Category: Breweries

During the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns, lots of people have turned their hands to a wide range of additional skills and pastimes, be it baking, gardening and in my instance, I turned my hand again to homebrewing. Ive been on and off brewing at home for a good number of years and the pandemic gave me a huge boost to get going again.

This passion for brewing ale has subsequently flourished and a number of recipes have been repeated time and time again. One recipe in particular is a pale/ blonde ale hopped with Nelson Sauvin I call “Lawnmower”.  It started life as a brew to sip in the garden during lockdowns where there was so little to do other than mow the lawn.

At a recent CAMRA meeting, the upcoming Sheffield Beer Festival was mentioned and a gem of an idea was formed. Would Sheffield Beer Festival like a cask of “Lawnmower”.  As a homebrewer this is a real test of brewing skills, to be judged amongst professional brewers and the ego boost of seeing a pump clip on a bar was just too tempting to miss out from.

I had met the brewer at Collyfobble, Ash Linnett at a previous CAMRA meeting and after a few phone conversations a date was set to brew a batch of Lawnmower on a full size brewery. Collyfobble Brewery is based at the recently redeveloped Peacock Pub in Barlow. The brewery itself is a beautiful showpiece example of a small scale commercial brewery, housed in an impressive building at the side of what is arguably one of the most picturesque landscapes in the region. The brewery supplies the pub with great core range beers; in recent months this range is being extended to supply other venues.

The brew itself went through the brewery and transferred to the fermenter without a hitch, Ash showing his depth of brewing experience at key points in the journey. As the hops were added, the brewhouse was filled with delicious fruit aromas of grapes, passionfruit and gooseberries exactly as it does at my home. I am proud to say that the beer is fermenting well and initial samples are nearly identical to previous batches brewed at home. I cannot wait to see it at Sheffield Beer Festival on an actual bar.

Sheffield’s 46th Steel City Beer & Cider Festival takes place from 19 to 22 October at Kelham Island Museum. All the details are here.

• Sheffield’s oldest independent brewery, has been saved from closure.
• The brewery is a significant part of Sheffield and the UK’s brewing history.
• Its award-winning flagship beer, Pale Rider has previously been named Champion Beer of Britain and will return on cask at the Fat Cat and at CAMRA’s Steel City Beer Festival on the 19^th October.

Kelham Island Brewery, Sheffield’s oldest independent brewery, has been saved from closure by a group from Sheffield.

The brewery’s rescue is a collaboration between Tramlines co-founder and Sheffield venue owner James O’Hara, his brother and financial analyst Tom O’Hara, Simon Webster and Jim Harrison of renowned Thornbridge Brewery, Peter Donohoe, founder of Sheffield based creative studio Peter and Paul and Ben Rymer marketing manager from beer festival organisers, We Are Beer.

James O’Hara, who put the group together after hearing about the brewery’s closure, said: “Kelham Island Brewery, and its flagship beer Pale Rider, are known and revered beyond Sheffield. It’s heritage that we, as a city, should be really proud of. We couldn’t let that just disappear, it means too much within the city and to the UK’s beer culture for it to become another Wikipedia entry.”

A pioneer for the UK’s craft beer scene, Kelham Island Brewery has played a significant role in Sheffield’s brewing history and heritage. The brewery was founded in 1990 by Dave Wickett and was the first new independent brewery in Sheffield for over 100 years. From humble beginnings in the garden of the Fat Cat pub in Kelham Island it flourished, with many of its brewing talent going on to set up and work for the likes of Abbeydale, Thornbridge, Magic Rock, Bradfield and Brewdog.

Simon Webster from Thornbridge Brewery commented, “Kelham Island Brewery has always been linked with Thornbridge. They were the reason we started the business. Theirs were the first beers we brewed and Dave Wickett was a guiding hand in the early days of Thornbridge. When I first heard about the closure, I immediately thought, how can we help? How can we save the heritage that the Wickett Family had built? I chatted passionately about what we could do with James and we formulated a plan to try to save those great beers. I’m so pleased we have been successful. We’re looking forward to brewing the beers and keeping Kelham Island Brewery alive in Sheffield and beyond.”

