Year: 2022

Well, it’s been a year of highs and lows. It’s fair to say that 2022 hasn’t exactly been the return to normality we’d hoped for, with the cost of living crisis hitting our industry hard – but we’ve worked really hard to keep going and improve our processes and efficiencies as far as possible, and are riding the waves as confidently as we can. Coupled with our ever-wonderful team, in spite of the challenges we’ve faced and uncertainty moving forwards, it’s fair to say we’ve made the most of what this year has thrown at us and we have lots to be thankful for – so that’s what we’ve chosen to focus on here, as we look at our “best bits” of 2022!

We’ve brewed 380 times, covering 79 different beers and over 2.5 MILLION pints, from our gentle and refreshing Restoration – Table Beer, to the bold and boozy Voyager There & Back Again – Triple IPA. Moonshine is still far and away our biggest seller, making up around 45% of our total output. Overall, our production volumes have increased by 25% compared to 2021 which is reassuring, although we’re still only at around 80% of where we were in 2019.

The most exciting development in terms of brewing itself the year has to be the arrival of our new kettle, which is a great upgrade to our brewing capabilities and widens the scope of what we can create even further – you can read more about it in this blog post. We’ve also made improvements to our canning facilities, with the canning line now having its own shiny new room and the installation of a depalletiser. Over 275,000 cans have been filled and made their way out of the brewery this year!

Internationally there’s some good news too, as we are now exporting to Italy, Sweden and Finland – this is an area which we hope to continue to grow next year and beyond too, and we find it very exciting whenever we receive a beery check-in from overseas!

We raised over £1000 for our charity of the year, Roundabout, from a combination of sales of our collaboration beer Fresh Start and Dan & Denny taking on the Sheffield 10k. Do check out their incredibly valuable work towards ending youth homelessness if you are able.

Our wonderful pub, the Rising Sun in Fulwood, won the Sheffield & District CAMRA Pub of the Year Award – a true testament to the hard work of the fantastic team we have up there, especially in the midst of an incredibly challenging few years for our industry. Please do pop up for a pint and a tasty meal if you can!

And the year has ended on a high with a flurry of new additions to our trophy cabinet!

Our Funk Dungeon range scooped the Best Branding tankard at the prestigious Brewers Choice Awards, celebrating the immense talent of our designer James, and our brewteam had great success too with gold medals for Black Mass and Daily Bread in the SIBA North East region Bottle & Can Awards – these beers will now both go forward to be judged at the national finals at Beer X in March.

In other exciting news, we’ve recently acquired a load of extra office space, directly above our existing offices. We don’t quite know what we’re going to do with it yet, and it is need of a fair bit of TLC to make it useable, but watch this space for developments.

A huge thank you to everyone who’s supported us this year – whether that’s as one of our amazing trade customers, by buying a pint in a pub, some cans from one of the fantastic independent retailers we supply, or simply sharing a post on social media or getting in touch to let us know you’ve enjoyed one of our beers. It genuinely does mean such a lot to us. Rest assured we’ll be taking on 2023 the only way we know how – by continuing to make the best beer we possibly can! Do let us know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale

We’re celebrating three times over this week, after winning a trilogy of prestigious awards for not just our beers but our branding too!

Firstly, our Laura and James travelled down to London last week for the Brewers Congress – a two day industry conference which includes a glitzy awards ceremony and party! We found out in September that we’d been shortlisted for the Branding of the Year Award, which was an honour in itself, so we were absolutely overjoyed when we were announced as the winners! The award is for the Funk Dungeon range of beers (they’re the skeletonny ones, adorning the cans of our mixed fermentation and sour beers, for anyone who’s new around here!), with unique, engaging and cleverly complex artwork with bags of personality, all created by our very talented designer James Murphy.

We travelled back to the snowy north, proudly clutching our trophy tankard, to be greeted by an email from the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA), announcing that we’d won not just one but TWO gold medals in the North East region’s bottle and can awards! Daily Bread scooped first place in the Best Bitter category (the second time it’s taken this crown, having previously won in 2020 too), and Black Mass came out on top in the Speciality IPA round. We’re particularly delighted by the Black Mass award having taken the plunge and strengthened its identity as one of the world’s longest standing Black IPAs just a few short months ago (you can read more on that in this blog post here), so it’s great to see that decision justified.

