Category: Breweries

To celebrate Sheffield beer festivals 50^th year it was decided to run a competion for homebrewers throughout the region to bring their best brews. The format of the competion was to be as creative as possible, to bring to the festival, beers that are different to the main and to show flair and talent within parameters.

Each winning beer would be then brewed by a Sheffield based commercial brewery to be showcased at the festival. The main parameter is that the beers brewed would need to be commercial and that they would not be able to be barrel aged or difficult to replicate. This gave some guidance as to what to brew and what could be turned around quickly.

I entered an old favourite of mine, based upon an old recipe from a few years ago. This ended up being a battle between the homebrew clubs of Sheffield, The Kelham Island Homebrew club and Sheffield Homebrew club. Both clubs meet monthly, one at Heist in Kelham Island, usually on the second Thursday of the month at around 7pm and the other meet at Sheffield Tap on the last Sunday of the month meeting at 2pm.

Both clubs are friendly and helpful to anyone with an interest in brewing their own beers from first timers to old hands of brewing. If you are at a loose end then pop along or find them on social media for more info. The guys and girls from both of these clubs are keen to offer practical advice and tips that improve the standard for all.

The breweries that offered the facilities to scale up a home brew recipe were:-

• Little Critters
• Little Mesters
• Duality
• Blue Bee

All of the breweries are renowned for producing flavourful and enjoyable beers in their own rights and the judging of the homebrewed beers fell to the brewers from these breweries.

The winning amateur brewers are Brian Glossop, his beer “Dust from another sun” has been brewed at Duality, A New England IPA, knowing Brian this will be brimmed full of punchy hops. Jamie Smith’s beer “A cup of Ambition” brewed at Blue Bee is a New Zealand Pale ale. Joe Lee brewed and amber ale named “King Salmon” has been crafted at Little Critters and an unnamed Saison beer has been brewed at Little Mesters to Liz and Steve Philpots recipe.

All of these beers will be marketed by the breweries concerned into their usual outlets after the festival but will be on the bar for the Sheffield 50^th Beer Festival.

Rob Barwell

TREASON, a spiced Yorkshire Parkin 4.5% porter is back, bringing all those comforting toasty, roasty flavours thanks to a nine malt blend. Added ginger gives Treason a signature spark of warmth.

CASPER the ghostly 4.0% pale ale is possessed by plenty of Olicana hops, manifesting tropical flavours and a balanced bitterness.  

GODIVA a beautifully smooth and sweet 4.0% blonde ale with mild bitterness thanks to the excellent British-bred Godiva hop.

MOONDANCE, a 4.5% pale ale. Loaded with British Cascade hops, Moondance has intense orange flavours with a lychee sweetness and nature-invoking floral and pine aromas 

We’re very excited this month to be releasing Roam Around York, a 4.8% Red Rye brewed in collaboration with the mighty Brew York! As we celebrate our 30^th anniversary, Brew York are marking their 10^th – so for a joint ruby anniversary, we simply had to make a red beer. This one uses both hops and malts we haven’t used before, including Carared barley from Weyermann in Germany, and Karma and Emperor hops from the Charles Faram development programme. Expect a zesty, bitter marmalade character balanced by sweet hints of biscuit, honey and caramel. 

Continuing our Legacy Series as our 30^th anniversary year starts to draw to a close, Holy Water (6.0%) is back. Still brewed to the original recipe, which dates back over 20 years. Packing a punch at 6.0% ABV but still wonderfully smooth and well-balanced, made using Willamette, Citra and Centennial hops. Notes of zesty citrus and juicy nectarine are backed up by delicately sweet orchard fruits, followed up with a gentle yet lingering bitterness. It’s an Abbeydale classic!

We’ve got a new Salvation on the way, a Mocha Stout, 5.0%. This is our second collaboration with the super Castleton Coffee Co, featuring two different roasts of their coffee alongside delicious cacao nibs, to create a rich, chocolate-y, rounded and bitter-sweet stout.

And it’s time for our seasonal specials to start to take on a festive feel – we’re keeping it subtle though for now with the return of Winter (4.2%), a crisp and flavourful Ekuanot hopped pale which sits within our Stained Glass series, and Holly (4.3%) back on bars featuring beautiful botanical inspired illustrations on the pump clips. This one features Nelson Sauvin, Willamette and Cascade hops which come together to bring an array of tasty citrus and a well-balanced bitterness.

