Beer number four in our light versus dark series arrives in May. Mistress  Flames 5%  is an elegant Ruby Mild brewed with a sophisticated blend of amber, chrystal and black malts for a lavish sweet mild with caramel and malt flavours & subtle liquorice notes. A smooth, rouge, flamboyant mild for CAMRA’s mild in May. Our other seasonal for May is California Drinking 4.8% . A chilled out amber Californian common style beer brewed to an authentic American recipe using Cascade and Northern Brewers hops for a fresh fruity and woody aroma. The beer is fermented using a lager yeast at high temperatures followed by a prolonged cool conditioning period. This gives an extra sparkle and a smooth zesty fruit character.

Beer for the barbecue

Don’t forget the Kelham Brewery Shop, open in the week until 4pm and until 5pm on Saturdays. California Drinking could be the ultimate BBQ beer and will be available in 5 Litre (8.8pint) Minikegs – while stocks last !!

On Friday 4th April a select number of CAMRA members were invited to the Fuggle Bunny Brewhouse at Holbrook (just off the main road from Halfway tram terminus to Killamarsh) to see the brewery and try the first two beers. We tried and enjoyed ‘New Beginnings’, a 4.9% Malty amber bitter and ‘Cotton Tail’ a 4% pale ale brewed with a mix of 5 different hop varieties. The launch is a gradual one, the only confirmed outlets this month are Doncaster beer festival and Barrow Hill Rail Ale Festival but will start appearing in various pubs soon. The Brewhouse concept will also see the brewery welcome casual visitors wishing to drop in for a pint and they will also host tours and functions. Whilst there we observed brand new casks still on the pallet and wrapped stacked up, they didn’t have to be delivered very far however as the supplier is based three doors up in the same building!  

Glasses are being raised at Knaresborough-based Rooster’s Brewing Co, following the brewery’s double triumph in the 2014 Design Awards, which are run by the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA). The Brewery was Highly Commended in both the Best Range of Bottle Labels and Best Total Design Concept categories at the Design Awards held as part of SIBA’s national BeerX event in Sheffield on March 13^th. Established in 1993, Rooster’s has developed a reputation for brewing beers of the highest quality that showcase a wide range of new and exciting hops from around the world, scooping plenty of awards both at home and abroad along the way. The brewery was purchased by Ian Fozard and his two sons, Tom and Oliver, in December 2011, and the latest accolade follows the decision to re-brand and re-design in 2012. With the involvement of The Lift Agency, a creative design studio based in Harrogate, the new branding has maintained the iconic red ‘Rooster head’ as the focus of the brewery’s image, whilst also creating a clean and contemporary aesthetic that has a timeless appeal. Speaking of the awards win, Tom Fozard said: “We’re delighted to have had our efforts recognised with these two awards. We worked closely with our friends at The Lift Agency in order to ensure a very high standard was achieved, which has been acknowledged by the judges. The feedback we’ve received from customers and consumers alike, since the rebrand was completed, has also been very positive and reinforces our belief that it’s equally important that the quality of our design imagery matches the quality of the beer we produce in cask, keg and bottle.”

2013 was rather a hectic year at Peak Ales brewery, and since Easter, hardly a week went by where the brewery hadn’t brewed at full capacity, although the brewery has been grateful that the winter weather has (so far) not adversely affected deliveries. Personalised bottled beer was a big hit for Christmas presents, with over 60 cases going out. With the daylight hours starting to draw back out, hopefully they can look forward to the spring/summer seasonal, Summer Sovereign, being brewed before too long. A cask of Peak Ales’ Noggin Filler and a cask of Bakewell Best Bitter were served at February’s Chesterfield Beer Festival. Two casks of winter seasonal Noggin Filler were donated to the National Winter Ales Festival at Derby. Peak Ales are currently looking at moving the production side of the brewery to brand new premises near Ashford-in-the-Water  in order to brew more beer to be able to cope with the demand. It is still unclear when this will take place but they are working hard to arrange all the small niggly things that need to be dealt with. Exciting times ahead!

Knight Frank has boosted Sheffield’s burgeoning independent real ale sector by finding a perfect home for the city’s newest brewery. The Stancill Brewery, which uses equipment bought from the historic Oakwell Brewery, needed a base and the Knight Frank Sheffield office found the ideal spot – complete with high quality water for the finest beer. Kane Yeardley, founder of the fast-expanding Forum Café Bar group, is one of four investors in the new venture at Parkwood Industrial Estate in Neepsend, along with business partners Adam Hague, Thomas Gill and the brewer Johnny Stancill. Within six months of visiting the site, and after set-up, the inaugural pint was pulled and it has already earned plaudits from real ale fans. The Stancill Barnsley Bitter brewed on the site won the Champion Bitter of Yorkshire award at the Rotherham Camra Magna Real Ale Festival last week against tough competition from 250 beers from around the UK. Kane says Knight Frank was crucial in making the right deal happen in a tight time-frame. Kane said: “We had to move quickly to find a unit to move the brewing kit into. I looked at a number of units then Rebecca Schofield from Knight Frank, showed me Parkwood and it fitted our requirements. It was not just about the water, but the right deal at Parkwood which Rebecca offered. “The landlord, Aviva Investors, had a simple, fast legal department to first sort out a licence to occupy, and then the lease.” The unit on Parkwood Industrial Estate on Rutland Way in Sheffield is close to the former Stones Cannon Brewery at Neepsend, an area known for its high quality H20 and the centre of Sheffield’s brewery renaissance, which is receiving global acclaim. Kane added: “The unit was exactly the right size and height to house the brewing equipment. Most importantly, the water is of very good quality. It’s why many other distinguished breweries are located in the area.” Rebecca Schofield, partner at the Sheffield office of Knight Frank, who acted on behalf of Aviva, said: “The ongoing refurbishment of the units means they offer flexible manufacturing and warehousing space which is proving attractive to a variety of businesses. Let’s all raise a glass to the success of the brewery on the site.” The brewery joins a variety of local and national companies located at Parkwood Industrial estate following the success of recent lettings including Steel City Cars, GB Eye, Plumbase, Tool Station and Antiquity, where Knight Frank and Campbell and Co have advised the landlord.

