Wow – what a year! I think it’s fair to say that 2024 has been one of the most important yet for us here at Abbeydale Brewery, and it’ll go down in the history books as the year that we – along with our wonderful pub, The Rising Sun – became employee owned! We hope and truly believe as a team that this move secures the legacy of the wonderful independent business Pat and Sue Morton have worked so hard to build over the past three decades, ensuring success for many, many more years to come. You can read more on this, and the establishment of Sheffield Beerworks EOT Ltd, here.
Talking of success, we’ve won some fantastic awards this year which definitely deserve another shout out! Our Funk Dungeon Lead Brewer, Jim Rangeley, won the auspicious title of the Brewer of the Year at the 2024 Brewers Choice Awards, where we were also shortlisted for the Branding of the Year for our beautiful travel poster inspired series. And Black Mass retained its Champion Speciality IPA title (for the third year in a row!) at the SIBA North East Bottle & Can Awards. We’re looking forward to the national finals in March!
In terms of the numbers, here’s a little look at our year in beer. We’ve brewed a total of 389 times, creating 92 individual beers, adding up to over 3 MILLION pints! Our first brew of the year was Moonshine, and the last beer of the year? You guessed it, Moonshine again! It’s not all about our flagship though, as we’ve continued to cover a huge range of styles, from the zesty, zingy Passionfruit & Lime Sour from our Unbeliever series, to our much revered (and really quite boozy) Last Rites Barley Wine. It was also the year we finally made a mild!
Cask beer still reigns supreme here, amounting to over 75% of our total output – although it’s worth pointing out that we also sold over a quarter of a million cans too, including lots and lots in our newly opened on site shop! Although cans are a slightly lower proportion of our sales this year, this means more of our beer is being enjoyed in one of the hundreds of wonderful pubs we supply, which is great to see. Support your local!
Moonshine is still our biggest seller, but it has dropped slightly as a proportion of our total in recent years, now sitting at just under 40%. And our alcohol free Sparkling Hop Water has become a firm fixture of our range, going from strength to strength since its introduction last year with sales doubling in 2024. Overall, it’s been our best year since the pandemic, which we hope demonstrates faith in our beers in what is still an incredibly challenging landscape to navigate for us all, including across our industry.
Our community continues to be absolutely integral to all that we do here. As part of this we were delighted to continue our charity partnership with Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, rebrewing our very popular Swifty pale ale – this year with a sustainable twist, as we were amongst the first in the UK to use ancient grain Fonio, raising over £800 in the process. More on that here.
Looking ahead to 2025, we have two shiny new tanks on the way as I type, which will increase our production and packaging capacity. We’ve already got some absolute TREATS in the pipeline, but there’s still space for more and we do take requests where we can… so do let us know if there’s a beer you’d love to see from us – whether it be a returning favourite or a brand new style for us, we’d love to hear from you! We’re even starting to make plans for some of the special beers we’ll be releasing to commemorate our 30th anniversary in 2026 too, with some deluxe new additions to our barrel store in mind…
We’ve also already got some fantastic events booked in, including being at the prestigious Winter GBBF from 12-15 February, and we’re excited to be returning to Indie Beer Feast right here in Sheffield in March too. We hope to see you for a beer very soon!
From all of Team Abbeydale – the new co-owners of the business – a huge thank you to everyone who’s supported us this year. It really does mean so much to us, and we can’t wait to find out what the year ahead has in store.
Cheers!