Each of these awards is individually something for our team to be really proud of, but together they demonstrate our commitment to and passion for beer in all its many forms, with traditional beers and those that we’ve been making for our entire 26 year history standing alongside some of our most innovative and creative recent releases, all at the top of their game and gaining recognition at the highest level.

We really are humbled and overwhelmed to see so many different elements of the diverse range of beers we produce being celebrated and enjoyed, and it’s amazing to have some good news to share with you all in these uncertain and testing times.

Cheers!

Team Abbeydale

We can’t quite believe 2022 is drawing to a close already, it’s been another rollercoaster of a year – what better way to round things off than with some Christmas magic, and beer of course!

We’ve got some ace gift ideas available, including our beautiful new gift boxes! Each features 3 beers and a glass, perfect for a Secret Santa present. Choose from our ever-popular core range gift pack, Brewers Emporium flagships, a hop forward selection box or a trilogy of dark beers. Plus coming soon we’ll have the Heathen Trinity box, featuring “regular” Heathen, Cryo Heathen, and Fresh Hop Cryo Heathen!

In other gifting news, we’ve got plenty of lovely merchandise available, so take your pick from glassware and other goodies to make your home bar feel more like the real deal, to kitting out in Abbeydale clothing from head to toe… we’ve got t-shirts, snuggly hoodies, and even Moonshine socks! Don’t forget we have gift vouchers available too if you’re not sure exactly what your beer loving pal is looking for.

And if you want to make it to the very top of the nice list, really spoil that special someone with a subscription to our monthly beer boxes – truly the gift that keeps on giving!

Moonshine minikegs are now available to pre-order for Christmas too – these will be filled the week before the big day so they’ll be tasting at their finest over the festive period. 

We can deliver to your door wherever you are (throughout mainland UK) and delivery is free for all orders of a case of cans or more. For those of you local to Sheffield, you can also choose to pop in to the brewery to collect your beery treats – do please note that we do not have an actual shop here though, so all purchases need to have been made online in advance. We’re open on Saturdays in the run up to Christmas (3rd, 10th and 17th December, 10am-2pm) as well as our usual 2pm-5pm weekdays, to make it as easy as possible for you to pop by. Full details of our delivery and collection options can be found here.

And don’t forget, if you’re still looking for the perfect spot for a Christmas get together, our lovely pub would love you to try out their delicious seasonal menu! Get in touch with The Rising Sun for further information and to book!

Finally, we’d just like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to our charity of the year, Roundabout. Their work at this time of year is as critical as ever, and they have an Amazon wishlist running to help make Christmas a special occasion for the vulnerable young people they support. They also have a downloadable activity pack full of puzzles and colouring in, available for a suggested donation of £2. Head to their Christmas fundraising page here if you’re able to support them.

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale x

Introducing Fresh Hop Heathen: Cryo APA! All the buzz words, all of the flavour. This year we’re pioneering the use of YCH 301 Mosaic hops from the Yakima Chief Hops Elite Product Trial programme… essentially freshly harvested, unkilned hops, which are firstly flash frozen (like peas or sweetcorn!) and then cryogenically processed. This state-of-the-art process keeps all those beautifully delicate fresh hop aromas and flavours, but with all that lovely lupulin concentrated down into a punchy little pellet! It’s another groundbreaking development in the hop world, and we’re thrilled to yet again be taking part in some of the very first brews making use of such an exciting hop product.

Using Cryo pellets (rather than the whole cones we used last year) means we can add them at any point in the brewing process more easily and more efficiently 2021’s edition (and as an added bonus, the shipping is more environmentally friendly too). The hops still arrived to us frozen, which meant that we had a 48 hour window after arrival to use them in the brew. This has meant keeping our brew plan in flux for the last few weeks, whilst we eagerly awaited them to reach us, but we were able to use them both hot side on the brewday itself and then dry hop with them on day 2 – meaning that there is no need for any other hop additions at all other than our usual bittering hops, making this a completely “fresh hopped’ beer. 3g/litre were added at the whirlpool stage, with a whopping 40kg (8.15g/l) of frozies added at the dry hop phase.