Pale Rider, the brewery’s flagship beer, won the Champion Beer of Britain in 2004, it was the first winner to use hops from the USA and is still the only beer in South Yorkshire to have ever received the accolade.

Ben Rymer, who works for beer festival organisers We Are Beer, a celebration of all things in modern beer culture, said: “American hops form the backbone of the modern craft beer scene, but what Dave was doing was really revolutionary. He really went out on a limb at the time and was a true visionary. No one was setting up breweries back then and the craft beer industry as we know it now simply didn’t exist. The fact that Dave had to sell the beer he made in his own pub wasn’t about creating a scene, it was a necessity. Most pubs at the time were all owned by big pub companies.”

Jim Harrison from Thornbridge Brewery said: “Dave was a good friend and really understood beer and its regional variations. He understood that to be successful you needed to get your beer to people outside of the area. He was years ahead of his time and I’m so proud that we have been able to save these beers from being lost forever.”

Ed Wickett, former Kelham Island Brewery owner and son of founder Dave Wickett said: ‘I’m really pleased the brewery is in such safe hands. It’ll be great to serve Pale Rider in the Fat Cat again’

The first pour of Pale Rider will be at the Fat Cat on lunchtime of the 19th October, it will then also be pouring at CAMRA’s Steel City Beer Festival taking place, fittingly, at Kelham Island Museum starting on the evening of the 19th October for four days. The beer will then be delivered to the wider on-trade from week commencing 24th October.

NB – we understand that until the brewery on Alma Street is restored to working order (the kit etc was sold off when the original company was liquidated), the beer will be brewed by Thornbridge in Bakewell.

Congratulations to Sheffield-based brewery Triple Point, recent winners of the World’s Best Gluten-free Beer at the World Beer Awards, for their Trivergence DIPA (8.5%). Pictured are Alex and George with their unexpected, but most welcome, award. 

Grizzly Grains Brewing celebrate their third birthday with an event at their brewery on 30 September and 1 October involving beer and sausages. Tickets are available in advance from Eventbrite that include your first beer and a sausage. The brewery is on Duchess Road, just off Queens Road (on bus routes 24/25) close to the City Centre.

September is that time of year when hops have just been harvested and a number of beers appear that have been brewed with green (i.e. freshly picked) hops. A couple of local breweries have brewed beers with locally grown hops – Grizzly Grains with hops from Sheffield Organic Growers and Drone Valley with Fuggle hops grown by one of their members in the Eckington area.

New beers from brewSocial include Jester Minute, a 3.7% ABV rich bronze coloured ale brewed with pale chocolate malt and Jester hops. As with all their beers this is unfined and suitable for vegans.

Collyfobble have launched a new beer Black Ower Bill’s Mother’s. This is an Irish stout brewed with roasted barley in the grist for sophisticated flavours of coffee and dark chocolate, which sits alongside a sweet creaminess and good body from the addition of malted oats. It is a modern twist on a classic style.

Latest beers from Stancill includes the return of Sophie, a traditional style blonde ale with familiar notes of honey to perfectly temper the malty bitterness for a comforting, well balanced pint. There is also a new special, Endeavour, a ruby special brew which blends three English hop varieties to give a distinctive blackcurrant flavour with warming spicy aromas.

Chantry have released Citra V2, a 4.1% ABV pale, refreshing, light fruity beer with hints of melon, limes and passion fruit. With a grapefruit and gooseberry aroma.

Intrepid Brewing Company are holding their final brewery tap event of the year on 1 October with fresh beers including some new releases on the bar and Sunshine Pizza in attendance serving out in the brewery yard. For more details check the brewery’s Facebook page.

