Category: Breweries

It’s not uncommon for an apprentice to be tasked with making a good brew, but a growing Sheffield business has taken this to a completely different level after creating one of the most sought after jobs in the city after teaming up with Skills Made Easy, a unique Sheffield City Region initiative aimed at helping small businesses to grow. Stancill Brewery produces more than 20,000 pints of beer each week which are sold to pubs and clubs throughout the UK. After winning a number of awards for its popular range of beers, brewery owners Thomas Gill and Dr Adam Hague decided to resurrect a centuries-old brewing tradition. Apprenticeships in the brewing industry were once commonly used by Master Brewers to allow a lifetime of knowledge to be passed on to the next generation. However, as a relatively new brewery, Stancill had no previous experience of setting up or running an apprenticeship programme and so called on Skills Made Easy for help, giving a would-be brewer a unique chance to build a career in a growing area of the drinks market. Working closely with the brewery, Skills Made Easy helped Stancill to create a bespoke apprenticeship programme, as well as overseeing the recruitment process. The job proved to be extremely popular: so much so that the brewery decided to give ten candidates a chance try their hand at brewing beer for the first time. 20 year-old Connell Henson from Gleadless proved to be top of the hops, when it came to mastering beer making and since joining the brewery on a permanent basis is working towards a nationally recognised qualification in brewing, as well as assisting master brewer Dean Pleasant in producing Stancill’s full beer range. Connell’s work includes cleaning and sterilising the brewing equipment and casks used by the brewery, as well as being responsible for transferring Stancill’s unique lager from the large conditioning tanks to pressurised kegs. Thomas Gill, Managing Director, Stancill Brewery said: “There’s a long tradition in the brewing industry of the skills being carefully nurtured, developed and passed from one generation to the next. As a relatively young business, we’ve seen our workforce grow quickly over the past two years, but when it came to producing our beer, we felt it was important to continue this tradition and so decided to create a chance for an apprentice to learn the art of brewing. “We weren’t really sure what was involved with an apprenticeship and so after looking at various options we contacted Skills Made Easy for help. They made the process simple and straightforward from the start. When the job was advertised, we were surprised by the huge amount of interest in the vacancy and so we felt the fairest way to choose between the candidates was to hold a brewery open day, giving candidates a chance to put their skills to the test, as well as giving us a chance to see how they could perform. “The Brewing industry is relatively unusual one. Most brewers are expected to have completed an apprenticeship at the beginning of their careers. It can be a physical demanding, technically challenging job but working with our head brewer Dean, Connell has settled well into his new role and he’s doing really well.” Laura Hayfield, Programme Manager, Skills Made Easy said: “It’s perhaps no surprise that a rare brewing apprenticeship proved to be in high demand from candidates hoping to break into the industry. South Yorkshire has a rich brewing heritage and through the help Skills Made Easy provided to Stancill, we were able to help the brewery continue a tradition which has helped generations of brewers to build a career in the industry. For employers which have not previously employed an apprentice, it can be sensible to offer apprentices a short work trial and the brewing day organised by Stancill proved to be instrumental in helping them to find the right candidate for their business, whilst also helping potential apprentices decide whether the vacancy was right for them. “Apprentices work towards a recognised qualification, which can help them as their career progresses. At Skills Made Easy we work closely with training providers throughout the UK, meaning that we were able to help Conal secure a qualification specifically in brewing, which will set him in good stead as builds a career in his industry.” Stancill Brewery was launched by Thomas Gill and Dr Adam Green in 2014 however its origins date back more than 200 years to the Barnsley Brewery. The brewery was responsible for putting South Yorkshire on the map for generations with its iconic Barnsley Bitter and was based next to Barnsley FC’s Oakwell Football Stadium and traded until 2013 as Oakwell Brewery. A chance visit to the brewery revealed plans for the brewery’s closure and so the two friends mounted an eleventh hour rescue bid. Tom and Adam secured the company’s brewing equipment and were given just six weeks to find premises to house their new brewery. Changes in the way water is supplied to Barnsley meant that sourcing a suitable site in the town was not possible – with water being supplied to the town from the River Ouse, which made it unsuitable for brewing. The brewery relocated to Sheffield, which is supplied with the softer Pennine water, originally used to brew Barnsley Bitter, and allowing Stancill’s Barnsley Bitter to remain as true to the original recipe as possible. Skills Made Easy provides a comprehensive range of training and apprenticeship advice to small and medium-sized businesses based within the Sheffield City Region. The programme is available at no costs to companies in the region and also helps businesses to access government grants to cover the costs of training. To find out more about the scheme, telephone: 0114 229 6183 or visit www.skillsmadeeasy.org.uk

Stancill have updated the design of their pump clips.

