Category: Breweries

Having been welcomed into the brewing community here in Sheffield, we’ve already received plenty of advice; most of which has gone something like this: “It’s not for the faint hearted”, “I’d stick to home-brewing” or “What’s your backup plan?”. Starting a new business is hard work and all consuming. Starting a brewery is brutal. Yet, for all the hard work, long hours, getting wet, late night thinking about yeast, and labelling hundreds of bottles by hand, there is nothing more satisfying than being told that your beer was the fastest selling brand in a local bottle shop in the whole of 2015, selling out of Christmas stock in less than 24 hours, or seeing somebody crack open one of your beers all the way over in Germany! In little over a year, since receiving a producer’s license from Her Maj the Queen, we’ve relocated from the cellar of our tiny house in Walkley to The Sheffield Brewery Company, using their mini kit; and, we’re about to release our first beers of 2016, including our first ever cask conditioned ale. Ryejoice, a pale rye made using Nelson Sauvin and Simcoe hops (both of which, it would appear, are a bit like unicorn poo – very hard to get hold of) will be available in the Harlequin throughout Sheffield Beer Week, 14-20 March. Additionally, we’ll be releasing a limited run of Ryejoice in bottles, along with old favourites O Hoppy Day and As The Deer Pants For Porter, available in bottle shops in and around Sheffield. We’re hoping to produce more beer this year, including cask versions of our regular brews, and launch an imperial range – ALMIGHTY – starting with a Russian Imperial Stout, Ex Nihilo. For all the latest Faith, Hops and Love, visit our website www.emmanuales.co.uk Nick Law

STEEL YOURSELF….SOMETHING’S BREWING AT THE SHEFFIELD BREWERY COMPANY! It sure is – our ten specials are in the pipeline in celebration of our 10 years in production and 10 things which we love about this region. No. 1 was a lovely premium ale Philanthropicale at 4.8% and celebrated Sheffield’s rich heritage in philanthropic zeal. The clip featured Mr John Ruskin in the background and went down a storm at our recent Beer Club night on 29^th Jan. No. 2 has a more active theme and in part is to help promote the region’s superb green credentials. Indeed, on our doorstep the Sheffield city boundary forms part of the wonderful Peak District and a whole host of walks, trails and climbs and green open spaces. In recognition of this, a festival organised by the Sheffield City Council, celebrating the great outdoors is on March 11^th – 15^th – take a look at www.theoutdoorcity.co.uk and get stuckin! So, we thought we’d lend a hand and have brewed a light hoppy golden ale and to put it bluntly have called it “Ge’thi’sen Outdooerz’! Once you’ve had a walk, run, climb or ride or just sauntered out for a stroll with friends or family in the park what better way to celebrate getting outside than meeting up in the convivial surroundings of your local pub.   We’re using mosaic hops to make this a very tasty slightly florally golden pale ale. See if you can spot where the two characters in the clip are and what are they carrying? First 5 to answer in person at our next Beer Club event will get a free pint! Just on that note, we’ve noticed the last Friday of the month tends to clash with other events in and around the city. To avoid this we are switching our Club night to the first Friday of the month, so our next event will be on FRIDAY 4^TH MARCH. It should be a right old foot stomper as we welcome another new band courtesy of Mr Graeme McDonald, so we expect a good crowd. There’ll be hot food on again – maybe even a BBQ. So make sure you arrive early: doors open at 7.30pm. Lookout for more in the series which we’ll be releasing at the end of each month and details will be on our new website www.sheffieldbrewery.com THANK YOU AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT 10 YEARS OF CONTINUING TO BREW THE HALLMARK OF A PERFECT PINT!

