Year: 2016

Phew! What a year it’s been, and a worthy way to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We’ve sold over 2.5 million pints of beer, with over 50 specials hitting bars around Yorkshire and beyond. Our brewhouse production capacity has been increased by 25% with the installation of a brand new shiny 60BBL fermenter and conditioning tank. We also released our first ever small pack, including a triumphant return for old favourite Last Rites. We said goodbye to Brimstone, but bolstered our core range with our first permanently available keg… Heathen! 

We’ve created many collaboration beers with a whole host of lovely local business and fellow breweries. A particular highlight for us was being invited by our pals at Brewdog Sheffield to take part in the nationwide Brewdog Collabfest, where Iced Tea Dead People, our peach iced tea beer made with sencha from our lovely neighbours at Birdhouse Tea Co., went down a storm! It was also an honour to work with local music legends 65 Days of Static to brew up Red Parallax,  a Belgian style cherry red ale to celebrate their new album and worldwide tour.

It’s been a corker of a year for our two pubs, too. At the Rising Sun, we had a record-breaking Sunfest for the tenth year of the festival, and the Devonshire Cat has recently been given a sleek and modern new look in a total refurbishment!

So just what does 2017 have in store to beat all of that?! We don’t want to give away all our surprises just yet, but a little taster won’t hurt! Some of you may already know that for the past few months, we’ve been working hard finalising a rebrand of our core range. We’ve had the existing artwork for the past 20 years, and the time has come to make a change. We hope you’ll agree that the new artwork is in keeping with our character, and pays homage to the original design, but gives our beer a more modern appearance which is more reflective of the quality of the drink behind the pump clip.

Secondly, keep your eyes peeled for news on our upcoming #FunkDungeon project. Intrigued? You should be! 

We’ve also got yet more exciting collaborations in the pipeline and a plan for Heathen to be the start of a brand new range, with more artwork from the wonderful James D Murphy.

It’s gonna be a good ‘un!

With very best wishes for the year to come,

From all the team at Abbeydale Brewery

Earlier this month, our brewer Jamie and office manager Laura popped over to Huddersfield for an away brewday with Ryan at Beer Ink. The beer? An imperial s’mores stout, enriched with lactose, cacao nibs, marshmallow goo and a cornucopia of lovely biscuity malts. Doesn’t that sound, quite frankly, DELICIOUS. Guaranteed to leave you wanting “s’more” (#sorrynotsorry for the terrible pun!)

We arrived at Beer Ink on a gloomy Huddersfield day in high spirits despite the grey weather. The first job of the day was to prepare the grist, and thanks to the complex malt bill we had a full malty rainbow, with grains ranging from a pale beige to a rich roasted brown. The mash tun was packed absolutely to the brim by the time we were finished in order to provide enough sugars for the yeast to nibble on to create our hefty 9% brew!

It was really interesting to work on a brew kit that’s so different to our own… During the boil, Jamie got busy grafting and dug out the mash tun, something we don’t usually have to do here at Abbeydale thanks to our handy rake arm! Christmas tunes helped greatly and the vessel was empty in no time.

Whilst we waited for the transfer to the fermenting vessel to complete, we spent some time in the small but perfectly formed tasting room (well worth a visit – look out for open days next year!) and sampled Beer Ink’s imperial coffee stout and the much acclaimed One Armed Bandit, an imperial fruit sour aged in Bowmore whisky barrels that tasted reminiscent of Love Heart sweeties.

We had a SUPER day and even managed to fit in a trip to some of Huddersfield’s finest bars to toast our creation. Already looking forward to Ryan’s return trip next year for Abbeydale x Beer Ink #2!

Cheers!

Laura

We are excited to announce that over the festive period we will be appearing on THOR’S TIPI BAR for its first year in Sheffield! Located in the Peace Gardens in the very heart of the city centre, this Viking-inspired pop-up bar offers “cosy log fires, twinkling lights & Christmas cheer in abundance”.

As well as beers from ourselves and our friends at Brass Castle, there’s also mulled wine, cider, a hot chocolate station where you can choose your own toppings and an outdoor winter barbeque from Cow Boys (www.cowboysburgers.co.uk).

