Well, we’ve made it into 2015 and new beer keeps rolling out. Firstly, Ella IPA5.0% is the next in our ever popular single hopped IPA series using the Australian hop Ella, with strong apricot, cedar and peach characteristics.
Also new for 2015 is our series of beers named after different groups of numbers. First out and on bars as this month’s Beer Matters goes to press is Natural, a small IPA packed full of American hops. At 3.5% it’s a perfect session beer for the New Year. Second up will be Integer4%. Using one of our favourite hops, Citra, this is sure to be packed full of intense citrus and fruit hop flavours.
If this isn’t enough excitement for some of you then we must not forget to mention to look out for our dry hopped IPA, made especially to celebrate The Three Tuns’ Sausage Fest. This event takes place Valentines weekend with lots of sausage based fun. After all, what’s more romantic than a plate of bangers and mash with a pint of IPA to wash it down?
February 11th sees the Closed Shop celebrate its 2nd Birthday under the ownership of Reet Ale Pubs. So, we have had assistant manager Christie down at the brewery as free labour, allowing us to spend more time sitting and drinking Earl Grey… The resulting beer is Red Rye Centennial 6.0%; it sees us using rye malt for the first time accompanied with copious amounts of Centennial hops. Be sure to try a special dry hopped version at the Closed Shop on the 11th Febuary as well as looking out for it throughout the various other great hostelries of Sheffield.
Following a successful series of open days at the brewery in the run up to Christmas, another one is planned for Saturday 7th February. It is expected to then become a monthly event.
On the open day the Toolmakers bar opens up with a range of beers brewed on site, live music to keep everyone entertained, a BBQ in the courtyard and tours around the brewhouse conducted by the brewers themselves.
Additionally the Forest pub around the corner features Toolmaker beers that are different to the ones on the brewery bar at the same reasonable price.
The brewery will be celebrating its first anniversary of brewing in March 2015, there is going to be a Limited Edition Birthday Ale to celebrate their success. Their latest offering, Chapter 7 – Russian Rare-Bit, a 5% Imperial Black Stout afforded them their first award, securing 1st Place in the stout category at the 40th Sheffield Steel City Beer & Cider festival in October 2014. Due to a successful first year they are currently investing in another FV to keep up with demand, enabling greater production of their Quintessential – Quaffable – Quality award winning Ales.
The Brewery caught the eye of the Sheffield Hallam University Students, who chose them from the many established breweries in Sheffield to use as their project called ‘This is Sheffield’ which will be exhibited from 21st January until 23rd February at the Made in North Gallery, on Brown Street. Keep hoping onto their website www.fugglebunnybrewhouse.co.uk, facebook & Twitter accounts to keep a breast of more exciting news to follow….The future is bright, the future is FUGGLE.
Having established their core range of three beers, a programme of interesting one off beers under the banner of ‘Intrepid Journeys’ has commenced. Beers in this range will be interpretations of various beer styles from around the world often brewed in small batches, starting off with a Belgian Saison.
So Journey number 1 is a short hop over the channel into Belgium which is home to some fantastic beer, typically associated with high gravity beers that you might sip or have just one of. The Saison is a departure from the Belgian norm in that it is the easy drinking sibling of the Tripel.
A concern given the time of year is being able to maintain the temperature in the fermentation vessel. Belgian yeast ferments fairly warm and the brewery is about 5 degrees at this time of year which means the beer may stall. A difference from a true Saison this beer will be casked rather than bottled and served through a pump meaning we can’t carbonate the beer as highly as a Saison would normally be.
Saison is a style of beer that is reputed to originate from Wallona which is in the south of Belgium. It’s also known as Farmhouse beer, brewed in fairly variable conditions to quench thirst, not knock you out after two pints.
As with other Belgian beers, the defining characteristic is the flavours from the specific yeast rather than the trend these days towards hoppy pale beers. The Belgian yeasts tend to generate spicy / peppery flavours, described as earthy. So this will be an interesting journey for us as too as our standard beers are defined by the hops, the oak or the malt, the
Journey #1 is expected to be 4.6% ABV with an OG of about 1.046 – medium body – and an IBU of around 25 Not massively bitter – Explorer is 35 IBUs for comparison. Noble hops, Perle & East Kent Goldings to extenuate the earthy, spicy flavours. Possibly some Cascade to give it a bit more fruitiness.
The colour is an EBC of 10 – about the same colour as Explorer. Malts used are UK Pale, Pilsner, Munich & Wheat possibly a small amount of Special B.
Steel City’s first brew of the year is an away collaboration… Dave realised that he’d somehow managed to not do a single collaboration with Raw in 2014, so put this right with a visit to brew Ceremony of Opposites (name inspired by the Samael album, obviously…), an oxymoronic Black IPA with the tropical-flavoured Galaxy and Citra hops supplemented by mango and passion fruit.
The second brew was just a day later at ‘home’ (Toolmakers), this time a stout. Diabolis Interium, meaning, as any scholar of Latin or fan of Dark Funeral will know, ‘Devil Within’, is the latest instalment in the Black Metal series. It’s a dry stout made with oats, dark muscovado sugar for a rummy molasses flavour, chocolate malt and roasted barley, with a big flame-out charge of Bramling Cross hops. A kegged (but still real!) version with honey will be available at the Shakespeare and the Craven Arms in Birmingham, and is called Mead From Hell (well, it has been a few months since Dave brewed an Alestorm-related beer…). The Shakey will also be getting a version with added rum.