Drone Valley Brewery continue to await it’s (second) visit from HMRC to obtain a beer producer’s licence. Fortunately this time we are better informed as to what they require under their revised procedures. In the meantime the brewery has gone from basic to remarkable thanks to our many volunteer members and supportive contractors. One observer commented that our fermentation room is as hygienic as a surgery. All the kit is fully installed (except the cask washer) and the buttons ready to press on the custom built control panel. We have our brew plan in place, hops, yeast and materials all bought. The first 6 brews will include those that have proved so popular before plus 3 new ones, all named by our Members who own the brewery. There is always more to do and we are still welcoming new Members and investors. www.dronevalleybrewery.com Jez Horton

2016 has begun and at Blue Bee we continue to produce a range of brand new beers, starting with a couple of single hopped IPAs. First up is Rakau IPA 5.0% using New Zealand Rakau hops which impart passion fruit, pine needle and tropical fruit flavours. Secondly is Columbus IPA 5.0%, Columbus is a hop we use quite a lot for bittering our beers due to its’ high alpha acid content. Therefore this IPA will be bitter in taste leading to citrus and sherbet flavours. On top the single hopped IPAs we also have a black IPA: Into the Void 6.0% combining Motueka and Columbus hops to give citrus fruit flavours backed up with complex roast malt flavours. If it is something a little weaker you are after we put our left over Mosaic and Galaxy hops to good use to create Trans Pacific Pale 3.7%. These two fantastic hops along with a touch of Rakau have produced a great session pale with big a tropical fruit flavour and a dry lingering finish. As well as this we have produced a beer with a blend of five malt varieties to give a deep ruby colour along with plenty of Southern Hemisphere hops to give a fruity hop flavour to create Oceanic Red 4.7%. Over the next couple of months we have a few extra specials beers in the pipeline including a milk coffee stout, an IPA with the addition of mangos and something showcasing the new and excellent Equinox hops. So watch this space! Josh Jepson

A quiet autumn and winter at Steel City, mainly due to Dave spending a big chunk of it in America (he may even get round to writing an article for Beer Matters…) and the far east. Available now in bottles is War Pigs, an imperial-strength version of Craven’d Ale oat milk stout. First collaborations of the new year formed a ‘brew sandwich’! On Friday Dave headed to The Dronfield Arms to mash in a kettle-sour with Edd at Hopjacker, then on Saturday to Raw to brew an ‘xtreme’ twist for both brewers, then on Sunday it was back to Dronfield to boil and ferment the sour… The Raw brew Abandon All Hop Ye Who Enter Here features no hops! Instead, bitterness and flavour are derived from yarrow, orange peel, lemongrass, nettle and camomile. Dark brown in colour and distinctly floral in flavour, this is like no Raw or Steel City beer you’ve ever tried. The Hopjacker brew End of Days is a variation on a Kentucky Common, itself an almost extinct beer style. The mash contained Chateau Biscuit malt and Flaked Maize, so far so traditional… However while traditionally Kentucky Commons were ‘slightly’ sour, End of Days was left to sour over the weekend with live yogurt, reaching a pre-boil acidity of pH 3.6 (IBUs are so 2012, it’s all about the pH now…). Bitterness was kept low as is traditional for the style but not the brewers! Finally a big (and untraditional!) flame-out charge of Simcoe, Mosaic and Cascade were added. Early tasting notes suggest a slightly toasty note from the Biscuit malt, huge hop flavour and a strong sour backbone. Hopefully a small batch of the brew will be secondary-fermented with Brettanomyces for a further twist. The next collaboration is away again at Hopcraft, and will be the third Insult to History for both brewers, possibly a black steam beer. Dave Szwejkowski

