You may already be familiar with theSocial bar on Snig Hill, run by Yes2Ventures, a social enterprise all about training people who are disadvantaged in the labour market. Much of what they do – art gallery, kitchen, bar and craft workshop is located at the Social premises.
The newest venture in the process of being launched is BrewSocial, a new brewery with the same community ethos training up new brewers. It is located in a railway arch unit in the Attercliffe area and the brew kit is repurposed from the old Little Ale Cart brewery that used to be located behind the Wellington pub at Shalesmoor (that ultimately was relocated and upgraded to bigger kit as Neepsend Brewery).
The guy leading the brewery is Richard Hough who has been around the beer scene for many years with a history that includes brewing at Abbeydale when Moonshine was launched and setting up Blue Bee Brewery.
There will be a little wait yet until their beer is seen on bars around the area as they are still putting the kit together and sorting out paperwork and licences, however test brewing will hopefully commence soon to establish recipes and become familiar with the kit before the beer is sold commercially.
On Friday 6 May it was announced that having brewed their final batch of Pale Rider, Kelham Island Brewery will be going into voluntary liquidation and closing.
Under the instigation of Dave Wickett, their original brewery, the first new independent brewery in Sheffield for over fifty years, opened in 1990. This building is now an extra outside bar for the adjacent Fat Cat pub. The current brewery came into operation in 1999, Pale Rider (5.2% abv) becoming CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain (CBOB) in 2004. It remains the only South Yorkshire brewed beer to reach the top three in this competition. Ex-Kelham Island brewers have been involved in a growing number of influential breweries. Among many others, these include: Abbeydale, Brewdog, Tapped, Thornbridge and Welbeck.
The Brewery comments: ‘It is with deep sadness that we are having to announce that we and the brewery will shortly be closing. We would like to thank everybody who supported us over the last 32 years- especially our staff and customers. The Fat Cat will remain open, with Kelham Island Brewery beer available on cask and in Bottles/Cans whilst stocks last.’
As always we’ve got plenty of new beers out this month, sitting merrily alongside our usual core offering! First up is Salvation Oatmeal Stout (4.5%) – comforting, silky and smooth, with a whopping nine different grains building up a complex yet harmonious malt driven backbone. Oaty notes combine with flavours of roasted coffee and dark chocolate, rounded out by a balanced dried fruit sweetness.
On cask only, look out for Doctor Morton’s Demon Drink (4.2%). This light golden ale is hopped with Cascade, Citra and Chinook – tasty and refreshing with notes of citrus fruits, berries and a hint of caramel, followed up by a pleasingly bitter finish. Also a cask exclusive, our easy-drinking Hopback series has been really popular so far, and the next version promises to be a stunner with Mosaic & Amarillo hops (4.2%).
Later in the month we’ve got a couple more newbies from the Brewers’ Emporium on the way – a new version of Deliverance DIPA takes on an intercontinental feel with Galaxy, Nelson Sauvin and Idaho 7 hops (8.5%), or if you’re looking for something a little more sessionable, our series of hazy pales continues with Homestead (4.3%), super juicy with Mosaic, Ekuanot and more Idaho 7 hops for a tropical fruit salad kinda character.
Finally we hope you can join us at the presentation evening for the Rising Sun’s Sheffield & District CAMRA Pub of the Year Award on Tuesday 14th June!
Tapped have now completed a minor rebrand. There are also three new beers released during May, these are Gresley, a 3.5% Light Mild brewed to coincide with CAMRA month of Mild in May; Hope Valley, a 4.8% US Pale hopped with Centennial, Columbus and Chinook; Cannon 4.2%, a Best Bitter brewed with a blend of 4 malts and hopped with WGV.
We’ve got cask specials galore for the month of May, with three beers released in cask only on the way! Look to try a pint of Arson, a 4.4% golden ale with Willamette & Delta hops, Decadence, a 4.0% pale with Dr Rudi hops for a good hit of bitterness and a clean grassy character, and Dr Morton’s Cask Paint, which promises to be a 4.1% pale ale, but the hops are TBC at the time of writing!
From our Brewers Emporium range, coming soon is Wanderer – 75 Minute IPA, a powerfully pithy and resinous IPA at 6.7%, loaded with Simcoe, Citra and Centennial hops. And we sincerely hope we’ll be seeing some warmer weather as spring starts to gradually move towards summer, but we’re bringing our own sunshine regardless with a double Radler release in our Unbeliever series, bringing back both the Lemon variety (2.8%) and our “Shefferhofer” Grapefruit version (3.0%).
Finally… we’re planning to welcome back arguably the most requested beer we’ve ever released – yep, you got it, our souped up Mosaic single hopped American Pale Ale Cryo Heathen (5.0%) should be back on bars by the end of the month!
Steel City’s latest beer is Vlad the Invader, a collaboration (in concept at least!) with Team Toxic and Lost Industry brewed to raise funds for the Ukrainian relief effort. A mash heavy on roasted barley and chocolate malt was then boosted by the addition of demerara and muscovado sugars, giving a sweet rum-like finish and liquorice notes. Styrian Wolf hops give bitterness to offset the sweetness and a lightly fruity aroma and a hint of coconut, while Ukrainian sunflower seeds add, erm, Ukrainianness mainly. The first cask flew out at the Rutland, a second has gone to Tom Said, a micropub in Ripley but actually for their mini-fest at their warehouse in Alfreton (29-30 April), and also donating their profits on the beer to Ukrainian aid. Kegs and cans have gone out to bars and shops across the country, and the brew raised around £800 for the DEC Ukraine appeal.