THOR’S will be open from 10.30am to 11pm daily from 24^th November to 31^st December (closed Christmas Day).

For more details, visit www.thorstipi.com.

When you first think of pairing beer and food, many people might not be able to imagine any further than a curry with a pint of lager. However, in recent years with the upsurgence of craft brewing, the wealth and breadth of flavours now possible in our humble beer is absolutely beyond compare, and we at Abbeydale believe that beer can do an incredible job at complementing and contrasting with a massive array of foodie flavours. And so we’ve paired up with the super-talented and imaginative culinary team at the Showroom to put together a very special menu:

Puffed beer crackers with ale-e-oli dip

Duck ballotine, goats cheese, beetroot, almond and cherries

Paired with Red Parallax, 4.8%, a Belgian style cherry ale brewed in collaboration with local music legends 65 Days of Static.

Sea trout, mango salsa, coriander crisp

Paired with Bear Hunter, 4.1%, a Mount Hood and Azacca hopped pale ale.

Venison ragu, parmesan mash, romesco cauliflower, vegetable crisps

Paired with Full English Breakfast Stout, 4.9%, a dark beer brewed with coffee, maple syrup and smoked malt.

Grilled mackerel, tomato, feta crumb, basil

Paired with Hop Smash, 7.4%, a grapefruit IPA brewed in collaboration with Kuhnhenn Brewing Co from Michigan.

Rabbit loin, pancetta, spiced carrot, rabbit jus

Virgin Tripel Saison, 8.5%, a spiced Belgian saison with cardamom, star anise and liquorice root. Brewed in collaboration with De Noord-Hollandse Bierbrouwerij.

Spiced plums, brimstone sabyon, iced yoghurt, malt tuille

Double Brimstone, 8.1%, a strong American Brown Ale and part of our 20^th anniversary celebration series.

Finally we’ll be finishing off the meal with Last Rites truffles, made with our sumptuous 11% barley wine.

The event is taking place on Saturday 26^th November and there are still a few tickets available! Please call the Showroom directly on 0114 275 7727 or visit the box office to book.

Winter is rapidly approaching, and with it comes more of a thirst for settling down for a cold evening with a pint (or several) of a roasty, toasty dark beer. So we thought it was about time for Black Mass to take its turn in having a bit of a makeover for our 20^th birthday celebratory series!

Given that Black Mass is quite the heavyweight already at a devilish 6.66%, we’ve ramped up some of the flavour components but brought down the ABV to create a robust yet still eminently quaffable beer. All hail BABY BLACK MASS – a 4.8% espresso stout, brewed in just the same way as our original sultry dark ale but with hefty additions of freshly ground coffee and lactose for a full-bodied, extravagantly bitter-sweet tipple.

Following on his spectacular range of our anniversary year artwork, Carl Flint (http://www.carlflint.com/) has once again reimagined the original design to give this special beer it’s own identity whilst remaining in keeping with the history behind it.

On sale from November 21^st so keep your eyes peeled for this popping up on bars round Sheffield and beyond soon!

Mine’s a pint!

Here at brewery HQ, Team Abbeydale are professed foodie lovers. We love good food almost as much as we love good beer, and the marriage of the 2 together is just exactly how it should be done in our books!

There’s pizza, and then there’s PIZZA. And we think the guys at Proove have nailed it. Using the freshest and best quality ingredients, they make pizza the ‘Napoli way’ with delicious crispy bases, the finest Italian meats and cheeses, all baked in their incredible wood fired oven.

And what, we ask, would you prefer to wash down that pizza slice with? BEER!! Of course. And we wanted to take the opportunity to showcase some of our favourite beers of the moment along side a specially crafted menu of antipasti, pizzas, parmigiana and even a naughty dessert.

 

Tickets are available from Proove:

Proove Broomhill | 261 Fulwood Rd | Sheffield | S10 3BD

By telephone on 0114 294 5185

Join us in the feast!

Tuesday 15^th November, 7.30pm

6 courses matches with 6 beers

£30

 

Here is our carefully crafted menu to excite the taste buds….