  Things have been quite hectic down in Wombwell over a very busy Festive period and there’s been little let up in the early part of 2016. January saw the return of our ever popular Winter Pale Ale a 4.5% pale golden ale with citrus and grapefruit aroma with a good bitterness.  This was complemented by the deep ruby KASHMIR  also 4.5%. A crisp, spicy ale with a malty taste and bitter fruit finish. As February approaches we will be busy brewing Drop Kick a 4% pale beer to celebrate the Rugby 6 Nations Tournament and ever hopeful that the England will produce a better performance than in last year’s Rugby World Cup!  Also in February Requiem is a rich malty premium bitter with predominately spicy, earthy overtones.  This one’s a Steve Bunting recipe and brew, but clearly creating fantastic beers isn’t quite exciting enough for Steve as the intrepid adventurer is off on an African Safari this February. It’ll be interesting to see what beer ideas he comes back with after this next trip. Steve in action with his new compact digital SLR he’s bought for the Safari Steve being away will give the opportunity for Bruce to get a few more brews in, along with a couple of the other lads, and who knows we may see the maestro himself – Mr Hughes getting his wellies back on to create a gyle or two. Acorn’s Brewery Tap – The Old No 7 in Barnsley closed its’ doors for a few days during January for the builders to come in and carry out some upgrading work to the facilities – in other words ‘New Loos for the New year ’. At the same time we took the opportunity to refresh some of the décor, but not too much, as some of our regulars didn’t want us to go and ‘spoil’ the old place by making too many changes. Finally back to the beer – We’ve been really pleased with the most recent series of single German hopped IPA’s with the Mandarina and Hallertau Blanc proving really popular and we’ve great expectations for the Polaris. All in all a really good start to 2016

Happy New Year! Well 2016 came around rather quickly, and hopefully you have been participating in #Tryanuary rather than Dry January, but regardless, February will give you plenty more opportunities to try new beers! More on those later… We would like to welcome our newest member of our sales team, Janie Hamilton, to Abbeydale and she is settling in very well! Those of you in the trade will get to know Janie well as she is going to be out and about on the road the majority of the time! If you fancy joining us and working for the brewery (as long as you are reading this before February 12th!), we are looking for a new brewer! Dave Kerr, who many of you may know, has moved on to Northern Monk in Leeds, and although sorry to see him go, we thank him for all his hard work, and wish him well for the future! All details regarding the job are available on our website (abbeydalebrewery.co.uk). Hopefully many of you have made the journey up to see the new and improved Rising Sun, with the extra floor space and brand new kitchen and toilets installed.  We look forward to seeing you up there soon! So as promised, back to the beer! San Jose is the newest offering in our Lost Treasure series, expect big bold hop flavours with plenty of citrus and tropical fruit. This bountiful pale beer weighs in at 4.3%. Mem in Black – another in our Signature series this time featuring our very own Jamie Memmott, who has fashioned this robust plum porter at 5.2% With plenty of real plums gone into the brew, expect deep rich fruit flavours with a nice dark malt backbone. “Look into my eyes, no not around the eyes…” – a return of possibly one of our most scary pump clips, Trance Sister is a cracking little session pale ale at only 3.8% but has plenty about itself with its trio of American hops. We are also releasing a three-way collaboration that we are very excited about! We have got together with Brewdog Sheffield and the Skull and Bones Boys Club (a Sheffield clothing company) to make a very exciting beer indeed! However, we are keeping things under wraps for now, but expect a mid Feb launch at Brewdog on keg, and also available on cask at other reputable pubs in and around Sheffield! We should be rustling up a new British hopped beer in our Albion series, plus a brand new Dr Morton’s beer called Alphabetti Forghetti with recipes being concocted as we speak! Until next month, cheers and beers Robin Baker