The minikit also made an appearance, for an exclusive 9-gallon brew of Funeral in Carpathia, an Imperial Stout named after a Cradle of Filth track (are you spotting a theme here…). Final ABV is not yet known, but Dave expects to be paying ‘Tramp Tax’ on this one! A pin of it will appear at the Shakespeare, while the rest will go in bottles.
Recently we’ve seen quite a few cases of breweries taking legal action against other brewers over similar names – e.g. Brewsters taking on Brew Star, Camden taking on just about everybody – so when Dave saw there’s now a Black Metal brewery in Edinburgh there was only one thing to do – a collaboration! Nothing confirmed yet, but Steel City/Black Metal collabs will definitely happen this year.
More collaborations are lined up for March – a long overdue away collab at not-so-silent Steel City partner Gazza’s Hopcraft brewery in Wales, then later the same weekend away to Arbor to brew a sour beer, hopefully with different fruit versions.
Following another record breaking December the brewery is looking forward to a busy start to 2015. Hop contracts have been signed and delivery of the hops for the first half of the year have arrived. Please check our website for regular updated of new and old beers.
Seasonal beers for February are;
White Oak 4.8% – Pale and aromatic bitter with a citrus fruit aroma and hints of tangerine from the Crystal Hops.
Kohatu IPA 5% – Rich golden in colour,this New Zealand hop variety has bags of tropical fruit, also plenty of lime and pineapple notes.
Well first of all we would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! We hope that you have all kept to your resolutions, and ours is to carry on brewing more beer for all of you lucky people!
2015 is looking like the year of collaborations over at Abbeydale HQ, early January saw the launch of the Birdhouse Tea Beer. Rebecca at Birdhouse made us a special blend of green tea, jasmine, hibiscus, rose petals and summer fruits, which were combined with some lovely Cascade hops. If you haven’t been to their shop at Nether Edge, we recommend checking it out!
This month brings the launch of a collaboration with another brewery, and we are excited to be brewing with Rat Brewery of Huddersfield for the first time. The recipe is still being formulated, however expect the brew to be a strong Red Rye beer with plenty of hops!!! Mmmm hops! Did we mention we like hops?
Keep your eyes and ears open for more collaborations with other exciting people for later on in the year, with the return collaboration with Raw Brewery on the cards soon!
Dr Morton has been very busy recently with the return of Duck Baffler and new arrival Stamped Addressed Antelope last month, and there are several other new arrivals this month with Accent Compensation (4.1%), Sane Again (4.3%) and the return of Cask Paint (4.1%). All of these will appear at some point in February.
We are looking forward to SIBA BeerX returning to Sheffield next month, we hope to see a lot of you there for that.
Until next time mine’s a pint!
Two returning classics from the Kelham recipe book this month.
Bête Noire 5.5% Hirisk Stout. A firm favourite brewed every February for many a year. Bete Noire or ‘Black Beast’ is a strong “hi-risk” stout brewed with a specially selected trio of roasted grain to give a strong dark chocolate roasted nose, a fiery sweet satisfying palate leads to a full finish.
Radar Men From the Moon 4% Cosmic Golden Ale. Makes its annual (early) re-entry to bring youan exciting adventure in a pint pot. Brewed with a blend of Australian and American hops to produce a golden ale with an out of this world aroma of fruit & earthy lychee.
The Fat Cat are the hosts for CAMRA’s February meeting, which takes place on Tuesday 3rd February at 8pm.
There are many good things in life – love, health and happiness. The Sheffield Brewery Company, a local independent brewery, claim to be able to help with at least two of those three! They have launched their Sheffield Brewery Beer Club which offers supporters that join some exclusive benefits.
Members get an invite to their exclusive Last Friday of the Month beer club events with a free pint at the first event after joining. Members then get a discount at the brewery’s real ale bar.
Beer Club Members also get discounts on prebooked brewery tour events for their whole party, discounts on brewery merchandise and clothing, a say in how the brewery is developed and a monthly newsletter.
Sheffield Brewery will also be hosting taste testing panels and advice nights for home brewers, home brewers’ challenges and tasting events.
The next Members Club event is on Friday 27th February featuring live music with 4 Piece Zero playing in the Cellar venue at The Sheffield Brewery. This band is brilliant live and covers a repertoire of indie rock and punk hits from the late 70s and 80s.
To join the beer club online email sales@sheffieldbrewery.com, the first 50 applicants for 2015 get discounted price of £10 for session membership.
Although you may not recognise our name, we actually commenced brewing in Sheffield back in 2008. Up until early 2014 we were called The Brew Company, but a shift in direction saw us move to a new location and we rebranded as Sky’s Edge Brewing.
Unfortunately we recently ran into a trademark problem and so we’ve had a second rebirth as Exit 33 Brewing. (We are located a few miles from the M1 and spend a lot of time going through Exit 33 with our beer so it seemed a fitting name).
The same great distinctive flavourful beers remain; as does the contemporary eye catching branding and we are still associated with The Harlequin pub on Nursery Street.
By the time you read this, a new website should be up and running at www.exit33.beer