Our latest special is a 3.8% golden bitter brewed in collaboration with the Sheffield Eagles. Champions Ale is hopped with Bobek and Amarillo and is a light, hoppy session ale perfect for enjoying whilst watching a game of rugby. We’re proud to announce that we picked up two awards at the Rotherham Real Ale and Music Festival – a bronze medal in the Bitter category for Crucible Best and another bronze in Best Bitters for Forgemasters. We’re also delighted to be one of the five nominees in the Exposed Magazine awards Best Sheffield Brewery category.

March saw the completion and celebration of our 2000th brew since the brewery opened with its’ first brew of Barnsley Bitter in July 2003. The actual bi-millennial brew was fittingly enough Gorlovka, our famous 6% award winning Russian Imperial Stout named after Barnsley’s twin town. Things have been pretty hectic down at Acorn with beer listings on a couple of national festivals resulting in a record 300+ barrels (1200 firkins or 86,000 pints) leaving the brewery in just one week in March. A few of our bottled beers may well be heading to foreign shores with initial request to deliver Yorkshire Pride, Barnsley Bitter, Old Moor Porter and Gorlovka to a distributor in Rome. The brewery has also teamed up with the Local RSPB nature reserve at Old Moor to produce a new brew that will help Bittern conservation across the North of England. The RSBP have launched a competition through their membership to come up with a suitable name for the beer, with the lucky winning entry getting a guided tour of the reserve and more importantly the brewery! With all the additional beer production, we’ve had to bolster the brewing team and Bruce Woodcock who joined Acorn as an apprentice in 2009 has been working for quite a while under the tutelage of Dave Hughes and Steve Bunting but has now stepped up to brew ‘solo’ and we’re getting great feedback on his beers. So on to the beers. The latest single hopped IPA and the 2nd in our new antipodean range will feature Pride of Ringwood hops . It will be a rich golden ale with strong delectable aromas that has a spicy kick with essence of citrus & fruit-like tones.

The annual favourite St Georges (a 4.6% rich golden coloured beer with sweet roast malts, good bitterness levels and a delicate citrus aroma) will be out in plenty of time for any April dragon slaying activity.

Finally we would like to take the opportunity to thank Sheffield CAMRA for the invitation to the Sheffield Steel City Beer Festival awards evening at Thornbridge Hall. It was an excellent evening and a big thanks for the recognition of Old Moor Porter as winner of the Porter’s Category.

Abbeydale are producing (for the 3rd year running) the Now Then beer in April, celebrating the local Sheffield magazine’s 6th birthday. We get our heads together every year to come up with a slightly different concept. This year we have included a QR code on the pump clip which, once scanned with one’s smartphone will offer a wealth of knowledge about the hop farmers who grew the hops and malts. Also the brewery, the beer and the magazine. Kind of showing insight into all the hard work that goes into every pint! The beer will be available throughout Sheffield and parts of Manchester.

Steel City are having a month of collaborations! First up, Grim Overlords is a ‘home’ collab with Sebastian Jarno from Great Heck, and is a pale beer with 109IBU of Columbus for bittering, and a 50/50 mix of Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin for flavour, followed by Mosaic in the fermenter.

Next, on the dark side, So Craft It Hurts is an ‘away’ collab, brewed at Bridestones, a 6%+ stout brewed with oat, then most is being aged in 18-year-old Highland Park whisky barrels. One barrel has vanilla pods, and the other has half a tree’s worth of cherries. Hopefully both the barrel-aged versions will be available side by side at the Shakespeare. Finally another home collab, with Stuart from North Riding. Protz’s Pleasure is the main brew, a Black IPA, as Roger Protz likes to make his feelings on Black IPAs very clear in What’s Brewing at every opportunity (as well as having a rant about it on his blog recently!) and will feature at the CAMRA AGM in Scarborough. A dry-hopped version is entitled Worse Than Hitler as it will only be available in keg – one keg will go to North Riding for the AGM weekend, others will go to the Craven Arms in Brum and the Rutland. From the minikit comes a stronger Black IPA for Doncaster Beer Festival, and in line with the theme being some bike race or other is named Bonjourrrrrrrr Ya Cheese-Eating Surrender-Monkeys. No brew was planned for April due to Dave being on holiday, however as his holiday was booked to Ukraine that may change!

Beer number three in our light versus dark series arrives in April. Gentleman Death 6% is a devilishly delicious Baltic Porter brewed with the darkest of roasted malts and Polish hops. The aroma is sweet, toasted and seductive, the malty body is dangerously smooth and the after flavour is silky, satisfying and luscious. For the Bolan fans 20th Century Boy 4.8% makes a return. A strong pale well hopped with a revolutionary selection of the best new world hops imported from Australia and skilfully blended for a stupendous aroma of lychee, passion fruit and melon. A glam rocker of a straw coloured ale so invigorating it will take you to T-Rextacy. We still have a few spaces for our Whisky and Chocolate evening on Friday 21 March. Former Savoy Group somellier, Barry Starmore, will present and interesting selection of whisky paired with a chocolate selection from ‘Cocoa Wonderland’ on Ecclesall Road. For details of this and all upcoming events check our website.