Introducing the 2024 edition of Swifty! In continuation of our partnership with Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust (more on that here), we’ve brought back this much requested pale ale, but this time with an extra special new twist!
In recognition of the amazing migratory journey that swifts make from Africa to the UK to breed every year, we’ve combined UK grown hops Fuggles with Fonio, an ancient grain grown in Africa.
Fonio is a naturally sustainable crop – it’s capable of growing in poor soil, and its roots even help add nutrients back into the ground, contributing to soil regeneration. It’s easy to grow, requiring no irrigation or pesticides, and drought resistant too, so it really helps to support the ethos of the Wildlife Trust and was the perfect choice to add to this beer. It’s also typically grown by smallholder farms in West Africa, so supports local industry and communities there too. Our brewer Thom who was in charge of creating this year’s version of Swifty also described it as “a dream!” to brew with.
…and as well as all that, it also tastes great too! The Fonio itself gives a lovely light, clean crispness to the beer alongside delicate hints of aromatic lychee and melon, which work beautifully with the gentle spicy hedgerow notes and lingering bitter finish from the hops. A unique and easy drinking pale ale that’s a perfect partner for perusing the new Sheffield Swift City Map!
The cold wet spring has made things particularly difficult for the swift population this year, so it seems even more important to be able to raise awareness and support for these beautiful birds, who we do hope you’ve still noticed gracing the skies with their aerial acrobatics in recent weeks.
The beer is available in cask only (we believe it to be only the second beer made using Fonio to be released in cask in the world!), so be sure to look out for it on the bar of your local pub. 10p from every pint sold will be donated to Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust to help support nature’s recovery.
#TeamAbbeydale is made up of more than just the brewery, so next in our series where we introduce you to our fantastic crew, we thought it was about time for you to get to know the landlord of our pub, The Rising Sun, a little better! He’s been at the helm there since 2018, so will already be very familiar to our wonderful regulars. Over to Garry!
First up, the basics! What’s your name and where do you come from?
Garry Raynes – from Sheffield
What is your role at Abbeydale Brewery?
I’m the General Manager at the Rising Sun, Abbeydale Brewery’s community pub based in the lovely leafy suburb of Nether Green.
What’s your favourite beer?
Absolution
What’s your favourite thing about working at The Rising Sun?
Being close to Absolution at all times
Best place to enjoy a pint?
The Three Stags Heads in Wardlow Mires, or Flagship in Playa Blanca (but they don’t have Absolution)
Where did you have your first (legal!) pint?
Not a clue. I had tonsillitis on my 18th Birthday and was bed ridden. Don’t remember where I went out after I had recovered
Fries: Bacon or Scampi?
Scampi Fries
When you’re not busy looking after the pub, what do you get up to?
I like to read – mainly crime thrillers or autobiographies
Who’s your hero (beery or otherwise!)?
Whoever invented Absolution (Editor’s note – that’ll be Pat! And do you somehow get the impression Garry might really quite like Absolution?!)
And finally… If you were a cartoon character, who would it be?
In this blog post, our Ops Director Toby waxes lyrical about his love for cask ale, sharing his journey, background, and thoughts and feelings on how to present it at its very finest.
The first thing I noticed about Sheffield was the rain. To be fair, I did move here during the 2007 floods, so there was a lot of it. The second thing was the hills, lots of them. Everywhere, and which for my first few days seemed more like rivers, which is not how hills would behave where I grew up.
The next thing though was the cask beer, wherever I went for a drink. I wasn’t used to this, for me ale was mostly flavourless national brands, or (shudder) creamflow and I had no time for it – it was a pain to look after and not worth the effort. But not here. In Sheffield the beer was generally local, excellent and revered in a way that was completely new to me, despite 10 years’ experience of working in bars.
Everyone I met drank the stuff, and the mainstream brands I used to ignore were absent – why would you need them with well-kept Pale Rider and Moonshine made within a few miles? I even got taken to the Devonshire Cat, and discovered the unknown delights of Belgian beer, starting with Westmalle Dubbel and then working my way through the shelves of the Dram Shop in Crookes.
So why did this matter? Well I’d moved to Sheffield, not knowing a soul, to set up a new bar. I went to work for True North (then called Forum Café Bars) to revamp the Halcyon on Division Street into something new. After just a few days here I decided that beer had to be part of what we did, and not just any beer – good, local beer. The plans for the bar changed, Sheffield was obviously a very down to earth, real place with no time for pretensions and I loved that. In went sofas, vintage tables, rugs, guitar music and most importantly beer. That was the Old House, and it made me fall in love with Sheffield and its beer.
