Month: November 2020

With the new, new Tier 3 restrictions coming into force for South Yorkshire from Wednesday, it continues to be tough times for our industry and we’re no exception. But we’re resilient, inventive and adaptable, and very much focused on surviving this.

We’re still here, we’re still brewing, and we fully intend for that to continue!

We stand in solidarity with our amazing trade customers, who have put so much effort into adapting to the ever changing guidance and going above and beyond to keep their customers safe. The new tier restrictions are yet another blow, with more venues remaining closed during what would usually be the busiest time of the year for us all. 

We are here to support all of our trade customers as much as we are able. We are still able to service our usual delivery areas (as far as we are aware!) so it will be business as usual for any customers who are not under higher levels of restrictions. And for businesses operating as a takeaway or looking to re-address their product balance we have a wide range of product in can and minikeg, so please get in touch if this would be of interest. Our drivers will of course follow all guidance and maintain the highest levels of hygiene and social distancing measures.

Pubs and breweries are just the tip of the iceberg, with the entire supply chain affected – from the farmers who grow our barley, to the hop merchants supplying us with the very best hops from around the globe, to the cellar technicians and security guards for whom the humble pub forms a critical part of their work. They, like ourselves, have for the most part been unable to access much in the way of government support. We’re all in this together and we will continue to do our utmost to support the whole industry however we are able. For now that means focusing on survival and battening down the hatches whilst we keep working hard to keep the beer flowing, whether it’s to be drunk in a pub with a "substantial meal" or at home. So please know whenever you’re cracking open a can or enjoying a pint, that you’re supporting a massive array of businesses and all of the people employed by them in doing so… drink good, do good!

As of 2nd December our pub, the Rising Sun, will be re-opening for takeaway drinks only from 4.30-9pm weekdays, 1-9 on Saturday and 1-6 on Sunday. Our landlord Garry has really missed you all, so please pop in if you fancy taking a little bit of the pub experience home with you!

And of course, our online shop remains open as usual and we can bring your favourite beer right to your door, wherever you are in the country as we deliver nationwide! Delivery is free with all orders of 24 cans or two minikegs (or more!), and collection is free from the brewery itself with no minimum order, for those local to us. Collections are available Mon-Fri 2-6 and Saturday 10-4.

Support your local independents, pals – and together let’s make sure that Christmas isn’t cancelled!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale x

Photo credit: Mark Newton Photography

Our most outrageous beer yet has been (re)brewed and is making its way out into the wild for the second year in a row! Strawberry Tigers & Rooftop Jacuzzis is a 12.4% strawberry, chocolate, smoked, cherry wood-chipped imperial dessert stout, brewed in collaboration with craft beer artist, graphic designer and homebrewer Lewis Ryan, aka Lewy.

You’ll be familiar with Lewy’s work from many of our past beers, including our collaboration Autumn/Winter 2018, and Spring/Summer 2019 series’, and can find out more about him in this blog post. 

When we first got to know Lewy back in 2017, one of the first pieces he showed us was the artwork for Strawberry Tigers – a homebrew recipe that he’d created. We loved it, and it was that which sparked off our relationship, so it makes perfect sense that we’ve now been able to upscale Lewy’s recipe to brew his beer on our kit.

The artwork itself has also undergone a few creative tweaks since then to pair perfectly with the beer it represents… the jacuzzi is an illustration of our beloved hopback (our original mashtun) and the background scenery takes inspiration from our surroundings here on Abbeydale Road. It’s also the shiniest label our printers reckon they have ever seen, with metallic printing influenced by the Dufex technique, and of course plenty of Lewy’s Pinkest Pink!

And the beer? Well, we reckon it does just what it says on the tin! Full bodied, puddingy rich and fruity sweet, with the complex flavours working together in balance and harmony. And whilst we haven’t been able to do a launch event this year (last year at Industry Tap, with a live set from Lewy’s band, was one of our 2019 highlights!) we do have a couple of extra special ideas up our sleeves, so watch this space for more details coming soon.

Cheers!

As lockdown takes hold of the nation once more, we just wanted to let you all know what we’re up to – we’re still here, still brewing, and still here for you – whether you’re in need of a beer or even just a chat!