The aroma of the hops was absolutely spectacular – hugely zesty, with a fragrant lemon-lime character (does anyone else remember those Solero Shots?!). The brewday was a breeze thanks to our new kettle and its built-in whirlpool and the beer is now merrily fermenting away.

The recipe has been calculated to 40 IBU (lower than that of normal Heathen, which sits at 60) to allow for a little more room on the palate for the delicate fresh hop flavours to come through as clearly as possible, but still with enough whack to be Heathenesque!

We have kept the beer at the same ABV as “regular” Heathen (4.1%) to ensure the finished beer is light, refreshing and overall incredibly drinkable. Expect the classic Mosaic aromas of blueberry, citrus and tropical notes to come through, with layers of juicy mango and ripe papaya atop a gorgeously fresh, grassy backbone.

Cans are available via our online shop (including in a special "Heathen Trinity" gift pack), and trade customers can get in touch with us right now to reserve a keg or case – casks are already all spoken for, having sold out on pre-order alone! The beer is shipping from today (29th November onwards) and it will soon be available at our very own Rising Sun, as well as on bars in towns and cities including Leeds, York, Stockport, Huddersfield and many more, as well as all around Sheffield… give us a shout if you’d like any help in hunting down a pint!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale

We’re super excited to announce the return our much-acclaimed Deliverance – Sabro™, Talus and HBC 472, originally created in collaboration with Yakima Chief Hops.

This variation of Deliverance was first released in March 2020, when it became one of our fastest selling beers of all time, meaning it swiftly made a comeback in July of the same year. And our Deliverance range has continued to go from strength to strength, which each version released since this time bringing something different to the party. When we had our new kettle and whirlpool installed last month (more on this here), we knew we wanted to test its full capabilities with one of our punchiest, most recognisable hop forward beers, so it seemed the perfect time to bring back this delicious and distinctive IPA.

Our Deliverance range uses different hop varieties in carefully selected combinations, and those featured in this version are a little family of three, which all stem from the wild Neomexicanus species. HBC 472 and Talus (previously known as HBC 692) are both hop varieties which stem from the amazing Sabro™ hop – which was itself known as HBC 438 until it was officially named.  These hops come from the same lengthy breeding process that brought you Citra, Mosaic and Ekuanot, and we’re definitely in love with Sabro™ and its family. 

The beer itself is bursting with aromatics and incredibly juice-forward – pineapple upside down cake and mango coulis on the nose with a heady, resinous character. Masses of tropicality on the palate, with notes of dessicated coconut teaming up with bags more pineapple, peach and zesty grapefruit singing together in perfect fruity harmony. Full bodied and creamy, super smooth but with a lingering bitterness in the finish which really showcases the complexity and diversity of flavour that this chosen hop combination brings.

Here’s a little more information on those little green nuggets of aromatic joy for all the beer geeks out there! Sabro™ Brand HBC 438 came into being from the Hop Breeding Company (a group of farmers and scientists dedicated to nurturing, cultivating and eventually releasing new varieties of hops for us all to enjoy, who are based in the Yakima Valley) which is supplied through YCH’s experimental hop program. Known for having a really unique complexity, it imparts distinct tangerine, coconut, tropical fruit, and stone fruit aromas, with hints of cedar, mint, and cream. Sabro’s sister and daughter, HBC 472 and Talus, share many of the same fruity, citrussy characteristics – we found a very distinctive Pina Colada note in the 472!

For all hops named HBC, this means that they are a newer hop from the Hop Breeding Company’s programme. Eventually, if the hop proves itself a worthy component of that beverage that brings us all together, it is rewarded with its very own name (Mosaic was once HBC 369, and Citra was HBC 394). The whole process can take a very long time, with Sabro™ only becoming commercially available after two decades of research and trials. As you can see, in the two years since this beer was last brewed, Talus has been granted a name but HBC 472 is still waiting patiently! With hops being a natural product and so susceptible to the environment they are grown in, it’s important to make sure that not only do they have desirable aroma and flavour characteristics, but also that they can survive and grow well.

