CAMRA Sheffield & District
Sheffield & District branch of CAMRA
Proving a big hit during beer week was Hopjacked Citra, which as the name suggests is packed full of juicy Citra hops!
Another hoppy beer brewed recently is Kali IPA, a 6.4% ABV, 90IBU monster of an IPA that apparantly promises to put hairs on the hairs on your chest. Prinicple hops used in this brew are Chinook and Galaxy. This beer, as well as being on cask and keg, is also going to be the first one that Hopjacker has bottled.
In a complete contrast, Hopjacker has brewed a mild, in collaboration with the Two Beer Geeks Blog and White Lion pub. Naturally it isn’t just any old mild, it is a chocolate cherry Mild called Cherried Alive offering tart cherry flavours, rich chocolate notes and a residual sweetness from the complex malt bill.
As previous years the pub that is home to Hopjacker Brewery – the Dronfield Arms – is taking part in 3 Valleys Festival on Saturday 3rd June, as usual you can expect a great selection of beers, food and music to enjoy with most of the festivities taking place outside on the decking and in the closed off car park, the pub is just a few minutes walk from Dronfield Station or the 44 bus stops almost next to the pub – plus of course there will be free festival buses running. Look out for the 3 Valleys promotional beer mats out and about, produced in conjunction with Hopjacker Brewery (who feature on the other side of the mat). 
Stateside Pale makes a return to the brewery’s listing in time for spring. The 5% pale ale is loaded with Chinook, Simcoe and Mosaic hops and is dry hopped in fermentation with Amarillo.
A new Special called Cookie Monster has just been released dubbed a Chocolate Cookie Vanilla Porter. ‘We made this with some ingredients you would find in a cookie including toasted wheat and oats with dark Munich malt to add a sweet balance. Chocolate malt is boosted by the addition of buckets full of organic cocoa nibs which we toasted ourselves in the ovens at the Harlequin pub. Fresh Madagascan vanilla pods are added to the cask to give a real depth of flavour.
Exit 33 are taking over bottling beer for Noodle Inn, Noodle Inn Centro and Satay Yo! Sushi restaurants. Until recently this was done by North Union Brewing. The bottled beer called Gan Bei meaning ‘Bottoms up’ is a 5% pale beer hopped with Cascade. 
A small group of Sheffield CAMRA members recently visited the Little Critters brewery at Neepsend. Head Brewer, Will Inman, currently brews three times/week on their 10 bbl plant.
As well as selling beer to the free trade, they supply their own two pubs. The widest range is available at the Fox & Duck in Broomhill where the beer is available at very reasonable prices and is popular with both students and older locals, with the top selling beer being Blonde Bear (4.2% ABV) of which the Fox & Duck gets through more than 55 gallons a week! Their other pub is the Doctors Orders, located between the University of Sheffield and Royal Hallamshire Hospital, the food service at this pub is busy with both students and hospital visitors. Note the beers here are renamed to fit the pub theme.
Little Critters also have a reputation for quality and have already won awards, for example their C Monster, a 6.5% Citrus IPA was Silver Champion at Steel City Beer Festival 42 last year.
Contract bottling, on an external site, has been utilised. However, quality control, has meant that the brewery currently hand-bottles small batches.
Little Critters are currently finding that demand is outstripping supply. Hence, despite been open for less than a year, the brewery is currently looking for a new home. They intend to stay in the same area as the water supply suits their beers.
With the popularity of their regular beers, a lot of brewing time is taken up simply keeping up with demand, however as they have just celebrated their 100th brew they did manage to get in a few specials with a Hazlenut Milk Stout recently hitting the bars and a collaboration with Hopjacker coming up ready for Sheffield Beer Week which will be lemon citrus all the way!
Thanks to Will for an interesting, and useful, visit.
Dave Pickersgill & Andrew Cullen 
Steel City are already halfway to matching 2016’s brewing total, with one brew on the big kit and one on the minikit, plus away collabs at Lost Industry and Neepsend. The imperial pale stout, Master of Puppets came out at a whopping 11.5%, and tastes mainly of chocolate! Meanwhile, Dave couldn’t find any communion wine for the Pastor of Muppets so the next best thing was Chateauneuf du Pape, along with the communion wafers. Look out for both versions during Sheffield Beer Week
Away from home, the first collab of the year was a double brew at Lost Industry, using the same sour mash to create a Melba Sour for Sheffield Beer Week, while that was ‘Trumped’ by the marmalade sour ‘Golden Sour In A Moscow City Hotel Room’.
The next collab was at Neepsend, a Passionfruit Pale Ale entitled The Passion(fruit) of St Tibulus. Careful now!
