Category: Breweries

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.

At the end of April the World Snooker Championship returns and we will see four beers from Blue Bee Brewery to celebrate the event. Brown Ball, Blue Ball and Pink Ball are welcome returns however we present something rather special for 2014. Inhov the Black weighs in at 7% abv and is Blue Bee’s take on an Imperial Russian Stout. Richard describes this new creations as a vigorously hopped black stout with an enticing medley of five assorted malts and a carefully selected trio of hops. And so to the pUnK zone, and the latest in the pUnK-tuation series of beers. Back in ’77, amid a storm of Filth and Fury, one of the most important, influential LPs ever was unleashed onto the world. The Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind The Bollocks” was an unrelenting, uncompromising assault on the senses. Blue Bee Section is a pale ale, hugely hoppy, and, by chance, an unrelenting, uncompromising assault on the senses. Hop Save The Queen. Bitter to the end. Finally as the sun has appeared and winter feel like it is well and truly over, Light Blue (3.6%) can be seen on bars in and around Sheffield. 3.6% and very quaffable this pale ale is full of Summit Hops and bursting with flavour!

Following on from February’s Tin Can Avenger comes the second beer in our light versus dark series. Dunkel Devastator 5.6% Dark German Wheat Beer, combines wheat, toasted malts, german hops and a specially sourced wheat beer yeast. A superb pint with a full rich dark body and a luscious punch of toffee maltiness. Our second special for March follows our ‘Rocket Man’ theme as we leap toward the final frontier with Zombies of the Stratosphere 4.5% Stellar Golden Ale. ZOTS is a blazing extraterrestrial ale with a sweet caramalt flavour and resinous lime and pine aromas from two types of the finest Styrian Golding hop varieties. Alongside our usual brewery tours we have some great nights planned for the Kelham Island Loft Bar so check out our website for details of a Wine Tasting on Friday 28 March & Whisky and Chocolate on Friday 21 March. If you were lucky enough to get our Brewery Tour Vouchers in your Christmas stocking these can be used toward any of our interesting Loft Bar events. The Brewery Shop goes from strength to strength so if you are passing please call in to say hello and check us out.

With the Six Nations in full swing we have our seasonal special hitting bars in and around Sheffield. Rugbee! Rugbee! Rugbee! is a 4.8% New Zealand hopped pale ale. In other news we are in the process of revamping our website. It is a little rough around the edges right now but if you go to bluebeebrewery.co.uk you will find all the details about our core range beers, where to find our beer and a blog of upcoming specials and events.

March sees the return of some old faces. Our 4.1% pale Contraption makes a return from a 3-year hiatus. Made with the fabulous Rakau and Pacific Gem hops from New Zealand, its crisp, bitter, wonderfully aromatic and packed full of tropical flavours! In addition to this, our award winning Stormbringer is back! First brewed over a decade ago, way back in 2003, Stormbringer is a 4.7% deep golden beer with lots of fruity aromas. Hints of cinnamon and cloves permeate through the spicy and fruity flavours leading onto a crisp bitter but balanced finish – you can see why we brought it back! Keep a look out for two new Dr. Morton’s beers on the bar. Dr. Morton’s Cattle Prod at 4.1% and Dr. Morton’s Undetectable Poisson at 3.9% make their debut this month, both pale and hoppy with Cattle Prod being dry hopped, too.