Another delivery from Speyside Cooperage enabled the start of the 2022 barrel aging programme, with rum and brandy barrels for an imperial stout, and another brandy barrel for the Astral Mariner Baltic porter. All three will be released in cask, keg and can towards the end of the year.
Grizzly Grains brewery are continuing to work with Sheffield Organic Growers, who provided the pears last year for the Pear & Rye Saison they brewed. They have expanded into another space next to the original site and are growing Yeoman hops and we are told to expect to see them used in a green hop beer in the future!
Little Mesters Brewing have released a new beer, “Sesh”, a 3.8% hazy session pale ale. Available in cask, keg and can.
As usual at this time of the year, Bradfield Brewery celebrated the arrival of the World Snooker Championships with the release of their CruciBull beer, a traditional bitter.
Locally-Produced Cider Returns to Sheffield at The Cider Hole!
Sheffield’s only cider-centric bar and urban micro-cidery has released its first three batches, produced with apples collected from 31 houses around the city of Sheffield.
In September 2021, The Cider Hole opened in Kelham Island, becoming Sheffield’s only cider-centric bar. This March, The Cider Hole fulfilled its promise of also becoming Sheffield’s only urban micro-cidery by releasing three ciders produced on-site.
The Cider Hole has begun pouring three 200-litre batches of cider – all of which contain local Sheffield apples and two of which were produced with 100% local apples collected from gardens around the area. “As far as I am aware, no one has been producing cider using locally-sourced Sheffield apples in the city for at least a couple years,” said The Cider Hole’s owner and cidermaker Mike Pomranz who has been covering the cider industry as a journalist for seven years. “I’m excited to be salvaging fruit from people’s gardens and turning it into Sheffield’s best cider… not that I have any competition!”
This past autumn, Pomranz put out calls on Facebook and Reddit asking if anyone with extra apples would donate them in exchange for free cider. He received over 70 leads and eventually collected apples (and some pears) from 31 different houses around Sheffield – including plenty of unexpectedly interesting finds in neighbourhoods like Crookes and Pitsmoor. He then crushed, pressed, and fermented all of the fruit in his tiny shipping container bar in Krynkl on Shalesmoor.
All three ciders are being served in thirds and halves directly from the fermenters until either all of the cider has been consumed or bottling becomes required. Refillable milk bottles are also available for takeaway.
The Cider Hole also continues to be open as a bar and now stocks over 60 ciders as well as a large selection of beers and wine. For hours, check The Cider Hole’s website: istheciderholeopen.com.
The Cider Hole, Unit 1.3, Krynkl, 294 Shalesmoor, Sheffield, S3 8UL. Shalesmoor tram stop is across the road.
Following careful review of their existing range of beers, and listening to customer feedback, Welbeck Abbey Brewery have decided to reduce and update their core range to just four ales. The ever popular ‘Red Feather’ will be staying and will be joined by three exciting new beers, all very different from each other. This will allow for greater availability of innovative ‘monthly specials’ throughout the year.
Managing Director, Claire Monk says:
“After 10 years supplying beer into pubs, restaurants, and bottle shops, we felt it was time to review our core range, and as such, our brewing team have been working hard over the last three months to hone recipes, using modern techniques to get the very best flavours from traditional malt and hops.By having a broader mix of ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ beers in both the core range and specials on offer, we hope to appeal to a wider customer base. Having a smaller range of core beers plus more innovative specials will lend itself much better to our new bottled range, and with a joint approach across cask and bottled beer we hope to get drinkers excited about Welbeck and gain traction in areas of the market we have yet to break into.”
In a further exciting development, the brewery has had its own, in-house bottling line installed.
Brewer Tom Roe explains:
“This gives us full control over how we process our beer on site. We’ve taken the decision to move away from filtered and force-carbonated bottled beers, to the more natural process of bottle-conditioning. The benefits of this include increased flavour profile through no filtration and a slower maturation, ensuring that our bottled beer is as flavoursome as possible. It also means we can cut down on the use of plastic, transportation and externally sourced C02, improving our carbon footprint, something which is important to us here at Welbeck. Having a bottling line on-site also allows us to produce smaller, one-off batches of beer which we are very excited about.”
The new core range will include a 5% West Coast American IPA, a crisp Continental Pale at 4.4% and a 3.7% Golden English session ale. Monthly specials will always include a dark ale as porters and stouts remain popular, as well as low strength session ales, well hopped IPAs, and everything else in between.
These fabulous new beers will be in pubs from the week commencing 11th of April, and if you want to find out more, Claire will be holding a Meet The Brewer event at The Winchester in Sherwood on Thursday 21st of April, as well as tastings at Welbeck Farm Shop on Saturday 30th of April. Bottled beers are available to buy online, with free local delivery and 10% off if you spend over £45.
Chantry Brewery recently welcomed three new 40-barrel vessels into their premises at Parkgate, Rotherham. Previously used as storage, the team made the decision to expand into their second unit due to the popularity of their award-winning ales. They found a better way to utilise the space by adding in their new vessels which each hold 12,670 pints!
Director and Co-Owner, Mick Warburton is enthralled by the expansion plans, and he puts their success down to brewing ales that are only made with the finest ingredients and no added sugars. When asked about their expansion, Mick said:
“We had no choice really; we’d outgrown our original 20-barrel capacity. We have a fantastic, loyal customer base that we’re very grateful for – we couldn’t let them down! We decided to add extra vessels so there’s enough Chantry ales to go round.”
This year, Chantry Brewery will be celebrating 10 years of brewing and what a way to mark it! The new custom-built vessels from Moeschle will enable the team to supply the nation with 38,010 extra pints of ale!
To get your share or see what the latest brews are, head over to their website or subscribe to their monthly newsletter via the links below.