During October we’re, fingers crossed, having a new kettle installed! This will make our brewing processes more streamlined and more energy efficient too (definitely a bonus at the moment), however it does mean we’ll be unable to brew for a couple of weeks – so the below is all very much subject to change! Anyway. Assuming our shiny new kettle lands on our shores when we currently expect it to (it’s on a very big boat as I type), here’s what specials we’ll be releasing this month.

In cask only, we’ve got Purgatory – one of our classic 4.1% pale ales with Citra and Delta hops. Really refreshing with citrussy and tropical notes. Joining it is Damnation, which is 4.5% and lightly golden with Columbus and Chinook hops for a bold, spicy character and a long-lasting finish. And we’ve also got Through the Hopback – Opus coming up, a tasty 4.0% pale brewed with a new experimental English grown hop variety, which gives a fresh, floral and citrussy character. It’s the first beer we’ve brewed using Opus so we’re really looking forward to a pint of it!

Finally, making a comeback in time for the first frost of the year, it’s the ever popular Cryo Heathen! A 5.0% Mosaic hopped pale ale with absolutely bags of mangoey, juicy tastiness and a lovely bitter finish. This one’s going into cask, keg and can so plenty of opportunity to seek it out.

Hope to see lots of you at the Steel City Beer Festival, please do say hi if you spot any of Team Abbeydale!

Laura
Abbeydale Brewery

In these days that continue to see more and more breweries having to close, it’s refreshing to report that a new one is in the pipeline. HQ Brew, being set up by the Harlequin pub in Nursery Street may brew its first beer by the autumn.

Landlady Liz Aspden, of the self-styled ‘Worst Pub in Sheffield’ told me all about it. Liz has been at the pub now for 12 years, so is well-known to many connoisseurs of good (no matter what she says) pubs in the city. For anyone who doesn’t know Liz, I refer you to one William Shakespeare (who founded a pub in nearby Gibraltar Street) and clearly knew her, saying of her in his blog A Midsummer Night’s Dream ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce’.

For most of her tenure, house beers were supplied by the Brew Company, which briefly became Sky’s Edge, and then Exit 33. A year or so before the Covid pandemic struck, the brewer took a year off due to ill health, and the pandemic put an end to any chance of the brewery recommencing at that time – not much point in brewing, when there are no pubs open to sell the beer to.

A few months ago, Liz thought it might be an idea to open her own brewery using the old Exit 33 kit. Her plan was to create a social enterprise operation, with all profits going to local (30% ring-fenced for South Yorkshire), national and international charities working to support girls and women. To test the water, and find out what level of support there may be, she embarked on a crowdfunding venture which raised over £3000 in 28 days. More funding was also raised directly, and supporters can still contribute at the pub or via harley@hqbrew.uk. Contributors will get the opportunity to vote on what charities are supported and invitations to launch events etc. and various merchandise depending on level of contribution.

Much cleaning and renovation is needed at the brewery, together with the usual rain forest sized amount of paperwork. When all that has been completed brewing can begin. George Barker, who many will remember as long-time barman at the Harlequin, graphic artist par excellence, and owner of the deepest voice in Sheffield, will be the brewer under the tutelage of the former Exit 33 brewer at first. George is currently engaged on the Forth Bridge-like task of repainting the Harlequin’s exterior.

When brewing commences, there will be test brews which will go on sale in the Harlequin, then regular and one-off brews which will also be offered for sale to other pubs, festivals or whomever. Styles will likely be hoppy pales and stouts, with limited use of adjuncts – maybe a ginger beer or vanilla stout, but anyone looking forward to a crème de menthe barrel-aged quince imperial pastry sour will be disappointed!

So let’s all look forward to tasting the first, and subsequent, HQ Brew beer and celebrate the newest addition to Sheffield’s long brewing heritage. For further information, see HQ Brew’s website hqbrew.uk.

