Category: Breweries

Little Mesters Brewing Co continues to grow and evolve and in the last few weeks the business has decided to make a progressive move and become a limited company and take on a new director to help move the company forward in its brewing portfolio. To support this, they have purchased some new brewing equipment, which has just been installed in their Little Norton Brewery next to Mitchell’s Wine Merchants, together with a new canning line, which will compliment the beer products soon to be introduced.

Built on traditional values, Little Mesters Brewing believes their core lines will continue to do well and the introduction of new lines will broaden their appeal to new and existing markets.

“Stan IPA”, an outstanding Pale Ale, continues to be the company’s best seller, but the new equipment will enable them to put together a really impressive brewing portfolio.

Neil Adgie

Intrepid Brewing are hosting their first open day of the year on Saturday 29 April offering a day of beer, pizza and tunes amongst the Peak District hills! A bar will be open in the brewery whilst out in the yard along with seating will be Sunshine Pizza slinging their wood fired pizzas and next door neighbour Calum Audio providing the soundtrack. The brewery is located in unit 12 Vincent Works on the road between Hope and Bradwell. Many journeys on bus 271/272 stop at the end of the drive and it is also the Hope Valley Beer Festival at the Old Hall Hotel that weekend so you can easily combine a visit to both!

Loxley Brewery have a new slightly hazy Citra pale ale out and at 4.4% ABV should be perfect when it’s beer garden weather!

Emmanuales have invested in some new tanks and their original 100L flat bottomed fermenters have been retired!

Fuggle Bunny Brew House have announced a number of additional Saturday tap events in addition to the routine Fuggle Fridays. The next few are 6 May, 27 May, 3 June and 29 July.

Grizzly Grains continues to open for tap sessions about once a week, Check their Facebook page for announcements. The brewery is just off Queens Road on Duchess Street, not far from Bramall Lane stadium.

Little Critters latest single batch cask special, number 20, is a pale ale involving El Dorado and Ekuanot spring hops.

Loads of new stuff on the go this month! First up and guaranteeing fast acting serious relief from the most terrifying phenomenon known to mankind, Dr Morton’s Clown Poison (4.1%) is a light and refreshing fruity pale ale with Amarillo and Mosaic hops. Phew!

Also in cask only and coming soon to a pub near you we have Summer (3.9%) hopped with Vic Secret, Enigma and Ekuanot for a tropical, approachable and aromatic pale ale. And Nelson Sauvin is the star of the show in the next of our Through the Hopback series (3.9%), a deliciously sessionable pale ale with delicate Sauvignon Blanc-esque flavours of white grape and gooseberry coupled with a floral finish.

And finally, in cask, keg and can – look out for the return of our dry hopped orange infused pale ale, Splendour (4.4%) which always pairs perfectly with a sunny day and is most definitely a returning favourite. Plus the next in our single hopped series features an awesome Aussie hop – Obsession Galaxy (5.9%). Expect a tantalising tropical aroma followed by fruity flavours of melon, mango and passionfruit, with a clear-cut bitterness in the finish.

May also sees us brewing a grand total of three collaborations! We’re hosting Leeds-based Anthology and Nottingham’s Castle Rock here at Abbeydale, and in the “away” corner we’re off down to Norfolk to rustle up something special with Ampersand. Look out for more details coming soon!

Cheers!

Abbeydale Brewery are celebrating this week, with their popular beer “Black Mass”, a 6.66% Black IPA, taking home a top prize at the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) Independent Beer Awards 2023. 

Sheffield based Abbeydale Brewery, most famous for their Moonshine pale ale, received the accolade of Overall Champion of the bottle and can competition for their Black IPA at the beer trade association’s national finals, held at BeerX, the country’s largest brewing industry event, in Liverpool last week. Brewer Christie Mcintosh, from Abbeydale Brewery, said: “Black Mass is a joyous, strong, bitter, fruity dark ale. Winning the National as a Black IPA is pretty wild – we won the Speciality IPA which we were really pleased about, but to then go up again and win the Overall Gold is just amazing.”

The award, judged by a panel of industry peers and experts, recognises the very finest in UK brewing. SIBA Chairman Richard Naisby congratulated the winners on their huge achievement and said: “Judges had a tough job separating the pack as the standard was extremely high once again. The winners from the SIBA competition are officially the best independent craft beers in the UK, something brewers should be extremely proud of.”