Exit 33 are releasing two new beers this month. Conquest 4.7% is burnt golden orange in colour bursting with dominant citrus flavour from Centennial hops with fruity tropical notes also present from the addition of El Dorado. And secondly Hop Kiss 3.9% will be released later in the month. This pale ale is hopped generously but carefully with German lager hops complimented by late additions of New Zealand and American varieties and is also dry hopped during fermentation with the revered Citra variety. Like a big hoppy kiss on the taste buds! Three Exit 33 beers Hop Monster, Mosaic and Hop Kiss are now available in bottle. They are all unfined, naturally hazy and vegan friendly. Their Speyside Whisky Cask Stout won gold at the recent Bradford CAMRA beer festival. The brewery is proud to be accredited to the famous Made in Sheffield Mark. As part of Sheffield Museums Made in Sheffield and the Year of Making Exhibition they will be delivering a series of lunchtime talks at the Millennium Gallery throughout September.

True North Brew Co are once again partnering with Thornbridge Brewery to present The Sheffield Half Pint Marathon 2016. After the success of the 2015 ‘race’ we are proud to announce that this May you can once again work your way around the city for The Sheffield Half Pint Marathon and whilst raising your glass in some of the best pubs around you’ll be supporting the amazing work done by our chosen charities Sheffield Hospitals Helipad Appeal and Sheffield Mind. All the pubs involved will be stocking our official beer Stitch a light, hoppy ale brewed by Thornbridge Brewery in collaboration with True North. With every pint sold funds will be going straight to the charities so you know you’ll be drinking for a good cause! Whether completing the marathon in days, weeks or months every finisher can buy a Sheffield Half Pint Marathon t-shirt at a special discounted price and is automatically entered into a prize draw for the chance to win some great prizes, including: Bottles of Sheffield Dry Gin, True North Brew Co Vouchers, Tickets to the Supper Club at The Broadfield, VIP passes to ‘Oakstock’ at the British Oak, Thornbridge Brewery Tour Vouchers and cases of Thornbridge beers

Steel yourself… something’s brewing… Makers Ale 4.0%.

Number four of our top ten reasons we love Sheffield is homage to the city-region’s makers and shakers past and present. Whether you are inspired by the Buffer Girls, Harry Brierley or a modern day craft brewer there is something in this region which excites us as Makers!

In the Making

Three exhibitions form The Year of Making, a major city-wide initiative celebrating Sheffield’s international reputation for innovation and excellence in making. Sheffield is more than just a steel city – its international reputation for excellence and innovation in a wide range of making and manufacture is celebrated in another major new exhibition, Made in Sheffield, open at the Millennium Gallery. Museums Sheffield have invited companies to declare their pride for Sheffield and support this flagship 2016 exhibition and align their brand with the very best of design and production in Sheffield. So we thought we’d promote this and recommend you contact Grace Brierley, Partnership Development Officer: grace.brierley@museums-sheffield.org.uk, 0114 278 2612.

The Sheffield Brewery Co at the Made in Sheffield Awards 2016

This prestigious event celebrated excellence in manufacturing from across the city region. The Master Cutler once again hosted the event at the magnificient Cutlers Hall on 21st April. The Made in Sheffield brand gives local companies the opportunity to celebrate their ongoing commitment to world class quality and excellence in manufacturing. More than 250 companies are licensed to use the Made in Sheffield logo. The Sheffield Brewery Beer Club – book our next event: a weekender – Fri May 1st and Sat 2nd 5pm – 11pm.

Our second first Friday was a great success!

Congratulations again to our neighbours, the mighty Peddler Market, they’re open again the first Friday and Saturday of every month, and will showcase another fresh line-up of Britain’s best street food traders, alongside top-notch craft beers, freshly made cocktails, live music and art. The atmosphere is fab and just gets better each event! Big thanks to Tom from Silverdale School for playing a fantastic set last Friday. Any smallish bands or singers fancy playing at our Beer Club please get in touch with Pete at the brewery. Why not pop along to one of our events or maybe join the club and enjoy a choice of our cracking real ales or wines at a discount! Lookout for more in our Top Ten series which we’ll be releasing at the end of each month. Details of everything on our new website www.sheffieldbrewery.com

