Category: Breweries

Happy New Year to you all! We hope 2023 is treating you well so far. We’ve got plenty of new cask beers available, so hopefully there’s something for everyone to enjoy a pint or two of while supporting their local pub!

First up, it went down so well during Sheffield Beer Week 2022 that we’ve brought back Sheffield Rocks in time for 2023’s festivities (6-12 March). A 4.1% heritage pale ale given our own modern twist. A balanced beer, completely characterised by drinkability and made using all UK ingredients including UK grown Pilgrim and Cascade hops.

Salvation – Irish Stout (4.5%) is also making a return; classic and moreish with a smooth, roasted malt character and soft notes of chocolate and coffee; bitter and sweet in perfect balance. 

The above two beers will also be available in keg and can as well as cask, but we’ve got some cask-only releases on the way during February too – Doctor Morton’s Non-Stick will be an Abbeydale classic 4.1% pale ale with Citra, Columbus and Chinook hops; and from our new stained glass themed series we have Renaissance, hopped with Eureka in the whirlpool for a bright bitterness and resinous notes sitting harmoniously alongside a stone fruit character. 

Cheers!

Steel City’s latest brew is, would you believe, a collaboration… their cuckoo brewing caught the eye of Bulgaria’s Alchemik, who cuckoo brew at Sofia Electric and another smaller site. Alchemik are best known for their dessert sours, so the three-way collab (Lost Industry being the third brewery) is a lemon cheesecake sour. The brew features a lot of oats for the biscuity base taste of the cheesecake, followed by lactose, vanilla and lemon zest. Fermentation was with Voss kveik yeast, a new one to the UK breweries but standard for Alchemik, so who were we to argue!

Yellowcake is out now in keg and can. Steel City and Lost Industry are off to Sofia in February for the return collabs, namely an imperial version of Yellowcake and a new dessert sour yet to be decided – both versions should make their way to the UK, along with a few of Alchemik’s other puddingy wares.

Nothing else may have been brewed for a while, but some barrels have been sitting quietly in the corner for eight or nine months, and were opened just in time for December. Firstly, Astral Mariner Baltic porter had been in a brandy barrel, emerging as Rime of the Ancient Astral Mariner.

Shortly afterwards, a big imperial stout went into brandy and rum barrels, emerging as Cask of the Red Death and Rum to the Hills respectively. All three are out now in keg and can and will be available in cask exclusively at the Shakespeares’ festival in January. There is also a single mega-blend (40% Rime, 40% Hills and 20% Red Death) at Shakespeares.

Other 2023 plans include a collaboration with Ukrainian brewery Didko to raise more funds for Brew for Ukraine – Didko also entered a can each of Steel City’s two previous fundraising beers into a charity auction, raising over £100 for the cause.

Grizzly Grains Brewery have hosted a collaboration with Shakespeares, brewing a Belgian style pale ale using Pilgrim and Phoenix hops supplied by Brookhouse Hops.

Intrepid have made another tweak to their ever evolving ITE small IPA (3.9% ABV). The latest batch sees a bit more oats added to the mash and a return to a Kveik yeast. It’s been hopped with a big mix of hops -Cascade & Mandarina are used late in the kettle for a subtle bitterness and citrus platform to work with the yeast. It’s then double dry hopped with Ekuanot and Azacca with a bit less of Chinook & Mosaic added bringing that drippy fruit punch flavour with some dank citrus.

Fuggle Bunny Brew House celebrated the first anniversary of the new ownership on 4 November and to celebrate their regular Friday tap session had the addition of live music and “Dough Box” pizza trailer trading outside. Their newest beer, Chapter 10 – Stomper, is a dry hopped IPA and was available at our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival. Also out recently was their special Halloween beer, Deadly Nightshade, a 5% AVB amber ale.

Triple Point Brewery have released “Canyon”, a 4.8% ABV American Red Ale on cask. On the hop bill it features a new berry inspired Cryo hop blend released by Yakima Chief along with a couple of American classics – Cascade and Centennial.