Abbeydale Brewery are well known for producing a huge range of beers, blending innovation with heritage and reflecting these values across their beers.  Black Mass, a 6.66% Black IPA, has been part of Abbeydale Brewery’s permanently available beers since the business was founded in 1996, and the team believe it to be one of the world’s first and longest standing beers of this style in existence. Sales Director Dan Baxter says of the award: “Black Mass has been with us since our very beginnings as a brewery, and we’re absolutely thrilled that it’s being recognised as being at the very top of its game. It’s classic and familiar, yet simultaneously unique and boundary defying, and a true favourite of many of the team here!”

Grizzly Grains are now hosting regular tap sessions at their brewery, generally on Sheffield United match days with a range of their beers on the bar and snacks too. The brewery in on Duchess Road (just off Queens Road) on the Sheaf Gardens industrial estate. It is walkable from the City Centre or buses 24/25 stop nearby. Dates in April are 7th, 15th, 18th and 21st. Weekday openings are 4pm to 10pm whilst weekend dates are midday to 9pm. Check their Facebook page for latest information.

Heist Brew Co have brewed a “Reyt Good” Stout in collaboration with local artist Andy Slater (of Reyt Good Illustration) who the brewery work with regularly. The beer is described as having a deep, dark colour with a velvety smooth texture and irresistible aroma. It is 4.3% ABV and available on the nitro keg line in their taproom, however a cask of it will be making its way to the CAMRA Members’ Weekend bar.

Intrepid Brewery’s first cask special of 2023 was Geolo, a 3.9% ABV dry hopped golden ale. This is a tweaked version of Solito with some extra malt to make the colour golden rather than straw and is delicately dry hopped with Amarillo to give it a little orangey character. Described as perfect for drinking on days of spring sunshine!

Drinkers at both Rotherham Real Ale & Music festival and the Fuggle Bunny Brew House Friday tap session were introduced to their “chapter 10 – Stomper”, a 5% ABV dry hopped IPA, alongside the longer established “chapter 2 – Cotton Tail” pale ale (4% ABV) and “chapter 4 – 24 Carrot IPA” (6% ABV).

Recent beers from Little Critters include “Vanilla Chinchilla” Ice Cream Porter and “Swag”, an IPA brewed in collaboration with Heist. Meanwhile number 14 in their series of single batch cask specials was an American Brown Ale.

Lost Industry Brewing celebrated International Women’s Day, which falls during Sheffield Beer Week, with a collaborative brew day again this year. The beer is a chocolate & cherry porter.

Loxley Brewery offers a range of merchandise alongside the bottled beers available to order from their webshop, this includes engraved tankards and hip flasks.

Early March saw Neepsend brew a cask only Australian Pale Ale called “Bandicoot”. It is 4.6% ABV and uses Enigma and Vic Secret hops and is expected to be super pale in body and feature big punchy hop notes.

Sheffield Beer Week saw the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert launch a new beer in their taproom, a golden Bock called Krönungsbier.

Stancill Brewery continued with their series of star sign themed beers in March with “Pisces”, a 4% ABV delicately aromatic pale ale.

Triple Point Brewery has introduced a classic English bitter to their range, the first one they’ve produced on any scale. It is 3.7% ABV and brewed with a boatload of American hops in the whirlpool for a super fruity and rounded bitter. Like many of their beers it is Vegan and Gluten Free.

For Sheffield Beer Week True North Brewery released a beer brewed in collaboration with SALT, called the Wool Monty (Saltaire was known for its wool industry and Sheffield, well you know, Full Monty!) The beer is a 4.2% West Coast Pale Ale brewed using Columbus, Centennial and Amarillo hops that deliver bitterness and light citrus flavours.

Abbeydale Black Mass, their 6.66% black IPA, won best beer in bottle/can at the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) awards. This was judged at their annual conference and BeerX in Liverpool. This beer is also delicious on cask!

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A number of beers of interest will be making their way to the bar at the CAMRA Members’ weekend, open 21-23 April, which are either new or not often seen around Sheffield’s pubs.

