Can you believe it’s been 20 years since the first brew was crafted at Watt House Farm, marking the birth of Bradfield Brewery?
What started as a side project to supplement the declining income from our dairy farming quickly became a success. As brewing took off beyond our expectations, we soon found ourselves at a crossroads—there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to juggle both dairy farming and brewing. With a heavy heart, we made the tough decision to stop milk production and focus entirely on our growing brewery. As the saying goes, we’ve never looked back!
Fast forward 20 years, and we’re now brewing over 100,000 pints of beer each week! With a dedicated team of 25 at the brewery and another 20 at our brewery pubs, the beers keep flowing – fresh from grain to glass.
Our farming roots remain a huge part of our identity, and we love celebrating this through our beers. Farmers Blonde, which became our flagship ale, was named after the Blonde d’Aquitaine breed of cow, and many of our other beers follow the same theme.
While we embrace new trends and innovations, our brand is all about keeping cherished traditions alive – meeting friends at the pub, pint in hand, and having a natter. Our session ales are the perfect companion for these moments – a true taste of tradition.
From all of us at Bradfield Brewery, a heartfelt thank you to everyone – our suppliers, our hardworking team, and of course, our loyal customers near and far. Your support means the world to us. Cheers to the next 20 years!
We’ve got some exciting things in store to celebrate our 20th anniversary, we’re celebrating firstly by paying homage to our very first brew Farmers Bitter with a brand new brew, Farmers XX Best! This new 4.6% abv beer for Bradfield Brewery has been Brewed with Maris Otter amber and chocolate malts, giving a full bodied and complex mouthfeel, complimented by a robust bitterness and dark fruit flavours from the hops. Available in cask & 330ml bottles from the end of March, this new brew is the first of more exciting things to come for 2025!
As part of Sheffield Beer Week, the Kelham Island Tavern showcased a number of new beers from Blue Bee Brewery. These included a coffee mild, french oak aged red ale and charred oak aged export stout as well as the usual hoppy pales that Blue Bee are more commonly known for!
Bradfield Brewery have released a special edition of their cask Farmers Stout with the stronger ABV of 8.4%.
As is now traditional, Sheffield Beer Week marked the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert‘s tap room coming out its winter hibernation and it is now open most Fridays and Saturdays, 2pm to 8pm. It is now bar service and card payment only, it continues to be dog friendly. The brewery is just a few minutes walk from the main road through Attercliffe, served by buses 9/9a, 52/52a, 207 and X3.
Fuggle Bunny Brew House is introducing a monthly Saturday tap session in addition to the weekly Friday bar opening. The programme of “Fuggle Saturdays” kick off on Easter Saturday then take place on the last Saturday of each month from 31 May to 29 November with the bar in the brewery open 3pm to 9pm and live music at 5pm. They also plan to host a food trader at the Saturday events.
Triple Point Brewing celebrated their 6th birthday on the 14 and 15 March, neatly coinciding with Sheffield Beer Week! The Friday night involved live music and dancing whilst on the Saturday they screened the Six Nations rugby. A new beer has also launched – Geyser, a 4.3% ABV pale ale brewed with Olicans, Simcoe and Cryo Talus hops offering bold citrus flavours and like most of their beers it is gluten free and vegan.
Due for release from Abbeydale Brewery this month, Dr Morton’s Rogue Apostrophe (4.1%) is back to irritate the grammatically minded amongst us. An easy drinking pale with Pacific Gem and Azacca hop’s, combining to give flavours of tropical fruit’s and berrys. Joining it on bars throughout April is Through the Hopback – Cascade, a 3.9% pale ale and a hop we can’t quite believe we haven’t showcased in this series before! Citrussy grapefruit in abundance on the aroma, with a gentle spicy character and a smooth bitterness.
Fen Violet is the first in a new cask only range for us, with artwork inspired by vintage botanical prints and lithographs. This one will be a 4.3% pale ale with Vic Secret and Columbus hops. We’re expecting lovely aromatic qualities in this one, with gentle herbal notes of marjoram in the background and some fruity tropical flavours up front.
And from our Brewers Emporium we have a couple of exciting new specials on the way too. Cherry Bakewell Stout (5.0%) is a new special in our Salvation series, featuring the enticing combination of ripe, juicy cherry and flavours of frangipane. And from our single-hopped Obsession series, look out for Citra NEIPA (6.5%). A rockstar of the hop world, Citra is famed for an intensely citrussy character. Expect a potent, zesty aroma and a lip-smacking lemony flavour, smooth and fruity with a juicy finish.
Duality Brewery have recently relocated to Sheffield. Registered, by Ben and Brendan, in Todwick in March 2024 after winning a home brew competition, the duo are now producing their beers in a unit located on Percy Street in Neepsend, next door to Alder bar.