The Neomexicanus subspecies, which all three of the hops used in our new Deliverance stem from, is itself interesting. Almost all commercially available hops are of European origin and descent, even those which are now bred in the USA, but in the Sabro™ family, we are able to make use of a genetically distinct sub-species of hops that have been growing wild in the New Mexico mountains for the past million years. Groovy!

There’s still much more to come from this series, and the possibilities are ever growing, thanks to the efforts of not just our brewers, but also the hop breeders, growers, farmers and suppliers, who work tirelessly to ensure that the humulus lupulus that gives so much character to your beer is the very best it can be.

This one isn’t likely to hang around for long, so don’t miss out! It’s available via our online shop in can here, and to trade in can and keg by contacting our friendly sales team ([email protected] or give us a call on 0114 2812712).

Cheers!

It’s been a busy, somewhat nerve wracking but ultimately very exciting couple of weeks for us here at Abbeydale Brewery as we’ve successfully commissioned a brand new brew kettle! The kettle is an absolutely crucial piece of our brewkit, used for every single beer we’ve ever made (except for that one raw ale created for our Funk Dungeon project!), so this is a really important development here at Abbeydale HQ. Our previous kettle had been with us since 2009, and used for literally thousands of brews – the hope is that our new kettle will see us through just as many years and provide a considerable upgrade to our brewing capabilities.

The kettle has travelled a whopping 14,000km from China to reach us here in Sheffield, and we were able to track the progress of our new vessel on its voyage across the seas, which Pat in particular watched with keen interest! The changeover of kit meant we were unable to brew for ten days whilst the installation took place – the longest break we’ve had since the very early days of the brewery.  To counter this, in the weeks leading up the anticipated arrival of the new kettle, our brewteam ramped up production, ensuring that every single tank was full before the old kettle was decommissioned. And we haven’t run out of Moonshine, so we’re definitely calling that a job well done!

The project was undertaken with our suppliers SSV, who designed and commissioned our new piece of kit, working closely with us throughout the whole process. Although we’re currently keeping our batches the same volume while we get used to how everything works, the new kettle is almost twice the size of the previous one, with a working capacity of 6000l.

Our new kettle is more energy efficient than its predecessor – it has a built in vapour condensing unit which recovers energy, meaning we can capture the heat from the steam used for boiling our wort and recycle water at 95 degrees back to our hot liquor tank, ready for the next brew.

A built in whirlpool separates the flocculated proteins (trub) and additional hop matter from the wort, which should help us to create a cleaner flavour profile and clearer beer more easily. The whirlpool also includes the potential to more quickly chill the wort down to 80 degrees (any surplus cold liquor used for chilling here is also able to be recycled as hot liquor for the next brew), which can reduce hop isomerisation where desired, making it that bit more straightforward for us to brew beers with a lower bitterness but just as much delicious flavour. We will be using more hop pellets as a result – these are less absorbent to wort than whole leaf cones, meaning a higher yield in fermenter. Overall, the whirlpool gives us another way to experiment with hop additions and provides greater flexibility in terms of beer flavour and production for our brewteam to experiment with.

The external wort boiler is another new component to our kit, which can increase the efficiency of isomerisation due to a more active and higher temperature boil. This also helps prevent caramelisation, which is perfect for those light and crisp pale ales that we’re so well known for.

By heating wort in the external wort boiler (EWB), cooler (99 degree) wort is taken from the bottom of the kettle into the EWB, which is then heated by steam to 103 degrees and pushed out of the distribution plate back onto the wort at the top of the kettle. A thermosiphon current is thus formed, without the need for a pump. As well as reducing energy consumption and preventing too much agitation of the wort, it also looks pretty cool (#science)!

Finally, our brewers have access to lots more feedback on how the brew is progressing, with a plethora of more sophisticated sensors giving our team more detailed data across parameters such as flow rates, temperatures and volumes, ensuring more control and therefore more consistency than ever before. All this information is displayed on a swish new control panel, which has further potential for upgrading into our existing milling equipment in the future too.