A new Sheffield beer is born. Being the CAMRA brewery liaison officer for Exit 33 Brewing I jumped at the chance when I was asked to help brew a brand new beer with them. I’ve home brewed before but never on a commercial scale. For those of you who don’t know Exit 33 Brewing started life in Sheffield in 2008 as the Brew Company. They recently moved to larger premises and rebranded and I was cordially invited along to witness the birth of a new seasonal beer, a porter called Pitch Black. The founder of Exit 33 Pete Roberts explained the idea behind the porter recipe ‘we wanted to brew a rich flavoursome dark beer for the cold dark nights ahead. We love hop forward pale ales but we also like dark malt bombs and we wanted this porter to have moderate strength, a medium body and high drinkability’ To do this they had selected specialist malts from Bamberg in Germany. With a base of English malt these specialty grains add to the complex malt profile. It will have none of the astringent roasted flavour associated with some porters and will be smooth and mellow but with a great combination of malt flavours. Our brew day started on a dark early morning mashing the grains with water into the mash tun. Soon the smell of steamy malt filled the cold brew house and after an hour the black wort was transferring into the copper ready to boil. I then had the task of digging the spent grains out of the mash tun ready for the farmer to collect for animal feed. I added Northern brewer hops to the boil to balance the porter with a soft bitterness and after a one-hour boil the wort was transferred to a fermenter and the yeast pitched. There’s a lot of hard work involved in brewing but Pete and Dean made the day fun and informative. I taste tested the dark wort and it was sweet and moorish so I can’t wait for the finished beer which will be on sale from the end of January. Andy Marsh Brewery Liaison Officer

It’s been a busy few months for us at Hopjacker, as well as perfecting our four core beers, we’ve started a run of specials. A 4.6% brown ale with fresh ginger, dubbed Snake Oil and a 6% black IPA with Sorachi Ace hops, brewed in honour of Lemmy from Motörhead and available in both cask and ecokeg being the first to be released. As I’m writing this we are in the process of mashing in for our first collaboration. We’re brewing with Steel City Brewery and revisiting a forgotten style, a Kentucky Common, though as you might expect our version will be somewhat more hoppy than would be historically accurate! You can find our beers in fine pubs around Sheffield and Chesterfield, and of course at Dronfield CAMRAs Winter Pub Of the Season, the Dronfield Arms! Edd

Steel yourself… something’s brewing at the Sheffield Brewery Company! This has been our catch-phrase from the start: it was ten  years ago this February, when Pete, Tim and Eddy, the founders of The Sheffield Brewery Company, met in the Gardeners Rest and hatched a plan to set up a micro-brewery in part of the historic Albyn Works in Neepsend. By June the company was formed and work well and truly underway to establish the brewery and get the first mash on. Test brews were released: First Brew, Second Brew, Third Brew and Fourth Brew and our original core range of Five Rivers, Crucible Best, Seven Hills and Blanco Blonde was developed.  As time moved on we added our delicious Sheffield Porter and Sheffield Stout as well as monthly specials Including the original Tramlines ale and more recently,  in conjunction with the castings giant, Forgemasters Ale. The Sheffield Brewery Co. opened for brewery tours in March 2007 and at the time it was one of only a handful of breweries in Sheffield. The ensuing decade, both in terms of the Sheffield city-region’s real cask and “craft” ale growth and those who passionately consume it, has been, to say the least, a real testament to the quality of ales produced in this region. Real ale has become a game-changer as the now 18-plus breweries in this region will attest. It’s not all been plain sailing! We’ve certainly been up and down all Seven Hills (and floods), but we’ve continued with our desire to brew real ales using traditional ingredients and fervently develop a  range of excellent quality real ales. All of our core range and a few specials have won  awards regionally and we’ve  been delighted with the feedback we’ve had from pub customers, landlords and the trade generally. It’s been a pretty fantastic ten years — thanks almost entirely to you, The Sheffield Brewery Co. faithful. As was always our desire, we set-up our own Beer Club and have held regular last Friday of the Month events since (next event is Jan 29^th) and we’ve plans to celebrate our 10th Anniversary in Summer. To kick off the celebrations we’re excited to be launching our new website (launch 1^st Feb) and re-designed pump clip branding: We’re also producing a new Seasonal and Special range called “Ten of the Best” to celebrate all matter of things bloody wonderful about this region. No. 1 will be an IPA “Being Philanthropicale”. Lookout for more in the series which we’ll be releasing at the end of each month and details will be on www.sheffieldbrewery.com. THANK YOU AND WE LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT 10 YEARS OF CONTINUING TO BREW THE HALLMARK OF A PERFECT PINT! Pete Rawlinson