The only problem was I had no idea really what cask beer was or how to look after it, so I needed to learn. Alex Liddle, then manager of the Forum, now boss at True North, was the person that showed me. Organised, meticulous and patient, Alex showed me how to treat the beer, what happened to it over time, and the importance of patience and not disturbing it. Alex also happened to be from Kent, so we opened the place with Spitfire and Bishops Finger, all freshly vented and soft pegged on crisp new tilters.
It took about 2 hours of the opening night to realise my mistake. People would drink these beers, but mainly just so they could tell me how much better the local beer was and how I needed to get in some “proper stuff”. The next morning I rang the 2 places that were mentioned the most, the sadly departed Kelham Island and Abbeydale Brewery. We quickly went from 2 cask lines to 4 and sold more of the stuff than I thought possible. People would come in, relax, chat to us and casually work their way through the range, it felt like a second home.
We stretched out into lots of guest breweries, always independent, always interesting, but Moonshine never left the bar. It couldn’t, or I’d spend all night getting told to put it back on.
I was to spend the next 8 years setting up venues across Sheffield – bars, pubs and restaurants. Diverse places like the Wick at Both Ends and the Broadfield, all with a different clientele, but always cask beer came with me, and always, always Moonshine was on the bar.
Over the years some great Sheffield breweries came, such as Triple Point, St. Mars of the Desert and Loxley, and many have sadly gone – including Kelham Island (although some of its beers remain), Sheffield Brew Co. and Exit 33 – brewing is not an easy way to make money.
So how do you look after cask beer then? If you ask 100 landlords or managers, you’ll get 100 different answers. Some based on science, some on craft, and sadly, some not completely right. You can taste the results in the beer, almost like you’re consuming the craft and effort put into it. It’s what separates real ale for me and makes it a uniquely British art form. Here’s my take on how I feel it works best:
Freshness
The first thing for me is freshness. Oxygen is the enemy of fresh. It’ll bind on to those delicate flavour compounds and flatten out all the interesting notes – producing a cardboard flavour. Whether it’s wine, beer, or food, keep the oxygen away. Beer should always be treated in a way to prevent air ingress. Soft peg while serving, hard peg or closed valve as soon as you’re not. It matters.
Venting
This is the process of opening up the cask, if the beer is already lively (lots of CO2 present) then you might get wet doing this. First, tap a hard peg into the shive (in the side of the cask), then take a mallet and with one strike, put the tap through the keystone in the top of the cask. Make sure it’s airtight, then put the cask in place to settle. Over the next few days you’ll need to regularly check it, bleeding off excess pressure (from CO2), and always with some blue roll on standby in case it gets too lively. Then leave it well alone til you need it.
Conditioning
First up, what conditioning is. It’s the process of yeast fermenting available sugars, kicking out CO2, flavour compounds, and yes, a little more alcohol. This CO2 gives cask beer the sparkle that lifts it and produces a blanket that sits on top of the liquid to keep the oxygen away (oxygen creeps in to the cask when you pull a pint through). Opinions vary but personally I want my beer to be 2 weeks old (from being put in cask) before tapping, and spend 2 weeks in cellar gently maturing and building up it’s carbonation. All without being disturbed, so all the yeast can slowly bunch up and sink out, leaving clear beer.
Sparkler
Ah, one of the great national divides. Generally speaking, Northerners use sparklers, Southerners don’t. Some say it’s a matter of opinion, I say the Northerners are right, but I’m from Lancashire so I would say that. Sparklers force the beer through tiny holes which aerate it, giving a smooth and creamy mouthfeel.
Cleaning
Cleanliness is essential. Bacteria will make beer taste poor, and beer lines need cleaning regularly. All your cellar dispense kit should be sterilised, and rinsed in running water weekly. You can either clean the lines weekly, or between casks, but always if you’re changing the beer you have on.
Vertical serve vs. horizontal serve
Another controversial one, some people swear by the traditional method of laying the cask on a tilter and over time the spring lifts the beer to help empty it out. I prefer and recommend vertical serve, where the cask stands upright and you draw through a float on top of the beer. Vertical serve gives fresher beer for me, so wins out, it also has less wastage and in an emergency, will settle out to be bright quicker.
And what about beer clarity? This is a massive topic, and one that requires its whole own post – watch this space, and all will become… clear!
The bottom line is looking after cask ale is both art and science, cask beer is a living, breathing thing after all. At the brewery we have an in house lab and plenty of equipment to give us precise and accurate analysis, but we still rely more on the human palate and a lot of training more than anything else.
So that’s it. I’m sure every single cellar manager in the country will be waiting to tell me where I’m wrong – maybe we can talk about it over a pint of Moonshine.
Enjoy your pint, someone has put a lot of effort into it.
A true Sheffield institution founded in 1996, Abbeydale Brewery blends heritage and tradition with creativity and innovation, showcasing these values across an unparalleled range of beers.