From Abbeydale we have the latest special edition of Heathen using UK Harlequin hops, we also have their Coronation special. From Blue Bee as well as the latest iteration of their American 5 hop we have a dark mild. Dead Parrot are supplying Maranta along with Hohot, which was originally brewed with a former member of bar staff at Perch (their tap room) who was an international student. Emmanuales are expected to supply beer, they are a very small batch brewery who put most of their production in small pack. From Eyam look out for their Cherry Bakewell Stout. Grizzly Grains are offering “Business Secrets of the Pharaohs”, a Phoenix hopped pale ale.

Heist Brew Co only produce cask beer now and again so we are thrilled to be able to pour two of their beers – Parking Fine Photoshoot and Reyt Good Stout. We are expecting a couple of beers from Intrepid – a Peak District based brewery who impressed those taking part in the online tasting event we ran with a Sheffield beer box in 2021 – but which beers aren’t confirmed yet. Lost Industry are supplying an Opus single hop pale ale along with a milk stout whilst from Neepsend look out for their Ergot Rye Porter.

Toolmakers only normally brew for their own pub (the Forest) so we are pleased they are able to supply us a couple of beers – Flange Noir and a new mild. Three beers are coming from Triple Point including a zesty citrus pale ale, a porter and their Alpha Bitter. Going back to the future is True North, we’ll have their locally brewed Stones Bitter on the bar!

Steel City have been on their travels, unfortunately twice travelling abroad to not brew! Firstly Dave gatecrashed the Maltgarden/Emperor’s collab in Poland, unfortunately the brew had to be postponed a couple of days due to a problem at the host brewery, then 3 weeks later the same thing happened for the Alchemik return collab in Sofia, the imperial version of Yellowcake. The joys of contract/cuckoo brewing! The latter did still include a visit to the Sofia Electric brewery and an excellent couple of days on the local craft beer in Sofia and Plovdiv, the beer has been brewed and will hopefully be landing in the UK mid-April along with some other Alchemik goodies.

Back at home, two beers have been produced for the CAMRA national AGM in Sheffield, a coffee vanilla stout named Contains Only Good CO₂, Free From Bad CO₂ and a hoppy pale named Let’s Save Pubs… Can I Have A Discount?. Both will also be available at the Shakespeare at some point.

Dave Szwejkowski

We’re very happy to be celebrating the most exciting developments in UK hop farming this month, using Hereforeshire grown and harvested Harlequin hops for UK Hop Heathen (4.1%). These fantastic hops, coming out of our supplier Charles Faram’s development programme, produce elegant Mosaic-esque tropical flavours, with a refined citrus bitterness and a delicate, nuanced hedgerow character. There’s a gentle revolution going on in the UK hop world at the moment and it’s really exciting to see the breadth of flavour that’s been quietly in development in recent years – it deserves shouting about! 

In cask only we have a delicious single hopped Amarillo beer on the way (4.1%), the latest in our Through the Hopback series of pale ales with a citrussy satsuma-esque character and a floral finish. We’ve also got Coronation (3.9%) coming up, seeing as we had quite a few requests for a jubilee beer last year we felt we shouldn’t miss the occasion!

Returning on the dark side is the ever popular Salvation – Cappuccino Stout (5.5%) which uses our own specially roasted blend of coffee from lovely local suppliers Cafeology. Creamy, balanced and rounded.

And finishing off our Brewer’s Emporium releases for the month we have a tasty New England pale coming up – Hinterland (4.5%) is full-bodied, juicy and pillowy soft, with punchy tropical notes of pineapple, coconut and zesty pink grapefruit from the combination of Vic Secret, Sabro and Mosaic hops.

We always look forward to March here at Abbeydale Brewery, as it means it’s time for Sheffield Beer Week! This year taking place 6-12 March, there’s absolutely loads going on all around our wonderful beery city, so do check out the events listings and support your local breweries and venues.

We’ve got a special collaboration due to launch for the occasion, brewed in conjunction with Sheffield Beer Week and Indie Beer Feast. Cloud Peak is a 4.8% mountain style cryo-hopped session IPA, packed with the big hitting combination of Citra, Cascade and Mosaic. Soft and fluffy with a crisp, bitter finish. This one will be available exclusively from Indie Beer Feast at Trafalgar Warehouse and Hop Hideout from Friday 3 March in keg, with the first pour on cask taking place at the Rising Sun, Fulwood on Monday 6 March. It’ll then be available in cask, keg and can more widely while stocks last!