The first brew on the new kettle was, of course, Moonshine, and the team are now starting to put it through its paces with some new specials as well! We’re excited to announce that our Deliverance collaboration with Yakima Chief, a 7% IPA featuring Sabro, Talus, and experimental hop HBC 472, was the first brew using the new whirlpool to its full potential. This beer is one of highest rated of all time, and we can’t wait to see it making another appearance on our availability lists very soon!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale

When we first started brewing keg beers early in 2014, we set about a series of one-off beers that were (imaginatively) named ‘Pale Ale #1′, ‘Pale Ale #2, and so on.  Our favourite recipe was ‘Pale Ale #6′, which was later renamed Mosaic, after the hop it was brewed with. The initial artwork for Mosaic was originally intended to be a stop gap and the long-term plan had always been to rebrand and rename the beer to bring it into our range of permanently available brews. So we set about the task of coming up with a new name for this wonderful beer.  We wanted something that was worthy of us shouting about, something that recognised our past, but also that could help drive the image of the brewery forward in this ever-changing industry. 

And so it was that back in 2016, we enlisted the talents of an artist called James Murphy, who was asked to create a contemporary design for our Mosaic release. Many names and ideas were passed back and forth over a couple of months and after meeting brewery owners Sue and Pat, and Sales Director Dan, for pizza and tank beers at Crate Brewery in London; James came up with three working ideas for the newly named Heathen American Pale Ale, alongside a re-drawn Abbeydale logo.

The first of these designs, and the one favoured by James, was a sea god and crow with waves crashing over the Abbeydale logo. Following on in a similar fashion, the second was a stylised Norse helmet with the Abbeydale logo within. In hindsight, both these ideas had their limitations and would have had a restricting effect on any future expansion or development of a range.

The third design shows the origins of the now well-known ‘praying hands’ design we have come to love. At first, it was felt that the crossed fingers did not necessarily work and the hands would simply be praying to the Abbeydale logo instead but throughout the development, the crossed fingers were brought back in – insinuating that the character was not actually praying, but believed in luck instead.

The background and supporting information were then neatened up and the ubiquitous rays were introduced – starting with a bright red alongside a complementary amber to represent the beer colour.

At the time of the Heathen launch, we said “we hope this is the start of a long working relationship between James and the brewery” and we’re absolutely delighted that this wish came true! Over five years on and Heathen was effectively the kickstarter for our Brewers Emporium range, which we officially launched in March 2017 – and James is now our in house designer!

So for our 25^th anniversary we felt it was only proper to celebrate not just those beers which have been with us since the very beginning, but those that have become a key part of our identity in the years since. And it was so popular back in August last year that we’ve made it again in time to enjoy before the first frost of winter arrives!

Welcome back Cryo Heathen – a ramped up, special edition, even more Mosaic-y version of Heathen! Weighing in at just a slightly heftier 5.0% ABV, it holds those familiar flavours of grapefruit, mango, and peachy undertones that we know and love but with everything given that extra bit of a boost. Mosaic has been added in leaf, T90 and cryo hop form, resulting in an aromatic and flavourful beer with a lipsmacking bitter finish.

Cryo hops have undergone a process whereby the hops themselves are preserved at low temperatures, and the lupulin (where all the good stuff is!) is separated out and concentrated into a pellet – so it’s absolutely packed full of intense flavour and aroma (you can read more about these tasty little things here!)

The term “Cryo” comes from the Greek word ‘kryos’, which means “frost”, so for the artwork for this special release we looked to communicate this without steering too far away from the familiar Heathen identity. This release was originally part of our 25^th Silver Anniversary celebratory range of beers and we wanted to use a technique that would help the beer stand out. The use of transparent labels, as with our Funk Dungeon range, allowed us to utilise the cold, reflective silver of the can alongside the cool blue to emphasise the ‘Cryo’ to great effect.

Cryo Heathen is available to buy in can from our online shop from Monday 30th May, as well as from independent retailers, with cask and keg available for our trade customers too.

Cheers!

Same beer, stronger identity!

Black Mass has previously been described as a bit of an enigma… a hop forward dark beer, too hoppy to be labelled a straightforward stout and without a category to define it over 25 years ago. The term “Black IPA” simply wasn’t around when the beer was first made, on 6^th November 1996, and as a descriptor it didn’t really become part of the beery lexicon until circa 2008 – with its oxymoronic nature causing both consternation and fascination in the beer world ever since!