Parmigiana with Goat’s Cheese

Served with a glass of ICED TEA DEAD PEOPLE

Peach iced tea beer – 4.6%

—–

Antipasti Selection

A selection of meats, cheeses & vegetables, served with rosemary and salt focaccia

Served with a glass of FLOR DE LA MAR

Centennial hopped pale ale – 4.1%

—–

Pizza Gamberetti

Fior Di Latte, San Marzano tomatoes, gamberetti, asparagus, garlic, basil oil

OR

Pizza Verde (V)

Fior Di Latte, San Marzano tomatoes, asparagus, courgette, artichoke, garlic, basil oil

Served with a glass of FROLICKER

Sorachi Ace hopped Session IPA – 3.8%

—–

Pizza Quattro Formaggi

Fior Di Latte, Ricotta, Parmesan, Gorgonzola

Served with a glass of HEATHEN

American pale ale – 4.1%

—–

Calzone Vesuvius

Salami Picante, speck, red onion, Fior di Latte, chilli

OR

Calzone Fungi (V)

Portobello mushrooms, red onion, Provola (smoked Mozzarella), garlic, chilli

Served with a glass of FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST STOUT

Smoked malts, cacao, coffee and maple syrup – 4.9%

—–

Chocolate Cheesecake

Served with macerated cherries, steeped in Amaretto

Served with a glass of RED PARALLAX

Belgian cherry red ale – 4.7%

What do you get when you barrel age Black Mass over dates, vanilla pods, cherries, cocktail cherries, sultanas AND then blend it with super fresh Absolution and lactose? You get Just Desserts!

We are very excited to announce our latest alcoholic dessert concoction and this Christmas Pudding Black & Tan has arrived just in time for the festive season. It’s alcohol content is currently being calculated so still to be confirmed but it will be landing around the 6 percent mark. It’s going to be available in cask and keykeg from late November. There is a very limited quantity available due to its barrel aged nature so get your pre-orders in soon as we already have a couple reserved!

National Cask Ale Week starts tomorrow and runs until October 2nd. The eagle eyed amongst you might spot that this is actually an 11 day long “week”, but when it’s in celebration of our beloved beer, who are we to argue?!

Cask beer is far and away the majority of our production here at Abbeydale (even though our keg offering continues to grow massively this year!) and we’re pretty darn proud of it too. With our hugely popular core range, alongside weekly specials ranging from pale and hoppy ales to fruity and roasty stouts, there’s always plenty of variety available and something to suit every palate. One of the aims of Cask Ale Week is to encourage more people to try real ale, and as autumn draws in we reckon there’s nothing finer than spending an evening in a cosy pub with a couple of pints.

You can find out more at caskaleweek.co.uk including details of upcoming events in your area.

Mine’s a Moonshine… Cheers!

Due to ever increasing demand, we’ve just taken delivery of two new brewery vessels! A 60BBL (brewers’ barrels) fermenter – this equates to a capacity of over 17,000 pints – and a 60BBL conditioning tank, increasing our brewhouse production by 25%. In drinking terms, that’s a potential of an extra 898,560 pints!!

These have been specially commissioned to enable us to increase production of our flagship beer, Moonshine, whilst freeing up precious space in our smaller vessels to allow us to continue experimenting with new beer styles and flavours.

It was a bit of a hair raising afternoon with our not-enormous access absolutely pushed to the limits, however we are pleased to report that both vessels are now settling in to their new homes. Now for the immensely satisfying job of peeling off the protective coating…!

The story of this beer, as all good stories do, began in a pub. Myself (Christie) and Josh from Blue Bee were drunkenly admiring the many qualities of the Sorachi Ace hop over a pint of Brass Castle’s ‘Life’s A Beach’. And we both thought that it would be fun to take a similar idea to the next level and make something boozier. So to Makro it was to clean out the shelves of pineapple and dessicated coconut. Two weeks later and after a very full mash tun we have crafted ‘Getting Caught In the Rain’, our Pina Colada IPA at a very healthy 6.9% ABV! To give you an insight into how tasty it will be, it contains a mere 25 kgs of pineapple, 25 kgs of lactose and 15 kgs of lovingly hand toasted desiccated coconut  (that took far too long, don’t try this at home). What sounds more appetising than pineapple, coconut and booze?! Available very soon in cask and KEY KEG (shock horror) via Blue Bee Brewery.

Peace and love,

Christie