John Bratley

The Half Pint Marathon is back this September with a number of pubs and bars across the city serving two charity beers. Pick up and register a collector card and enjoy a half of either beer in every participating pub and you can claim a copy of the exclusive Half Pint Marathon artwork designed by Will Reah (“Willustration”) featuring the participating venues. The two beers are Run Free (4.5% session IPA from True North Brew Co.) and Run Wild, a 4.7% Session NEIPA from Heist Brew Co.

For every half pint of the special beers sold a donation will be made to Sheffield Mind, a Sheffield based charity which provides support to people with mental health issues. Sheffield Mind Business Development Manager Lindsay Doyle-Price said “Sheffield Mind is delighted to be a part of the Sheffield Half Pint Marathon again this year. The ongoing support of True North Brew Co. and the support of Heist Brew Co. this year, means a lot to us. Not only does this annual partnership generate much needed funds to support the work we do in the city, but by engaging local people in the campaign the teams are helping raise awareness of mental health and the work Sheffield Mind does to support people with mental health needs”.

Venues participating in the Sheffield Half Pint Marathon 2022 are:

• Forum Cafe Bar
• Riverside
• Broadfield
• Heist Brew Co.
• Two Thirds Beer Co.
• Punchbowl
• Picture House Social
• Old Grindstone
• Great Gatsby
• University Arms
• Common Room
• Church – Temple of Fun
• Waggon & Horses

Drone Valley Brewery, based in Unstone near Dronfield, are taking their pop up bar to the Bradway Fun Day on Saturday 10 September. This is a community event organised by the Bradway Action Group (BAG) and runs from 1:30pm to 4:30pm and includes stalls, games, dog show, bouncy castle and refreshments. The venue is the Old School Field/Village Green behind the Old School Annexe on the junction of Bradway Road and Twentywell Lane. Buses 25 and M17 stop close by outside the shops.

Intrepid Brewery in Brough (near Bradwell) held another open day on 13 August with a bar open in the brewery with a street food trader and music in the yard outside.

You probably never noticed that Grizzly Grains Brewing had never produced a traditional bitter, this has been rectified with a new beer in cask that contains crystal malt and English hops. Also new out on cask is their new single hop pale ale brewed with UK grown Chinook hops which should produce a floral aroma and hints of honey and pine in the flavour.

Steel City Brewing’s latest collaboration is one in the loosest possible sense, Remote Chiller saw Dale at Imperial Brewery of Mexborough do the work whilst Dave from Steel City was lounging abroad on holiday! It is however a proper old skool Steel City style beer from the days when it was all about hops and bitterness – this is a transatlantic pale ale, 4.8% ABV and 102.9 IBU (international bitterness units).

Heist Brew Co have launched a collaboration beer with the Leadmill to support the campaign to keep the current management there (the national company that currently leases it to them are not renewing the lease so they can run it themselves as part of a chain). The beer is Who did you Queue for? and is a 6% New England IPA available in can and KeyKeg with cans sporting a QR code that takes you to the petition to save the Leadmill in its current internationally respected guise as an independent local venue.

BrewSocial’s latest beers (at the time of writing!) are Simply the Zest, a 5.3% IPA single hopped with Lemon Drop, and Mind the Gap, a 4% session pale. All their beers are unfined therefore suitable for vegans and often served naturally hazy.

After having a couple of beers on the bar at the Great British Beer Festival, someone in London asked why Chantry Brewery‘s New York Pale was called as such, given that it is brewed in Rotherham! The beer was launched after Rotherham United’s New York Stadium opened and is named after the stadium, which got its name as it was built in the area that was home to Guest & Chrimes, the Rotherham company that was involved in the manufacture of New York’s famous red fire hydrants!

Stancill‘s latest new brew is a session IPA at 4.7% brewed with Citra hops. It is simply named IPA.