We’ve always made a point of brewing whatever we want and not really following the fashions, and we reckon that we were ahead of the curve with this one. We’ve edged around relabelling Black Mass as a Black IPA for a few years now, and it seems to be that that’s what most of you like to describe it as, so we’re being bold, we’re nailing our flag to the mast, and we’re calling it… Black Mass is not just a Black IPA, but it’s one of the world’s first, and certainly one of the most long-standing.

In exciting news, to go with its new identity, Black Mass is now going to be AVAILABLE IN KEG as well as cask and can! We trialled this at a Tap Takeover at the King’s Arms in London a few months ago and it went down so well we’re making it a regular feature.

We’re also pleased to announce that Black Mass now joins many of our other beers in having Brewers’ Clarex added to the brew, so is labelled GF moving forwards. And while we’re at it, we’ve removed the finings too, meaning it is vegan friendly! (Please note there is likely to be some overlap in batches on bars and shelves, so do check at the point of purchase if you have any dietary requirements!) Other than these small tweaks, which in no way affect the flavour, the recipe remains exactly the same.

Black Mass has been with us since our very beginnings as a brewery, and we feel this move to strengthen its identity helps it prove its place as a beer which is still incredibly relevant to where we are today. It’s heavily hopped with predominantly Cascade, weighing in at over 150 IBUs and 6.66%. Rich and smooth on the palate, with delectable flavours reminiscent of bitter chocolate, fruitcake and raisins, and aromas of coffee, dark chocolate, and just a hint of burnt toast, it’s classic and familiar yet simultaneously unique and boundary defying.

(You can read more on the history of and inspirations behind Black Mass in this blog post, published last year in celebration of its 25^th birthday, too).

#BIPAComeback? We’re all for it! But maybe, just maybe, it’s been there all along…

Cheers!

PS of course we had to ask brewery owner and Black Mass creator Pat for permission – here’s a sneak peek into our decision making process!

Some of you may remember that back in July 2019, we released Chapter 1 from our Funk Dungeon project in can. That beer was Ryes From the Grave – a statement of intent for the project and the culmination of almost two years of time, care and attention (you can refresh your memory here if you’d like to read more). And now it’s time to Ryes Again…

The nature of our Funk Dungeon means that no two beers will ever be exactly the same – whilst in the rest of the brewery (with our core range in particular) we aim for absolute consistency, barrel aged beers and those made with wild yeasts are much more of their time and are harder to constrain to a set flavour profile. So this isn’t a re-release, but more of a reworking, turning back the pages on the project in an attempt to harness a memory, whilst showcasing where we’re at right now at the same time.

Ryes Again contains a blend of beers aged for up to four years, including some two year old spontaneously fermented Kriek and the very last barrel of the very first batch of our Flemish Red style beer, Sheffield Red – we’re sad to see the end of this one, but pleased it’s found a place in such a special beer for its final resting place. A barrel of stock ale was dosed with fruit from the allotment of one of our lovely Rising Sun regulars (cheers, Les!) – blackcurrants, which were also used in Ryes From the Grave, and a new addition of raspberries layering up yet more character alongside the cherries from the Kriek.

The resulting beer is bold and intense in flavour, 6.0% ABV, with a huge hit of tart berry fruits, oodles of cherry character, and a hint of soft vanillins paired with unctuous marzipan. There’s a spicy, slightly dry finish with an almost balsamic sourness. It’s reminiscent of Ryes From the Grave whilst still holding its own unique character. As with all of our Funk Dungeon releases, we’ve aimed to showcase the influence of classic Belgian styles alongside being inspired by the eclectic and innovative world of contemporary sours, whilst brewing, fermenting, blending and packaging our beers in our own unique way, producing something that is modern beer and yet steeped in tradition.