For those of you who’ve been following the journey of our new brew kettle, we’re pleased to report it is indeed now fully commissioned and we’ve got some fantastic beers coming out of it already! Fortunately everything ran to schedule meaning we have some tasty Christmassy beers on the way. As well as Wishlist, a 4.2% pale ale with Willamette and Columbus hops, the next version of Salvation (4.5%) will have a festive twist – it’s a Chocolate Orange Stout! A classic combination and an absolute treat, with a roasty toasty background, layers of silky smooth sweetness and a zesty finish. It’s mine! 

We’ll be bringing back Wilderness (4.5%) for winter, too – we’ve gone for the same hop combination as last year’s release (Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin and Simcoe Cryo), but at a slightly more sessionable ABV. This one’s a hazy, juicy, New England style pale with low bitterness and a clean, refreshing finish.

Fresh Hop Heathen is also back for 2022, but this time it’s also a Cryo version! Allllll the buzz words, luckily also all the flavour, still weighing in at a tasty and very pintable 4.1%. This year we’re pioneering the use of YCH 301 Mosaic hops from the Yakima Chief Hops Elite Product Trial programme… freshly harvested, unkilned hops, processed into Cryo form! This state of the art process keeps all those delicate fresh hop aromas and flavours but in a punchy little pellet. Expect blueberry and tropical notes to come through on the aroma along with a refreshing, tasty grapefruit and stone fruit character. This one sold out on pre-orders last year and we’re not expecting it to hang around for long. 

And in the new year (HOW is that coming around already?!) we’ll be seeing the return of our 2.8% Restoration Table Beer and the always popular Citra hopped Dr Morton’s Duck Baffler, PLUS rumour has it there might be a Lost Souls shaped big boozy stout on the way to get 2023 off to a corker of a start. 

The newest beer from Stancill Brewery is Dragon, a zesty 3.9% ABV pale ale based on the Slovenian Styrian Dragon hop. Expect a light lemony flavour and aromas of melon and passionfruit.

A couple of recent beers from Imperial Brewery in Mexborough carry something of a satirical theme. Papering over the Cracks is a collaboration with Silver Brewhouse of Chesterfield and is a 4.2% hazy pale ale whilst Boris and Scarper is a 4.4% pale brewed with Ekuanot and Cascade hops.

Recent brews in cask from Grizzly Grains includes Broken Spectre at 4% ABV, which is hopped with UK Phoenix, NZ Pacifica and UK Olicana. The beer is light and refreshing with beautiful fruit salad vibes. Aromas of arpicot and mango followed by big hoppy pineapple flavours.

Heist Brew Co. have one of the retail units in the new Fargate shipping container development where you can buy their beer in cans along with a range of merchandise.

Emmanuales brewed a couple of cask beers for our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival – The K.B.G, a West Coast IPA and England’s Green and Pleasant Land, a green hopped IPA.

Chantry Brewery’s new special is Styrian Fox, a 4.1% ABV pale ale, and talking of Chantry they now have a taco van on many of the nights their tap room has gigs on.

Hopefully by the time you read this, our new brewkit should be back in full working order and producing plenty of beer for you to enjoy! Doctor Morton’s Desert Sand (4.1%) is planned as the first special to be brewed on the new kettle, a refreshing pale ale with Cascade and Vic Secret hops for notes of peach, citrus and pine. 

We’re pleased to be bringing back our Deliverance collaboration with Yakima Chief Hops (7.0%), featuring Sabro, Talus (previously known as HBC 692) and HBC 472, which still doesn’t have a name but is very tasty nonetheless. Aromatic and flavoursome, with juicy citrus and lashings of creamy coconut flavour. Probably my personal fave from this range so I for one can’t wait for this one to be available again! 

And we know it’s a bit early, but we’re already shouting about all things Christmas here at Abbeydale HQ (sorry not sorry!). Excitingly, we’ve been able to create our very own advent calendars this year which are available exclusively on our online shop, so do take a peek at those! The festive theme will start to creep over into our beers by the end of the month too, with Doctor Morton’s Christmas Hamster, a 4.1% pale ale with Green Bullet, Citra and Cascade hops, coming up.

Finally, our “Baltic Up North” brew which some of you may remember from a few years ago has found a new home in our Brewers’ Emporium range as Restoration – Baltic Porter (7.0%). Brewed with lager yeast and fermented cold, expect a smooth and spicy dark beer with a delectable roast character and a very more-ish finish. This on cask in a cosy pub is going to be an absolute treat.

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.