Magic Rock Brewing of Huddersfield has been sold by Lion to a UK based company, Odyssey Inns Ltd, set up by Stephen Cox who originally founded the Craft Beer Company that has a chain of pubs in London. When Magic Rock sold out to Lion many in the craft beer community decided to boycott their beer due to the reputation of Lion and hopefully this change of ownership will restore the image of Magic Rock and the range of beers they offer in cask, keg and can.

One of the recent new beers from Blue Bee has been Cascade Vista, a sessionable 3.7% ABV pale ale named after the hop varieties used.

The next of our Hopback cask only series is on the way, this time showcasing the Chinook hop (4.0%). Chinook doesn’t get much opportunity to shine solo, more commonly being used in a blend of hops, so we’re really pleased to be giving it a moment in the spotlight in this refreshing pale ale. Like a breeze through a forest of pine with a lovely, pithy grapefruit character alongside.

And also available in cask only, Dr Morton’s Safety Beer (4.1%) featuring the Aussie combo of Galaxy & Vic Secret hops is always a crowd-pleaser of a pale ale, with a tropical melange of passionfruit, mango and pineapple on the palate.

Moving on to our Brewers’ Emporium releases, Pathfinder from our hazy pale ale series (4.5%) makes a return this month, albeit with an all-new hop blend of Amarillo, Loral, and experimental variety HBC 586. Soft and juicy, with fruity flavours ranging from mandarin to mango and grapefruit to guava. 

And we also have a couple of seasonal releases on the way! We’ve made our first ever Festbier, and gone as classic as we can for Oktoberfest (5.0%), creating a balanced, clean and crisp beer with a rich, bready aroma and a delicately spicy noble hop character. Full bodied yet uber quaffable! And finally, our pumpkin spiced beer Pilgrim (also 5.0%) is back towards the end of the month! Probably our most divisive beer, but we love it, and we’re very excited at the prospect of it gracing bars again throughout spooky season.

Welbeck Abbey Brewery have some super specials lined up for the summer months and are brewing for both cask and bottled beers, with in-house bottling continuing to prove a success.

Nightingale will be available in cask only and has started shipping to pubs and bars, so keep your eye out for this proper English IPA appearing in your local. Named for a beautiful mature woodland spot right at the heart of the Welbeck Estate, this 5.5% IPA is as British as they come; packed full of English Goldings and UK Cascade hops, which give herbaceous notes, and balanced with honey-sweet caramalt.

Another cask-special to look out for is Watermeadows. This 4.5% lager-style pale ale is the perfect summer-time sup, with subtle meadow-fresh hop notes and a crisp, dry finish from European hops. Named for the Carburton Watermeadows, a low-lying grassland area near Welbeck, home to an array of rare and wonderful wetland wildlife.

In bottle, as well as cask, you can expect to see two new specials: Fiery Fox and Farrier. Fiery Fox is a classic pale ale with a twist; brewed with the addition of both fresh root and ground ginger.

Welbeck Managing Director, Claire Monk, says “Ginger beer is a quintessentially British non-alcoholic drink. Whilst it’s a refreshingly crisp drink without the ‘beer’, we think it’s much better with. The heady aroma of ginger and sweet biscuity taste make for a drink as smooth and sophisticated as the Welbeck night-time visitor; the wily fox.”

Farrier, which is available in minikeg as well as bottle, is a dark red ale, with rich caramel tones. This is one for the Red Feather lovers out there, and anyone who likes a dark beer. At 5.5% it has all the bitter-sweet and nutty flavours of Red Feather but packs much more of a punch into every glass. Horses have always played a huge part in the history of The Welbeck Estate and this beer evokes an equestrian, countryside feel that’ll have you reaching for your riding crop and boots.

If you want to know where and how the magic happens, you can see for yourself on one of the Wednesday night brewery tours that run through to September. Book online via Eventbrite and for just £10, you can enjoy a full tour of the brewery, two free-pints and the opportunity to ask Claire anything you like about how her award-winning ales are brewed.

And don’t forget, if you live outside of Welbeck’s local delivery area you can now order from their core range via the Best of British Beer website.