Our lovely community pub The Rising Sun has closed its doors again in line with the new regulations, and so we are no longer in a position to offer collections of online shop orders from the pub. However we’ve done yet more pivoting and have been able to move this service to the brewery site – so for those local to us, click and collect is available! Orders must be placed online in advance, but then we’ll have your beer ready and waiting for you with a smile (behind a mask, but we promise it’s there!). We’ll be open for collections 2-6 Monday-Friday and 10-4 on Saturdays. Any order placed by midday Monday-Saturday will be ready to collect from 2pm that same day! We’ll look after your order until you’re ready to come and grab it, so don’t worry if you can’t make it on the day you place your order. 

Deliveries will of course be continuing, both locally and nationwide, and are still FREE with all orders of a case of cans or two minikegs. So don’t forget that you can get hold of our beers to enjoy at home without having to leave the comfort of your settee, we will very happily come to your door!

With pubs sadly closing for the next few weeks, we’re diverting some of the stocks we had ready for cask into 5l minikegs, so keep an eye on the online shop for more of those coming soon! Alongside this we’ve got even more cans on the way, as well as of course all your regular favourites. We’re doing our very best to keep busy and keep the beer flowing!

We’d love to encourage you all to support your local independent businesses this month – now could be the perfect time to crack on with your Christmas shopping! We’ve got the first of our gift ideas launching this weekend with gift boxes and Moonshine minikegs pre-orders on the way! But of course, it’s not just us – we’re hugely lucky even just in the Abbeydale Road area of Sheffield to be surrounded by amazingly resilient and creative businesses, so please if you are able, consider doing your shopping with smaller companies for whom your custom is so, so valuable.

Thank you so much for your support – at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it really does mean a lot to us all. We genuinely couldn’t get through this without you, and we hope we can bring a little bit of cheer to these challenging times.

Team Abbeydale x

Sheffield Beer Week, which took place in March 2020, was the last real beery celebration that we all had prior to lockdown taking hold of the nation. As part of this, we discovered that Tom and Dani from the incredible Little Earth Project would be visiting our hometown for an event, and so we absolutely jumped at the opportunity to invite them to brew something special with us. That something special turned out to be… a lichtenhainer!

A lichtenhainer is a lightly smoked sour beer which is relatively rarely seen on shelves and bars. Our version contains hundreds of fresh lemons, along with bunches of rosemary foraged from the Little Earth Project farm and our gardens in Sheffield (does it still count as foraging if it’s from your garden?!), all of which was added hot side on the brewday along with aged Dr Rudi hops at 3g/l. The codename for this beer prior to release was “Project Gravy”, so we’ll let you imagine for yourself the aroma in the brewhouse!

We primary fermented with our house yeast before barrel ageing in eight 180l neutral American oak barrels for 7 months. The barrels were third fill by us, with our house yeasts and bacteria happily infused in there ready to work their magic on this beer.

The intention was always to barrel age the beer and release it at our Funk Fest annual event – which this year, we had to hold virtually. We still managed to make the first pour a festival exclusive, with us holding a Zoom event alongside Tom and Dani to drink the beer together along with our festival “attendees”!

The smoked malt (we chose beechwood), whilst giving a gentle lick at the end, doesn’t overpower and contributes to creating a beer which is overall light, zesty, and surprisingly rounded, with a well balanced herbal finish and a good whack of sharp acidity. It’s less smoky than a traditional lichtenhainer, so don’t be put off if you aren’t usually a fan of a smoky beer – one of our Funk Fest At Home attendees described it as having a “friendly” level of smoke character! It’s also a slightly higher ABV (5.1%) than would usually be seen in this style, which was a deliberate choice to ensure we were more likely to have a stable end product.

This is the kind of beer that everyone picks up on a different element first… let us know your tasting notes and what you find to be the dominant flavour (our favourite so far is "it’s making the inside of my cheeks rain")! And whilst sweet, sour and smoke have overtaken savoury on the flavour, our festival attendees reckoned this would be a great beer to pair along with food and we’re definitely going to try a beer butt roast chicken!

For anybody who would like to watch the tasting session as it happened at Funk Fest At Home (recorded live during the festival on October 30th), simply click play on the video below!

The artwork for this beer has been created by our designer James Murphy, and features our skellie friend on a camping trip. The hare in the foreground is inspired by our post-brewday trip to the Three Stags Heads in Wardlow Mires, which was the last pub we were able to visit before March’s lockdown. 

Through the Sticks is available now on our online shop, and to trade customers too, so look out for it popping up on the shelves of your favourite independent retailers!