Many of their beers are styles where hops dominate such as a New England IPA, however they’ve also been known to produce other beers too and they showcased their range in Sheffield recently by hosting a brewery bar at the Neepsend Craft beer festival.
At the moment Duality continues to be a part time operation with Ben and Brendon working a day job during the week then brewing on a Saturday, however with them making a name for themselves quite quickly who knows how that may change in the future!
Little Mesters have acquired the former Lost Industry brewing kit and moved away from Mitchells at Meadowhead to a new location in the Attercliffe area.
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Thornbridge Brewery‘s Dominic Driscoll has collaborated with fellow 2024 British Guild of Beer Writer award winner Ruvani de Silva to brew a limited edition cask ale celebrating their recognition. Dominic was awarded brewer of the year whilst Ruvani won the Michael Jackson Beer Writer of the Year award.
Ruvani is the first woman of colour and the first queer person of colour to win the Michael Jackson Beer Writer of the Year award, and the first writer to win in five categories in the same year. Her work tells stories of beer culture, history and community, with a focus on issues including DEI, sustainability and innovation, with an international perspective.
The beer, which will be released on March 3rd, is a nod to Ruvani’s Sri Lankan heritage and Thornbridge’s ongoing commitment to quality and innovation – combining classic modern IPA flavours of Amarillo and Citra hops with a Maris Otter-forward malt blend and two traditional Sri Lankan spices.
The RUVANI was inspired by a homebrew that Ruvani made with her husband during lockdown, and combines two South Asian spices with contrasting but complementary flavours, both known for their healing antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Ginger’s tangy sweet heat is often paired with turmeric’s warm, earthy bitterness in dishes including teas, curries, soups, health drinks and even desserts – so why not beer? Thornbridge have used their brewing experience and expertise to adapt Ruvani’s concept into a British-South Asian fusion IPA bursting with bright hops and an exciting new-to-beer spice blend.
Steel City are still ‘between hosts’ but thanks to Bang the Elephant brewery kindly hosting, the long-awaited ‘Men of Steel’ collab is out very soon.
The beer is a collaboration with Ukrainian brewery Ten Men along with Bang the Elephant and the Crow Inn, as part of Ten Men’s ‘100 Collabs’ project (https://tenmen.beer/100-collabs/), to raise funds to rebuild their brewery after the original fell to the Russian invasion.
The brew is a fruited sour based on the Ukrainian drink Uzvar, a variety of kompot, and after fermentation saw Dave and former Steel City business partner Gazza, Crow manager Ellie, and label artist Lewy join Nigel and Michael at Bang the Elephant for a very scientific (ahem) tasting session involving a few litres of the base beer and a few glasses of apple, pear, plum, cherry and apricot juices/purees and trying various combinations of dosage rates.
Once the optimum ratio (top secret, obviously!) was ascertained, the fruits were added to the two conditioning tanks, while one was also dosed with Madagascan vanilla and lactose to make a smoothie version.
Both versions will be launched at the Crow as part of Sheffield Beer Week on Saturday 8th March. Cans will be available from various retailers including Beer Central. All profits from the brew will go to Ten Men’s fundraiser, link here for further donations https://tenmen.beer/brewhub/.
Due to popular demand, IT’S BACK! Dark Mild from our Restoration Series (4.0%) is making a comeback after a single year, rather than the decade it took us last time, and very pleased about it we are too. Expect smooth, balanced malt sweetness, a touch of roast character and hints of coffee. The ultimate classic British hop, Fuggles, provides a gentle bitterness.
From our beautiful Travel Poster series, our next collaboration is coming up with County Durham’s McColls Brewery. The name is currently TBC, but we do know it’ll be a 4.6% West Coast style pale ale, piney and resinous with Centennial and Citra hops. Punchy bitterness is balanced by rounded malt sweetness and a crisp, refreshing finish.
And towards the end of the month – praise be! From the depths of the Abbeydale archives, a much requested favourite returns, and still brewed to the original recipe! Marking the start of a series of “Legacy” beers as we approach our 30th anniversary, welcome back Holy Water (6.0%)! A wonderfully smooth and well-balanced premium pale ale made using Willamette, Citra and Centennial hops. Notes of zesty citrus backed up by delicately sweet orchard fruits, followed up with a gentle, lingering bitterness.
We hope to see you at Indie Beer Feast (7th-8th March) or at one of our Sheffield Beer Week events, please keep an eye on our website and social media to find out where we’ll be!
After sparking his interest in brewing from cider making from his own apple trees in 2012, Homebrewer Joe Lee has spent over 10 years working on his own recipes by starting with cider making and IPA Homebrew kits, to now recently becoming a competition winning homebrewer for his beer “When Willamette you again”.