Our latest brews have included Solaris, a 4.3% pale ale with generous late editions of Sorachi Ace, Equinox and Calypso hopes giving plenty of distinctive Sorachi lemon and dill notes backed up by the fruity flavours of Equinox and Calypso, and Triton, a 4.5% pale hopped with three of the American ‘C’ hops, Citra, Cascade and Chinook. We’ve also got a new IPA in the fermenter at the time of writing. It will be a golden American IPA showcasing bags of Mosaic, Calypso and Chinook hops and benefiting from being dry hopped with mosaic in one of our brand new conditioning tanks, which we have just got up and running. By the time you are reading this we will probably have already hosted five of our fellow brewers on the 28th of April for the Sheffield Brewer’s Co-Operative collaboration brew for the Sheffield Food Festival next month. The beer will be a six hop pale ale – one hop variety per brewer with Neepsend, Kelham Island, Abbeydale, Exit 33, Blue Bee and Sheffield Brewery all pitching in. The beer will be available at the Food Festival at the end of May and in pubs across the city. We also have plans in place for a collaboration brew with Hopjacker Brewery in Dronfield, which will take place in May. The current plan is for a Breakfast IPA featuring grapefruit and oatmeal and we are looking forward to the brew day already.

In a slight (OK, more than slight) change of plan, since the last Beer Matters went to press Dave realised that he wouldn’t have time to fit in another brew for Anti-Reinheitsgebot 500 at the end of April. Bokaro IPA has therefore been put off until early summer, while the current brew is Beleidigung Zur Geschichte (Insult to History), a hybrid IPA/Weissbier (or Hopfenweisse). BZG features a blend of malted barley and wheat, 115IBU of Magnum, and a flame-out charge of Galaxy and Kazbek, before being fermented with a German Weissbier yeast. Finally the brew was dry-hopped with more Galaxy and (just to ensure non-Reinheitsgebot compliance) some kiwi fruit. First taste off the fermenter suggests big banana and tropical fruit flavours, and very easy-drinking for 5.3%! Beleidigung Zur Geschichte is unfined so will be naturally hazy (or even cloudy, as befits a weissbier), and of course vegan-friendly. An idea Dave had a while back was two festival specials, Four Candles and Fork Handles, and with the death of Ronnie Corbett last month now seemed an appropriate time to do it. Four Candles is Beleidigung Zur Geschichte dry-hopped with Jester, while Fork Handles is Craven’d Ale with the addition of Maple, Cacao Nibs and Coconut. They will be available side-by-side at the Shakespeare. In sadder news, the same brewday was to feature Shazz’s first brew to her own recipe, but a broken element on the minikit put paid to that idea. Especially galling after the time taken to peel and slice a large quantity of blood oranges, limes and clementines for the brew! RIP minikit, we had some good times… Perhaps Steel City could crowdfund a new one. ‘Equity for Drunks’ has a nice ring to it… The latest collaboration is a local affair, being brewed at Lost Industry. Nate at Lost Industry and Dave both independently came up with the idea of a Mojito Sour, and had been planning a Lost Steel Industry collab for a while, so it seemed a perfect opportunity. Lost Steel Industry is a 6% kettle-soured pale, brewed with Kaffir Lime leaves, Lime Juice, Mint leaves and fermented on rum-soaked oak chips. A trial batch will appear early May, with a full brew appearing in time for summer.

After a couple of months brewing and becoming accustomed to our new home down at The Sheffield Brewery Company, March and April were good months for Emmanuales. We delivered our first cask beer, Ryejoice, made with Nelson Sauvin and Simcoe hops to The Harlequin for a joint Meet the Brewer event with Exit 33 as part of Sheffield Beer Week; we appeared on BBC Radio Sheffield to talk about our beers and plans for the future; and three of our beers – Jonah and the Pale (5.0% Transatlantic Pale Ale), Ryejoice (5.4% Pale Rye) and As the Deer Pants For Porter (5.0% Smoked Porter) – finally hit bottle shops in and around Sheffield. Even with the increased capacity to produce our beers, demand for Emmanuales is growing all the time. Our feet are barely touching the ground with early starts brewing and late night bottling sessions, all the while currently holding down a day job. Over the course of this year, you can expect to see more events, as well as new beers. Later this year, we’ll be launching Hymns & Beer; two events – one in Sheffield and one in Oxford – with Emmanuales on tap and bearded hipster singer/songwriter Tom Read performing modern folk arrangement of timeless hymns. Also, we’re currently brewing Ex Nihilo, a Russian Imperial Stout, an American amber ale (yet to be named; suggestions on a postcard!) and conditioning something very special… Inspired by a salted caramel flapjack called Salty Jack, produced and sold by Gertie’s Cafe in Walkley, Salt of the Earth (4.8% Salted Caramel Peanut Ale) is made with oats, peanuts, and a collection of caramel malts. Not only is this beer a celebration of a divine tray-bake, but raises up a glass to the good people of Walkley, who really are the salt of the earth. Salt of the Earth, Oh Hoppy Day (6.1% IPA), Ex Nihilo and our American Amber Ale will be available in June. For more details, visit www.emmanuales.co.uk.