Category: Breweries

  With National Guide Dogs Week getting under-way on the 4^th October Steve Bowles a Worksop Guide Dog owner wanted to come up with an innovative way to raise awareness and much needed funds for the charity. Steve says; ‘A friend mentioned that he had seen a beer that had been brewed for another charity and I thought what a great idea, so I had a look for a local brewery and up popped Welbeck Abbey’ Steve made contact with Head Brewer, Claire Monk, who herself had said she was looking to work with a local charity and so a partnership was brewed, so to speak. Welbeck Abbey is an independent micro brewery based in the grounds of The Welbeck Estate. Steve, his guide dog May, and local volunteer Eddie, went along to meet Claire and set about choosing ingredients for their beer. The recipe was finalised with the help of Pete and Kimberley, two other Worksop Guide Dog owners.  Claire says ‘They knew exactly what type of beer they wanted and were instrumental in the whole process’. On Wednesday evening at The Grey horses Inn, Carlton in Lindrick, the first pint of ‘Barley May’ was pulled for the public and it went down a treat.  The beer is aptly named after the two guide dogs in the Worksop volunteering group Barley & May, and May was there to take centre stage at the launch. Over 3000 pints of Barley May has been brewed and is available in over 40 pubs in the area with 10p from every pint going to Guide Dogs.  ‘It was a pleasure to meet Steve and May and to be able to help a local charity’ says Claire. ‘We are very grateful to Claire and the whole Welbeck Abbey team for supporting Worksop Guide Dogs; this was a great start to the Guide Dogs Week activities’ Says Jo Berry Community Fundraiser for the Charity. This year we are asking people to Donate an Hour during guide dogs week and become one of ‘Hour Heroes’ to find out how you can get involved please go to www.guidedogs.org.uk/GDW14 ———————– In the event of the Greendale oak closing for refurbishment, Claire Monk of local craft brewery Welbeck Abbey Brewery is teaming up with Joe Parente of Quo Vadis, Soho, to create the Cuckney House Pop Up Pub. In the old village manor house recently used as the film set for ‘testament of youth’ starring Kit Harrison, a no frills bar will be set up to provide the local community and beyond a chance to get together and sample award winning real ales, perfectly executed classic 1920’s cocktails and the chance get a sneak peek of the inside of a wonderful old house. The venue will open it’s doors from the 23rd of October until the 15th of November, opening on Thursday and Friday evenings from 5pm, and Saturdays from 2pm. Parking is provided in the field opposite the entrance to the house itself. A percentage of the proceeds will be donated to the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance which is so vital in helping rural communities such as Cuckney get the immediate medical aid that is occasionally needed.

The Great British Home Brew Challenge – the winning beer now available In Waitrose

In August we announced the winning beer from this year’s Great British Home Brew Challenge, organised by Thornbridge Brewery, Waitrose and Brew UK. The competition, which had over 200 entries, was launched in June to find the best home brew. The prize, to see the winning beer turned into a commercial product for Waitrose, has been championed by Derbyshire-based Thornbridge Brewery, who already have a successful range of craft beers at the supermarket. Drinks writers Victoria Moore, Jamie Goode and Daniel Tapper joined Waitrose experts Anne Jones  and Kate Prall and Thornbridge brewers Rob Lovatt and Dominic Driscoll along with Greg Hughes of Brew UK, formed a panel to judge the entries in August, eventually deciding that Graham Nelson’s Vienna IPA was the deserving winner. Since hearing about his beer winning the competition Graham has worked with the Thornbridge Brewing Team, headed by Rob Lovatt, and has visited the brewery to be involved in the brew and the bottling of his Vienna IPA. Graham says “Since learning that I’d won it’s been a fantastic experience to be involved in helping Thornbridge’s brewers scale up my recipe and make the beer. I only make forty bottles when home brewing so to see ten thousand bottles packaged and ready to be sent out was quite humbling! The beer tastes fantastic – a flavoursome, amber-coloured IPA with the big hop aromas very evident. It was clearly the same recipe as my beer but as I expected, Thornbridge’s attention to detail had taken it to the next level! Rob Lovatt reports “I knew Graham’s beer was going to be in the running for the winner the moment I tasted it. It was solid, well balanced, clean and had a modern hop profile which really stood out. I think we really did Graham’s beer justice and the final product produced in our Riverside Brewery is something he can be really proud of.”