Speaking about the start of his homebrewing career, Lee explains, “My wife bought me a home brew kit for Christmas and I tried a Young’s American IPA malt extract kit, which was excellent. It was not until Covid I got into all grain, gradually building up from 1 gallon batches on my kitchen hob to 5 gallon bathes in all one system”. He continues “I was hooked on all grain, amazed how good my first batch of a Citra IPA sated compared to my malt extract kits. I also really enjoyed the process and the nerdy and scientific rabbit hole you can go down with brewing!”
The competition would provide the winner the opportunity to brew their own recipe at the Huddersfield based brewery Mallinson’s Brewery Company and see it sold at collaborating pub, The Sportsman.
Speaking about the ideas behind his recipe, Lee explains, “I was planning on trying to brew beer similar to Abbeydale Moonshine (who doesn’t love Moonshine?) when I heard about the competition, so I decided to do this as it met well with style guidelines of the competition. The main hop in the beer was Willamette, hence the terrible pun that my wife suggested!”
After judges chose him as winner, Lee headed to Mallisons Brewery Company to create his beer into a product to be sold with friend and second place winner, Graeme Dodgson. Lee said, “It feels amazing to see my beer on the bar. As part of the prize, I was given eight pints of it that I shared with my friends. I was proud to see it on tap, seeing my friends and others enjoying it, and it being demolished so quickly” after he explained that the beer had only been put on that day and by the time he had left the pub, they had already started their third cask.
Lee took on the task of brewing his recipe with friend and second place winner, Graeme Dodgson who since bought a cask and took it to Elland Beer Festival in and following the beers initial success, the product then went on to be named the events’ ‘Beer of the Festival’. Making his home recipe, a double competition winner.
Lee adds, “I feel inspired to continue developing my recipes and enter more competitions”, as he shows no intent to slow down following his success, entering the Stockport and South Manchester CAMRA home brew competition to see how his own recipes bid elsewhere.
“I got into brewing seriously when I bought my first house in 2012 which had 3 apple trees in the garden, so I got into cider making. My wife then bought me a home brew kit for Christmas and I tried a Young’s American IPA malt extract kit, which was excellent. It was not until Covid I got into all grain, gradually building up from 1 gallon batches on my kitchen hob to 5 gallon bathes in all one system. I was hooked on all grain, amazed how good my first batch of a Citra IPA sated compared to my malt extract kits. I also really enjoyed the process and the nerdy and scientific rabbit hole you can go down with brewing!”
“I was planning on trying to brew beer similar to Abbeydale Moonshine (who doesn’t love Moonshine?) when I heard about the competition, so I decided to do this as it met well with style guidelines of the competition. The main hop in the beer was Willamette, hence the terrible pun that my wife suggested!”
“It feels amazing to see my beer on the bar. As part of the prize I was given 8 pints of it at The Sportsman that I shared with friends. I was really proud to see it on tap, seeing my friends and others enjoying it, and it being demolished so quickly (they were on the third cask of it by the time I left the pub having only put it on that day). Also, I get more leeway from the family now, so I can brew more!”
“I feel very inspired to continue developing my own recipes and enter more competitions. In fact, I have just entered the Stockport and South Manchester CAMRA home brew competition to see how my beers fair. I will be doing quite different beers in this one”.
The Homebrew Heroes competition was organised by The Sportsman Pub in Huddersfield, supported by Mallinsons Brewery Company.
Came first with Graeme Dodgson a very close second. Both me and Graeme did the brew day at Mallinsons.
Graeme bought one of the casks and took it to Elland Beer Festival where it won Beer of the Festival.
Thornbridge Brewery launch ‘1838’ a new Union-exclusive beer at GBBF Winter
In 2024, Thornbridge Brewery worked to preserve a historic piece of British brewing heritage, the Burton Union system. They transported this iconic equipment to Bakewell, where it has been in active use ever since, including for a special batch of their legendary IPA, Jaipur, and collaborations with renowned breweries Odell Brewing and The Kernel.
Following the installation, Thornbridge introduced The Union, a classic-style IPA crafted with British ingredients, into their core range. The beer has been met with widespread acclaim in both bottle and cask. Building on this success, they are now launching a second core Union brand.
Named after the year Peter Walker patented the Burton Union system, 1838 is brewed exclusively on this historic set at Thornbridge. This premium pale ale showcases the finest ingredients, blending Maris Otter malt with Savinjski Goldings hops to create a full-bodied beer with a light amber hue. Expect rich, biscuity malt flavours, balanced by floral hop notes and a crisp, refreshing finish. Thornbridge will unveil 1838 at CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival Winter, held from February 12th to 15th at Magna in Rotherham. As part of the launch, they will host a tasting with esteemed beer writer Roger Protz on the 13th, run a Discovery Bar on Friday the 14th, and maintain a Brewery Bar featuring both cask and keg options throughout the festival
As you no doubt know, January is a tough time for the hospitality industry and there are many calls for people to support our pubs and help counter the post-Christmas lull.