Look out later in the month for our other collaboration too, which will be brewed during Sheffield Beer Week and hopefully out by the end of March. It’s the next in our Deliverance series, this time a bold 7.2% West Coast IPA which we’re brewing with Newcastle’s Full Circle Brew Co. Showcasing Galaxy in the whirlpool, before dry-hopping with Idaho 7, Amarillo and Eureka. Pithy and piney with notes of pomelo and pink grapefruit. 

In cask only, Citra is up next for our single-hopped Through the Hopback series (4.0%). As the name suggests, packed with citrus character with distinctive lemony notes alongside zesty lime and floral undertones. And we’re revisiting the OG Doctor Morton’s beer! Snake Oil was first brewed in 2008, and we’d never have predicted what it started! From “newfangled beers with weird pumpclips” to an extensive and entertaining range of easy drinking pale ales. Although the look has more recently been updated we’ve kept a strong hold on the humour and eccentricities this series brings.  

We’re also pretty excited that Spring is in the air once more, and so it’s time for our annual release of Reverie, our 4.2% sessionable dry-hopped pale ale. Always a lovely one to enjoy on those first warm(ish) al fresco evenings!

Cheers!

brewSocial‘s new beer in January was Nice Drop, a single-hopped blonde beer. Large quantities of pilsner malt in the mash give a pleasant mouthfeel. Harlequin hops impart tropical fruit notes, and a pronounced bitter finish. February saw Crackin’ Nuts go on sale, a 4% ABV chestnut ale.

The St Mars of the Desert taproom was sadly broken into on Christmas Day and damaged plus items stolen. Community rallied round and helped Dann and Martha get it tidied up. In more positive news they have recently brewed a collaboration beer with Ossett brewery, Amere Biere, a hazy French bitter.

Grizzly Grains launched a couple of new bottled beers in January – The Biggest Dimple (8.8% ABV, a parti-gyle with their Big Dimples Mild), Feste (a strong saison at 9.3% ABV). February saw their first cask beer of the year brewed, using low carbon Chinook hops. They’ve also got a pop up taproom arrangement set up in the brewery now, which saw it’s first opening on 15 February taking advantage of being close to Bramall Lane stadium to cater for pre-match drinks demand!

Loxley Brewery produced a new citrussy, hoppy easy going pale ale in January called First Totem Pole, celebrating an obscure reference to the first ever totem pole having a raven on top!

Talking of Loxley Brewery, they celebrated their fifth birthday with a bash at the Wisewood Inn at the end of February.

Beer Ink of Huddersfield has brewed a Sheffield collaboration to be launched at the Rutland Arms during Sheffield Beer Week. They have worked with Bullion Chocolate and Frazer’s Coffee Roasters to make two special beers. There is also a limited edition blend of the two to create a coffee Mocha Stout!

Bradfield Brewery continue to work through their roster of seasonal beers in 2023 with Farmers Blushed out for Valentines Day with Farmers Irish Dexter replacing it in time for St Patricks Day. Later in March look out for Farmers Plumb Bitter then of course for the World Snooker Championships in April will be CruciBULL Ale.

Grizzly Grains and Torrside released a collaboration brew in time for Christmas and New Year. Big Words is a 4.8% ABV pale ale hopped with Olicana and Cascade.

Intrepid have released a winter pale exclusively on cask, designed to be drunk in the pub, dreaming of the summer to come! B’an is 4.1% ABV and brewed with all British hops (first kettle hopped with UK Cascade and then dry hopped with Ernest T90, Olicana and Jester T45), sat on a clean base of extra pale and oat malt.

Temper in Dronfield also released a winter brew in time for Christmas; this one was Dark Fractions, a 4.3% ABV coffee porter. A blend of kilned and roasted malts in the grist was complimented by the addition of coffee in kettle and on the cold side.

Tapped released a new beer in November called Electric Works. This is a 4.2% ABV extra pale ale using solely extra pale malt, which really lets the hops shine through.

As in previous years, Thornbridge are running a Year of Beer programme with a monthly changing seasonal ale available for pubs. 2023 kicked off with Cortado, a flat white pale ale. February sees the launch of Apricity, an extra special bitter. In March we have a peanut butter brown ale to look forward to.

Richard Hough, brewer at brewSocial, was recently pleased to see a photo opportunity of a rainbow over the railway arch in Attercliffe they brew in that matches their pump clip design!