boakandbailey.com.
Brews towards the end of 2025 at Blue Bee included American 5 Hop version 86 (Columbus, Citra and Azacca, dry hopped), Nectaron Superdelic 5.6, a stout, five malt mild v3 and Little Nectaron (3.5% ABV single hop pale).
Blue Bee have kicked off 2026 with three brews, the classic Hillfoot Best Bitter, Citra Simcoe IPA and Amercian 5 Hop v86 which includes Cashmere, Columbus and Comet hops among the five!
A planning application has been made to convert the former Kelham Island Brewery into a seafood restaurant and takeaway. The original brewery ceased trading after Covid and the current company brew their beer at Thornbridge, in Bakewell.
Thornbridge have published their “year of beer” planner for 2026. Cask releases include Salted Caramel Lucaria (ice cream porter) in January, Venn (blonde) in February, Hirundo (spring pale ale) in March, Quasar (European pale) in April and Present (coffee mild) in May.
Sunday 28 December saw the inaugural Great Drone Valley Barrel race take place. This saw teams competing to be the quickest to carry empty beer casks from Drone Valley Brewery up the hill to the Cross Daggers pub in Coal Aston. The pub’s festivities continued into the evening with live music to keep drinkers entertained!
Fuggle Bunny Brew House have announced they will be hosting additional tap events on Saturdays once a month throughout 2026, on the last Saturday of the month. The Saturday events also feature live music and a food vendor with the first one being on 31 January when the bar will be open 3pm to 9pm with live music from 5pm and wood fired pizzas available. The brewery is a short walk from Halfway tram/bus terminus towards Killamarsh.
The first seasonal brew of 2026 from Bradfield Brewery is Farmers Mild. It’s a rather sessionable 3.4% ABV with a well rounded malty body and moderately fruity hop finish.
Little Mesters have had some new brew kit installed, more about this soon!
Torrside Brewery in New Mills have now announced the dates of their tap weekends in 2026. These are 3/4 April, 29/30 May, 26-27 June, 24/25 July, 28/29 August and 25-26 September. In most cases they are open 4-9pm on the Friday and 12-8pm on the Saturday. These events see a bar open in the brewery and usually a street food trader outside. We are planning a branch social trip on the train in July. The brewery is walkable from New Mills Central station on the Sheffield-Manchester line but closer to New Mills Newtown station on the Manchester-Buxton line.
Ticking Clock Brew Co in Shireoaks continue to open their tap room Thursday to Sunday (4pm to 9pm Thur/Fri, 12-9pm Saturday, 12-6pm Sunday) often with street food traders outside. They have now expanded with a second room called “The Cold Store” which hosts events, including on Saturday 31 January a metal night with live music from 6pm. The brewery is a short walk from Shireoaks railway station, on the Sheffield-Lincoln line.
Recent brews from Ticking Clock include “Just Like Yesterday” (4.4% best bitter) and “Be There Two O’Clock” (4.2% oatmeal stout) in cask and “Where’d all the time go” (7% hazy IPA hopped with Strata and Talus) in keg and can.
Eyam Brewery Tap & Shop in Tideswell opened for its final weekend of the November/December run of pop up events on 30 December. Eyam are now going through the process of gaining planning permission for change of use and a permanent licence for the premises after which they’ll be getting the builders in to convert the industrial unit into a proper tap room bar, kitchen and shop. In the meantime you can order bottled beers to drink at home online with a click & collect facility at their brewery in Great Hucklow and of course various pubs in the region serve their beer including the Outbreak bar in Chesterfield.
Resting Devil Brewery, based at the Chesterfield Arms pub in, erm, Chesterfield, launched their take on a dark Belgian ale in December. It’s called Leuven, is 6.7% ABV and is brewed with an authentic Trappist ale yeast.
Ashover Brewery, based at Clay Cross in South Chesterfield, have launched a new range of merchandise.
Duality Brew Co took delivery of new fermenting vessels in December which will increase their capacity significantly.
Neepsend Brewery are brewing a Pilot series of experimental single hop beers. Spotted on the bar at the Wellington (their tap) recently was Pilot #2.
Brampton Brewery on Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield, have announced the dates they are hosting brewery tours this year. They take place on Friday evenings once a month, starting on 27 February. Tickets cost £15 each (from their website or brewery shop) and include 2 pints in their bar as well as illustrated talks and a tour. The hours are 7:30-10:30pm.
Intrepid Brewery in Brough (between Bradwell and Hope) have got the new year off to a start with a new brew of Pecsaetan IPA and a bottling of Stanage Stout.
The end of October saw Blue Bee brew version 84 of their American Five Hop, this time involving Columbus, Loral, Azacca, Cryo Mosaic and Idaho 7. Early November saw a Centennial hopped pale ale at 5% ABV brewed in a North Amercian style with different yeast.
Eyam Brewery hosted a pop up tap event on 7 and 8 November in the Tideswell building that is soon to be converted into a permanent brewery tap room and shop. The event saw a range of beers available on cask, keg and in cans plus on the Friday evening Sunshine Pizza oven joined them there. This is set to be repeated each weekend until 13 December.
Fuggle Bunny Brew House is hosting another bonus tap event (they open every Friday all year round) on Saturday 29 November from 3pm to 9pm. As well as their beers the afternoon will feature live music from 5pm. Food will also be available with Steak & Fuggle Ale pie & peas from Baker’s Dozen.
Triple Point Brewing are hosting a beer and chocolate pairing night in conjunction with Bullion chocolate. The event is from 6pm to 8:30pm on 1 December and the £30 ticket includes 5 beers and 5 chocolates and experts from both hosts to talk you through the decadent tasting experience! Advance booking required.
New from Drone Valley Brewery is “Yippee Ki IPA”, a 5.5% ABV pale ale hopped with Chinook, Citra and Mosaic.
Chin Chin Brewery near Moorthorpe is hosting a tap event 5 to 7 December. Open 1pm to 9pm each day.
One of our local brewers, St Mars of the Desert – often referred to as SMOD – recently brewed their first cask beer in a collaboration at Thornbridge brewing. It was on hand pull at the marquee at Steel City 49 where it was the first cask beer to sell out, on the first day of the festival.
Martha & Dann spent a day brewing with Alice at Thornbridge in September, resulting in Quill – a 5.5% ESB. It’s their first fully casked beer, although they also own several German Stichfass which they use throughout the year. They brought two of these to Steel City, both containing ‘ungespundetes’ (a German practice of fermenting in an un-bunged barrel) versions of Fledermaus, their 5.4% vollbier lager. They offer single-stichfass batches at their taproom fairly regularly during the year and always advertise these on their social media.
At the end of October SMOD had a single cask of Quill, offering hand pulled cask ale at their taproom for the first time – and hopefully not the last! Several of our members enjoyed more than one glass of Quill to help encourage this sort of thing.
In early November SMOD also released Bébé Sauvage, a 9.5% bottle refermented foeder beer with plums and dates.