On a Sunday in August that marked Abbeydale Brewery’s 30th birthday, a select crowd that had managed to get tickets gathered at their Beerworks tap room for a guided Funk Dungeon beer tasting led by the dungeon master himself, Jim Rangely, along with Laura Rangely, Abbeydale’s marketing manager.

Funk Dungeon is Abbeydale’s project that experiments with things like barrel-ageing, alternative fermentation and sour beer styles.

The tasting event focused on the Funk Dungeon’s story so far with bottled beers that have been laid away over the last few years and in some cases were the last ones remaining at the brewery.

There was a range of three beers produced for the ‘Funk Fest’, held at the brewery, including a bretted saison – both the original beer and a version aged in red wine barrels – along with a beer that had been live-brewed at the event using a portable koelship for spontaneous fermentation from wild yeast in the air. In total seven beers were sampled in the tasting.

To finish off all, were offered a slice of birthday cake along with the opportunity to sample more recent brews on cask and keg that were on the bar that day!

’Tis the season and yep, you guessed it, Pilgrim is back! Our 5% pumpkin-spiced pale ale heralds the arrival of autumn and we can’t wait to see this one on bars again.

This year, our pilgrimage has become that little bit EXTRA as our autumnal icon has brought along a fun and frivolous friend! Introducing Marshmallow Pilgrim, a pumpkin-pie-inspired stout, also 5% ABV. Featuring the familiar lip-smacking blend of warming pumpkin pie spices, here enveloped in a cosy, roasty stout, with the addition of sweet, fluffy marshmallow that’ll have you coming back for s’more… 

Of course, it’s not all pumpkin-spice-themed though, and we’ve got two completely new cask-only pale ales being released this month. In our lithograph-inspired series, we have Royal Agave, 4%, hopped with Cashmere and Wai-Iti. Expect refreshing lemon-lime notes along with soft, juicy melon and a smooth finish. And Nereides will be a 4.2% pale ale with artwork from our mythical creatures-inspired series. This one uses Calypso hops, which fellow mythology nerds will understand is rather fitting! Flavour-wise, these bring along a tasty combination of orchard and tropical fruits. Vibrant peach and pineapple on the nose, followed up with elegant notes of apple and pear.

Finally, in terms of returning beers, we’re bringing back our classic UK-hopped ESB in the Restoration series (5.2%), and Dr Morton’s Aftersave (4.1%) will be making a reappearance too.

As part of their 30th anniversary, Abbeydale Brewery recently held a brewery open day, complete with birthday cake! On Saturday 15 August, one day before the official birthday, the brewery saw a special shop opening, plus a series of brewery tours. The event was enjoyed by all: we look forward to another 30 years!

Returning from our Mythical Creatures inspired series this month we have Erlking – a flavourful 3.9% pale ale single hopped with Sabro, from the wild Neomexicanus hop family. Expect sweet citrus fruit flavours and a creamy hint of coconut in the finish. 

In exciting collaboration news, we’ve had the amazing RedWIllow Brewery here after brewing Deceptionless at their place earlier in the year. For the return leg, we’ve created Meander Through Macclesfield – a 4.8% UK Hopped Pale Ale showcasing Olicana and Harlequin, including innovative Harlequin Abstrax Quantum “hop juice”! A burst of floral character is joined by vivid mango and pineapple notes, with a subtle herbal finish.

And we hope you’ll all be as excited as we are for the next in our Legacy Series, bringing back classic beers from the archives to help us celebrate our 30^th anniversary – this time, it’s the turn of our much-loved American Brown Ale, Brimstone! An Amarillo hopped American Brown Ale, expect aromas of malt loaf and marmalade giving way to flavours of toffee and liquorice, followed by a lingering, pleasingly bitter finish. It won’t be around for long so don’t miss it! 

Finally we’ve teamed up with hop suppliers Hopsteiner to create Dreamlike, a 5.6% IPA featuring Alora and Solero hops, both of which are new to us! They promise vibrant tropical notes, from mango to aromatic yuzu alongside sweet peach and passionfruit. The beer of your dreams?