Seasonal beer for November are Ella IPA, a 5% ABV Australian hopped IPA displaying floral and subtle spice notes along with Thunderstruck Black IPA at 5.7%, this is named after the classic AC/DC song, smooth malt base, packing a powerful aroma from the dry hopping with American Simcoe hops. We’ve won an another award! Our Barnsley Bitter was voted Champion standard bitter at the SIBA Yorkshire and North East regional beer competition. Judged by our peers this award comes on the back of a successful Export order which sees Barnsley Bitter heading over to Italy.

Spire Brewery is now under new management and will be trading as  Spire Brewing Company

As of the 22^nd September  2014, the assets of Spire Brewery have been transferred over to a new company trading as  Spire Brewing Company . Over the next 4 months there will be significant investment into the new Spire Brewing Company, building on the legacy and hard work put in by Dave McLaren, the previous owner and founder of Spire Brewery Ltd. Dave incidentally has not gone away and will provide some advice and guidance to help the new owner in this venture. The key milestones will include:

• Transfer old brew house to new premises better suited to brewing.
• Investment in a brand new 15bbl plant.
• Recruitment of a new full time head brewer.
• Clear identification of the Core Brands and road map for seasonal production.
• New web site and Facebook page
• Various launch events.

My personal investment in this venture has been driven by a passion for beer and the desire to ensure we produce beer both of quality and consistency. I have lots of ideas as to what we want to produce, but at the core will be many of Spire’s traditional brews. In short, I like a good pint, each time every time. Gareth Jones Owner (and CAMRA Member)

Quite a bit happening down here. After months of hard work preparing the groundwork, a variety of Acorn Beers finally left Wombwell on Wednesday 10th September bound for Italy. The fashion concious ‘stylistas’ of Northern Italy will for this Autumn’s season be mostly drinking Barnsley brewed Barnsley Bitter, Yorkshire Pride, Old Moor Porter, Barnsley Gold and Gorlovka. Bellisimo!! After even more hard work the team in S73 are delighted to announce that Old Moor Porter has just been listed regionally within Morrisons stores across the north of England. New beers: Waimea IPA 5% – Brewed with New Zealand Wiamea hops that impart an intense citrus fruit aroma with subtle pine characteristics   Strongheart 5.1%, a strong version of our very popular Summer Pale, A clear, light straw coloured wheat beer with slight bitterness and a floral aroma. Dave Hughes

Steel City’s He’s Not The Messiah won the Silver Award in the Bitter category at Peterborough Beer Festival. Does this mean there was a beer that was more bitter than 127IBU?! Seriously though, Dave and Shazz (and guest brewer Noel!) are pretty please to pick up an award, especially from a festival with so many beers. Grateful Deaf American Pale Ale is now doing the rounds… it’s perhaps ironic the first beer Steel City name ‘Pale’ for years is three times darker than their usual offerings – almost makes Black IPA sound sensible! While the brew may look more like a traditional bitter, the taste is anything but, with tropical flavours and a bitter finish.   Somewhat unbelievably (to Dave and Gazza at least), September marks the fifth anniversary of the first Steel City brew. Brewed at The Brew Company, under Pete’s license, Hop Manifesto seemed pretty ground-breaking at the time, marking Steel City’s arrival with what they would later term ‘Transatlantic Pale Ale’, i.e. a very American hop profile but built on a very English pale malt base with no coloured malts or grains at all. The lads are contemplating marking the occasion with the unprecedented step of repeating a brew – a re-brew of Hop Manifesto in fact. Perhaps the most noticeable thing about the last five years for Dave and Gazza is just how much the beer market has changed – hard to believe now that they got into brewing because it was so difficult to find the hop-heavy brews they favour!