In terms of the design for the can, it felt appropriate to revisit the artwork from Chapter 1, where we first met our skele friend – a character now synonymous with our Funk Dungeon project. Our designer James Murphy chose to reflect the additional complexities found in this release with a little extra shimmer here and there and added depth to the colouring on the character, whilst also making sure the core colours of the range (purple and green) remained apparent. The main change comes in the background, with a new bright, shimmering cherry-red sky behind our skele friend as he emerges again from his grave.

Whether you were a fan of the original release or are coming to this beer for the very first time, we’d love to know what you think. It’s a style that we feel will develop well over time, too, so we’ll be cellaring a few cans for a special occasion as well as enjoying it fresh (well, as fresh as a barrel aged beer can be!) right now. Cans are available from our online shop, or via an array of independent retailers nationwide, and limited kegs are available for trade customers too.

Stay funky – cheers!

Our latest Funk Dungeon release is here! Introducing Pull of Gravity, a 5.6% apple raw ale which was brewed during a live brewday event as part of Funk Fest 2021, in collaboration with the amazing aeronauts at Ascension Cider.

One of the key focuses of our Funk Dungeon project now and moving forwards is around our locality and celebrating the produce the UK has to offer, so Pull of Gravity has been created using solely ingredients grown in the UK: Plumage Archer heritage barley, juice from pressed Cripps Pink apples (fruit rejected from supermarkets for not conforming to their superficial beauty standards, and rescued by Ascension!), and Olicana hops.

Of all the beer styles we have created in our 26-year history, the raw ale comes the closest to using bygone traditional brewing techniques in theoretical process, although modern technology (thankfully!) means we can measure temperature accurately and don’t need to do things by eye. We mashed in the Plumage Archer (which we also used in recent release Gothic Country, where we wrote a little more about it here) and some torrified wheat along with rye malt for a little bit of wort composition complexity and spicy flavour. The brew was mashed with no water treatment for around an hour, before running off into kettle, used here only as a collection vessel (as the name of the style suggests, with this being a raw ale the key difference between this and every other beer we’ve ever made is that this one didn’t get boiled!) before running off again into the hopback with Olicana at 2.5g/l. Olicana is one of our favourite new UK hops, showcasing lots of really nice citrus and grapefruit and a big hit of spice. But in the relatively low quantity we have used it here, rather than too much bold flavour it adds a nice layer of complexity to a drink that already has a lot going on.

After the hopback, we blended the raw ale with our freshly pressed apple juice before leaving for primary fermentation in stainless steel. We made the decision on the day not to pitch our house yeast straight away and see the kind of natural, spontaneous fermentation we’d get – by the next day the wort was vigorously and happily fermenting. Within 5 days the majority of primary fermentation had finished, and after another few days for the krausen to settle down a bit it was time to fill our barrels. We’ve used a mix of 6 ex-bourbon barrels, 2 ex-red wine casks and an IBC, where the beer has sat for around 9 months, drying out with brettanomyces fermentations and souring with the presence of both lactobacillus and pediococcus.

The resulting beer is clean, sweet and fresh, with (as you might expect) a prominent apple character. Delicate, juicy and floral – very easy drinking and sings of the orchard, with a gentle level of funk and light acidity coming through in the finish.

The artwork for chapter 11 from our Funk Dungeon project was, our designer James recounts, “A fun one to work on and particularly challenging to fit in everything within the loose brief!” The brief in question was inspired by the Misfits and the name of their song “Hybrid Moments” reflecting the hybrid nature of the graf style and also the collaboration between ourselves as a brewery and cider producers Ascension – which also works with the loose musical theme we like to see represented across all of our funky releases. Plus, of course, there simply had to be hot air balloons on there! The name of the beer comes from another of the Misfits songs, Black Hole, which James felt would work well within the range’s aesthetic (as well as giving a nod to the apple of Isaac Newton!). James adds, “there’s not so many ‘easter eggs’ within this one, just a broad range of hot-air balloon designs we hope you’ll agree would look amazing in reality (and one of them does, as we’ve included Matt from Ascension’s own balloon!).” Of course, Mind Your Head is still there for you to find, as it is on all of our Funk Dungeon labels – let us know when you’ve spotted it!

If you’d like to try this very special beer for yourself, it’s available now in 440ml cans from our online shop or via independent retailers, and kegs are available to our trade customers too. 

Cheers!