Obviously we fully endorse this view, but would also remind you that our local breweries need that support as well.
We estimate around 5,000 people read Beer Matters, so if each of our readers were to buy an extra couple of pints from one of our breweries it would add thousand of pounds to their income. And if that additional money was spent in one of the numerous brewery taps it would help them even more.
Here’s a run-down of all our breweries with details of where you can buy their excellent beers.
Abbeydale Brewery
Sheffield’s oldest brewery, now owned by its employees and winners of multiple awards. They have a vast range of beers available through their online shop, and at their pub, The Rising Sun, in Nether Green.
Blue Bee Brewery
One of the smaller breweries in Sheffield supplying quality cask beer around the city, particularly in the renowned Kelham island Tavern, run by the same owners. Their ever-changing American 5 Hop Pale Ale is currently in its 75th incarnation!
Bradfield Brewery
20 years old this year, and a well-known name on the city’s bars. As well as the on-site brewery shop, Bradfield have 3 pubs. The Nags Head, near Dam Flask reservoir, the King & Miller at Deepcar, and the Wharncliffe Arms at Wharncliffe Side
Dead Parrot Beer Company
A 15 barrel plant based in the courtyard of their brewery tap, Perch Brewhouse on Garden Street, West bar. The brewery has recently been involved in the revival of the Allsopp’s brand.
Emmanuales
Basically a small Walkley-based home brewery, but Emmanuales have been around for over 10 years and supply a wide range of beers in cans to many of our local bottle shops, usually with religious based names.
Fuggle Bunny Brew House
Launched in 2014 in an industrial unit in Halfway, Fuggle Bunny open their on-site tap room every Friday, with a number of beers on handpull, and usually featuring a food vendor.
Heist Brew Co.
Decent size brewery and tap house in the heart of Neepsend featuring mainly keg beer and cider, but also the occasional cask. In-house food provided by Talon.
Little Critters Brewing Company
Another Neepsend-based Brewery, supplying throughout the city. Although they have no tap of their own, they are regularly seen in cans at local bottle shops.
Little Mesters Brewing
In the process of moving to new premises and installing larger brewing kit. Their beers can be found in their tap on Chesterfield Road in Woodseats, as well as cans at local bottle shops.
Loxley Brewery
Small brewery based underneath the Wisewood Inn at Loxley. The brewery also owns the Raven Inn at Walkley. and the recently opened micropub No3 at Sharrow.
Neepsend Brew Co.
No prizes for guessing where these are based. 10 years old this year and well known for producing mainly one-off beers. They also own the Wellington pub at Shalesmoor.
The Brewery of Saint Mars of the Desert
Internationally renowned brewery producing keg beers in a range of styles. Their tap room in Attercliffe reopens in March, but their beers can be found in many local pubs and bottle shops at any time.
Stancill Brewery
Established in 2013 using the old Oakwell Brewery kit and recreating their Barnsley Bitter. Often seen in many bars locally, as well as their own pub, The Albion, on London Road.
Steel City Brewing
A cuckoo brewer who’s worked in a number of locations and probably the most adventurous of the local breweries since the demise of Lost Industry. Not brewing at present but you might find some of their beers in local bottle shops.
Tapped Brew Co.
Small brewery which can be seen brewing in the back room of the Sheffield tap, which is where you will also find plenty of their beers. Their American Flyer brown ale won the Champion beer of Sheffield at the 2024 Steel City Beer & Cider Festival.
Toolmakers Brewery
Small 5 barrel plant established in 2013 in an old tool making factory. The brewery has it’s own function room and its beers are always available at their pub, The Forest on Rutland Road.
Triple Point Brewing
Modern brewery visible from the bar and with a large outdoor seating area. Flagship beer Debut is a previous Champion Beer of Shefield winner. On site food offer from Twisted Burger Co.
True North Brew Co.
Located on Eldon Street, behind forum, the brewery mainly produces beers for True North’s own venues, ten in Sheffield and one in Barnsley. Their Devika IPA won Champion Beer of Sheffield in 2022.
We hope we’ve given you a bit more information to encourage you to search out some of the breweries and their beers in the coming months. It really is a case of ‘use them or lose them’. Sheffield has a proud brewing culture and we’re sure you’re just as keen as we are to preserve it.
Outside of the City of Sheffield there are three further breweries within our branch area – Intrepid based in Brough (near Bradwell), Eyam Brewery based in Great Hucklow (near Buxton) and Contour based in Grindleford.
For more information and up to date news on all our breweries, visit www. sheffield.camra.org.uk/breweries.