The next collabs are scheduled to be the return of the Raw Steel series (Dave and David both realised that despite a dozen or so collabs, it’s been 4 years since they brewed the big hoppy pale style both are renowned for!), followed by the long-awaited trip to Edinburgh to brew at Black Metal, which looks like being an Imperial Black Kvass! 
The Voyager IPA contains the largest hop grist we have ever used, so this one is certainly for lupulus lovers! Keep an eye for other events during Sheffield Beer Week and we will also be at BeerX through the event up at Ice Sheffield.
Other exciting news is to look out for a very special four-way collaboration with some old friends and ex-brewers of ours now at breweries up and down the land (well Leeds, Huddersfield and Wokingham to be more precise!)
We have another collaboration to shout about from another Huddersfield brewery, Beer Ink, and after the success of the first ‘away’ collaboration, the 9% Imperial S’mores Stout ’S’more Than A Feeling’, we are delighted to release the ‘home’ collaboration ‘Tropic Like It’s Hot’, a 6% fruited IPA with a totally tropical flavour, very much akin to a popular soft drink from the Caribbean.
March also sees the return of two popular beers from the past, the last instalment of our campaign for surreal ale, ‘Surreal Ale #3’ a 4.1% pale beer made with Motueka and Green Bullet hops from New Zealand. Fruity aromas with flavours of tropical fruits with a hint of spiciness, some sweetness balanced by a lasting bitter finish. Another returning classic is ‘Dr Morton’s Rabbit Punch’ to celebrate the resurrection of our saviour, ‘Dr P Morton’ (or is it someone else? ;))
We also hope to release the first run of 330ml cans into pubs, bars and local bottle shops, when we get Heathen into cans very soon!
Until next month, cheers and beers, and see you at the Dev Cat on March 16th!
Cheers
Robin 
Black Gold
It may be a certain Irish drink which dominates the Stout sector, but Stancill Brewery’s hearty stout recipes have proved to be a surprise hit with Sheffield’s beer drinkers: so much so that a new variation of the black stuff is back in production!
Black Gold is a new 5% variation on its Movember Stout special. Featuring a hearty combination of roasting malts and brewed with traditional fuggle hops, the result is a full bodied rich stout which balances nutty and caramel notes with bitterness and a hint of coffee.
According to Managing Director Thomas Gill, the decision to create the new stout was driven by public demand: “At this time of year we usually turn our attentions to creating lighter beers to coincide with the longer nights and warmer spring weather, but such has been the popularity of our stout that we decided to re-visit the recipe and bring it back earlier than we had originally anticipated.
“Black Gold shares many of the characteristics of our popular Movember stout, but we’ve adjusted the recipe slightly to give the stout a richer combination of flavours and bitterness. We began production back in February and if it continues to remain as popular as our previous stouts then it’s highly likely that we’ll continue to produce stouts throughout the year on a semi-permanent basis.”
Stancill’s latest batch of stout will see more than 6,500 pints produced and will be available in selected pubs from the beginning of March.
American Pale: Stancill’s first dry-hopped beer
In stark contrast to the creation of Stancill’s new stout, American Pale is the brewery’s first venture into producing a dry hopped brew. The result is a powerfully hopped beer which features a trio of all-American hop varieties.
Brewed using Summit and Simcoe hops, additional cascade hopes are loaded into hessian bags and added to the fermenting tanks to create a powerfully hopped beer from first sip to last.
Not content with adding dry hops to the fermenting tanks, additional quantities of hops are added to each individual cask, allowing the beer to continue absorbing the hoppy flavour as it travels from the brewery to your local.
Dean Pleasant, head brewer at Stancill Brewery said: “The sacks act a little bit like a giant tea bag when added to the fermentation tanks, allowing the flavours of the hops to infuse with the beer. This helps to create a stronger hoppy taste as well as helping to give the beer a strong hoppy aroma.
“Traditionally dry hopping was used as a way of helping to preserve beer for longer periods of time and was commonly used in traditional IPA’s as a way of extending the life of the beer. When hops are added to beer after the fermentation takes place this helps to give a fresh hop aroma which blends with the brew to create a powerfully flavoured hoppy beer.” 
So instead for gyle 400 we brewed something quite different: Land of the Long White Cloud 3.5% the lowest abv Beer we’ve brewed for a long time. This New Zealand hopped session pale is packed with Motueka, Rakau and Waimea hops which impart citrus, lime and pine like flavours. Although low in alcohol this beer won’t be short in flavour.
On top of that, March will see Chinook Red 4.7% hitting the bars of Sheffield. This red beer has a biscuity malt base along with punchy grapefruit hop flavours from the American Chinook hops.
This month’s single hopped IPA is Waimea IPA 5.0% showcasing the New Zealand hop Waimea which is said to have tangerine, citrus and pine characteristics; expect a bitter finish from this high alpha hop. 