We opened our Brewery on the 1st of February 2014 and since producing and selling our beers in April of this year we are going from strength to strength. Our Director and Award Winning Brewer has over 37 years experience in the Brewing Industry, and his passion about Real Ale and what a ‘proper pint’ should taste like therefore lead him to the decision of biting the bullet and going it alone. We have a 6BBL plant and since producing our Quintessential, Quality Craft Ales we have gone from strength to strength, which we put down not only to the excellent beer we produce, but our new marketing strategy.  We decided we wanted to be a little different from the other breweries but still keeping the principles of what the customer wanted.  So we decided to treat our venture as a story, as in life we all go through different chapters, with a beginning, middle and end. Fuggle Bunny Brew House Limited was created around several key facts one of which was the Hop named Fuggle which was the cornerstone for English Hops in the 1800 to early 1900’s.  There are some differing stories to how it was discovered, but I am sticking by this one.  In 1861 Richard Fuggle from Kent came across a casual seedling in George Stace’s flower garden, the seed from which the plant arose was shaken out along with the crumbs from the hop picking dinner basket used by Mrs Stace, and is why we have named one of our Beers Chapter 5 – Oh Crumbs 3.8% easy drinking sessional beer.  It was then commercially introduced around 1875. We then chose a Rabbit which is synonymous with rebirth and resurrection and as we live in Sheffield where 3 of the biggest breweries foreclosed several years ago, we therefore thought what a great place to start our ‘New Beginnings’. The pump clips are causing quite a stir, again we wanted something a little different, we researched what drinkers looked for at the bar, and so we incorporated a story to each pump clip which follows each chapter and in doing so we highlighted the aromas and tastes into the story along with what type of beer it was under the Title name for e.g our Chapter 1 – New Beginnings 4.9% (AMBER BITTER) so that the drinkers can actually see what kind of beer it is without having to continually ask bar staff. The pump clips are designed around a book with the top right hand corner being the page turnover and that is where we decided to add the Union Jack with the words made in britain as we are proud of our Heritage. We also wanted to be a little more personal and flexible to our customers and on Friday it is Fuggles day when the public can call into the Brewery, taste our beers and take home 4pt carry out jugs which also have an interesting story label. We are sponsoring the Sheffield Steel City 40th Ruby anniversary Beer Festival and all our Chapters will be there, and hopefully we will have a New Chapter 7 which we will unveil on the night.  We are also entered into the SIBA North East Beer Competition in York.  We have secured 3 major contracts to date with another on the horizon which is not bad going to say we have only been selling for 6 months.  Our bar is near completion and ready for our first paying guests for the Brewery Tour which starts on 24th October 2014 which incidentally is with the CAMRA guys. Finally I know the sun is still shining bright but Christmas is looming in the wings, therefore in order to make your Christmas go with a bang – get your orders in now for a fuggling festive Christmas – hop to it! Check us out on our website www.fugglebunnybrewhouse.co.uk  A warm and friendly welcome awaits everyone at the Fuggle Bunny Brew House Limited. For all your party needs……we sell to the public, trade, wholesale and landlords. Wendy Steeple  

To kick things off this month, we have are proud to launch our Albion Ales series of beers with Scepter’d Ale a 4.1% green hopped beer that should be hitting the bar right about now! The Albion series has come about in partnership with Albion Choir (www.albionchoir.org.uk) and will be championing British hops.  We plan to have a new Albion beer each month, and coming up in October is  Full English Breakfast Stout a rich, full bodied 4.9% stout made with oatmeal and coffee, before being primed with maple syrup.  There is an excellent article on both the Albion series and the green hopped beer on our website and elsewhere in this issue of Beer Matters. New in our Dr Morton’s range are Gra’mma Checker and Typopotamus both will be 4.1% with the Gra’mma Checker being the paler of the two. We will also see the return of White Lady, a 4.7% pale ale made with a small amount of lager malt, with both European and NZ hops to give a fruity bitter finish. A quick apology to those who were looking forward to Temptation and the Russian Imperial Stout which were promised in the last edition. Temptation has been pushed back in the brew plan until 2015, and the stout was sacrificed to make way for the breakfast stout mentioned above! Capacity in the brewery is currently being expanded with the imminent arrival of a gigantic new fermenter and conditioning tank which will take maximum weekly production to over 225BBLs a week, we’re just waiting for the concrete to dry! Until next month, mine’s a pint!

 A great new beer and a returning classic for Kelham fans in October. Rye Plains Drifter 4.9% rye pale ale. You can take a walk out west with this brand new rye pale ale. Choicest El Dorado and Cascade hops complement the complex malt/grain flavour from a grist of tipple, caramalt and rye malt. A fine golden refreshing ale. Radar Men From the Moon 4% cosmic golden ale. Makes its annual re-entry to bring you an 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. Couple of interesting comings and goings at Kelham this month. After 7 years at the brewery Matt Emsall is leaving us to take a position with Great Orme Brewery, he will be joining, Richard, another Kelham ex brewer & we wish them both every success. On the arrivals front a new pallet truck has arrived and from the smiles on the yardboys faces it really feels like Christmas has come early. In the shop we have bottles of 125 Ale now in the stock. The first pallet sold out at the Bramall Lane open day in a couple of hours. A great present for a blades fan.