Month: September 2018

Last weekend, 8 of us from the brewery, plus one of our trusty barkeeps from the Devonshire Cat (and a couple of our other halves!), took to the streets of Sheffield to take on the challenge of the Run For All 10km road race in order to raise funds for Cavendish Cancer Care.

For many of the team it was our first ever 10km, with some of us never having run before – more about our motivations for taking this on in this blog post.

And so on a chilly Sunday morning, we apprehensively approached the start line, minds on the long 6.8 miles ahead of us but with the surefire knowledge that we were raising money for such a worthwhile cause and that so many people believed in us!

The run itself is a bit of a blur for us all (excluding the giant hill up Hangingwater Road, which I think is firmly entrenched in all of our minds, and thighs, as I type!) but the atmosphere was absolutely incredible. So many Sheffielders lined the streets to cheer on the runners and it was a genuinely inspiring race to be a part of.

Devonshire Cat superstar Tommy was the first of the team to cross the finish line in an amazing 43 minutes, with almost all of us who followed behind achieving a Personal Best. Of course there was a can of Heathen waiting for us all back at base camp once we’d crossed the finish line, which definitely spurred us on over the last (uphill) kilometre!

We’ve raised over £1250 for Cavendish Cancer Care so far and we’re immensely proud to support such a wonderful cause. For any of you who were waiting to see how we’d do before parting with any of your hard earned cash, we are still accepting donations so please head over to bit.ly/teamabbeydale to help us smash our target even further!

A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us. It really does mean a lot!

Cheers,

Carly, Dan, Laura, Toby, Ethna, Jim, Scott, James, Tommy, Steve and Lucy, aka #TeamAbbeydale!

As a team, here at Abbeydale we obviously love our beer. But it’s not always just about beer. We’re also a big group of foodies, with a fair few cocktail lovers thrown in too.

Our recent Salvation release, inspired by the Espresso Martini, seemed the perfect opportunity to blend together loads of the things we love, and it’s fair to say we’ve had an excellent time conducting plenty of important research. Here’s just a few of our favourite suggestions of alternative ways to imbibe your Salvation stout…

Fully loaded burgers with Salvation caramelised onions

Pop a whole can of the stout in a pan with three chopped red onions and a sprinkle of demerara sugar, and let it all sit for 2 hours for the flavours to combine. Then, bring everything to the boil before allowing it to simmer until the consistency becomes akin to a jam.

We served a hearty dollop of our naughty jam atop beef burgers with melted red Leicester, a fried egg, lettuce, mayo, salt and cracked black pepper and accompanied with a couple of hash browns. Deeeelish.

Espresso Martini stout chocolate brownies

Earlier this month we partnered up with Hathersage Social Club to host a four course beer and food pairing dinner, for which Salvation brownies were the final course. The stout was used in the brownie mix itself, with more used to create a sweet syrupy reduction which was drizzled on top. You can’t go wrong with beer brownies!

Blackberry stout jam

The Hedgerow Preserving Company are based just up the road from us in Sheffield and their delicious pickles, jams and chutneys made using locally sourced produced are absolute cupboard staples for many of us at the brewery. They’ve recently created a blackberry jam with the addition of our new Salvation Espresso Martini – a combination which we initially thought of as a little odd but it totally just works. The beer adds a sumptuous richness to the jam which works superbly alongside the sweet tartness of the berries. With a doorstop wedge of toast and some proper butter, a delicious brewery breakfast! (We also got to sample an apple chutney infused with our “You Scratch My Back” smoked scratching stout, absolutely scrumptious with some strong cheddar.)

And of course we couldn’t write a blog post on what to do with an Espresso Martini stout without rustling up an Espresso Martini with it! Shake together 25ml vodka, 25ml coffee liqueur, 50ml strong espresso and a dash of simple sugar syrup. Strain into a glass and top up with Salvation stout.

(We’d also recommend trying this in a bigger glass to allow more space for your stout top!)

If you have created any dishes using our beers, we’d love to hear them! Please drop an email in to [email protected] and we’ll get them on our blog!

Cheers,

Laura

So with only 2 more relaxing Sundays until #TeamAbbeydale take part in the Jane Tomlinson Sheffield 10K I thought I’d share with you why we’re all taking part.

Since I was little Cavendish Cancer Care has always been the charity that I’d pick to fundraise for, having been introduced by a family friend who worked there. To the point of when a dear friend got a charity place in a marathon and asked who should I run it for? Before he’d even finished the sentence I’d said Cavendish. It will now always be a much bigger part of my life, as in 2015 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Now I’m back fighting fit I want to push the relationship Abbeydale Brewery has with them and give something back.

It is my belief that we need to raise two things to help a charity not only sustain itself, but to grow; money (of course) and awareness. Which brings us nicely on to the below; excerpts from an interview I gave as part of their “How We Help, Stories” feature. Which is going to be published in full on their website, I chose to get involved as I think it’s vital that people are more aware of it, I was lucky that I already was. You get so much information within those first few weeks, I hope that if someone reads my story it registers on different level in some way.

“Carly was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma aged 26; she came to the Cavendish for sessions of reflexology and healing between having treatment and working.

“I was diagnosed in April 2015, I’d found a lump on my collarbone so I had a few tests and they told me I’d get the results in two to three weeks. I’d convinced myself it couldn’t be anything serious, I’d had a cold so I thought it was just a swollen gland, and I thought if it was serious they wouldn’t leave it two weeks.”

 “It didn’t feel real, it’s almost like it happened to me but it doesn’t feel like it happened to me, almost as if I was watching it.”

“It was a bit of a whirlwind, I’m normally one who likes to be prepared and organised but I didn’t google a single thing. I never read any information on chemo because I thought if it happens, it happens and if it doesn’t then it doesn’t need worrying about.

“I already knew of the Cavendish Cancer Care because one of the therapists, Janet, had been a family friend since I was eight years old. We’d been involved and fundraised for them before, so I came to the Cavendish pretty much straight away when my treatment started.

“I had around six months of chemotherapy followed by three weeks of radiotherapy. My sessions at Cavendish were all about me and keeping my body as healthy as possible through this process. You typically think of someone going through chemo as really sick and nauseous but I only got that towards the end of my treatment. The chemo would shake me up and make me feel a bit woozy but because I interspersed it with my sessions at Cavendish I could physically still do things and it helped keep my energy levels up.

“I’d say making the choice to come to Cavendish and continue working were the best things I ever did, they helped me get through it. Coming to Cavendish was so calming and relaxing; it was never an event or made a big deal of.”

 “Sessions at Cavendish helped me clear my head; although I didn’t feel like I needed counselling I knew that it was available to me or my family and friends. I have a very open relationship with my family and friends and we all have a bit of a dark sense of humour, I sometimes think I was a bit too cavalier with some people in terms of humour and my attitude towards it but I got through it the way I got through it.”

 “I don’t think people realise how valuable Cavendish is. I wasn’t picking between Cavendish and somewhere else to go for respite and rejuvenation, it’s invaluable because there’s nothing else like it.”

Back to the run, I actually found it quite painless to get colleagues to sign up and run with me, I mean I did only give them three options; 1) run it, 2) come down and cheer us on/volunteer or 3) donate!! I felt particularly bad when one of our owners, Sue, donated £100, saying well we’re on holiday so that’s options 1 and 2 out! Thank you again Sue, we’ll take lots of photos.

I had only been working at Abbeydale for a couple of months when I started floating the idea around and therefore didn’t know everyone particularly well/they didn’t know my history so it is true testament to their characters that within a couple of days we had a running team of 5. We’re now up to 10 runners, and training has been incredibly tough… We work in brewery for goodness sake, beer is all around us!

It is on that note that I make a donation plea, no matter the amount everything helps. To support 1500 families per year they need to raise £350,000. Whether you’re donating because of the charity or because you know us and like to see us suffer – we don’t care!! You can donate online via http://bit.ly/teamabbeydale or if you’re around on the day we’re most likely to be in The Devonshire Cat with a pint celebrating and would love to see you!

 

Carly

 

Carly Honeycombe

Events Manager // Communications