Year: 2024

We’ve been having a mild disagreement. You’ll have to excuse the puns – we’ve been working on them for some time.

We last had a mild available in early summer 2014. Dr Morton’s The Wrong Stuff, as it was cruelly named, was a bit of an experiment for us at the time – a somewhat controversial style with a fusty reputation, and a hard sell. But the times they are a’changing after all, and mild is finally having its day – a revival, a resurgence, a renaissance. We’ve formed two distinct “camps” amongst Team Abbeydale, one side hankering after that smooth, sweet nectar served in a dimpled glass, donning our flat caps and kicking up a grass roots movement for mild, evoking charming pubs of yore with a roaring fire and horse brass galore… and on the other side, the sales team, still traumatised by their past memories of a beer that outstayed its welcome.

The pro-mild side of the fence has finally got their way. And almost a full decade later, or 3,577 days to be precise, a Mild is back on our availability list.

Introducing Dark Mild, from our Restoration series, brewed using entirely UK grown ingredients. Characterised by a smooth, malt-driven sweetness, balanced by a touch of roast character and hints of coffee. The ultimate British hop, the unsung hero that is Fuggles, were added to our beloved hopback. These delicate hops provide a grassy character and a gentle bitterness in keeping with the traditions of this historic style, with a finish that invites you straight back for more. It’s classic, comforting, rounded and mellow. 4.0% ABV, vegan and gluten free. Anyone else thirsty?!

Mild at heart or mildly perturbed – which side are you on?! We’d love you to let us know. Dark Mild launches TODAY, April 1^st (and no, it isn’t an April Fools), – cans are available from independent retailers, including from our online shop, or give us a call on 0114 2812712 if you’d like a cask for your venue. Our sales team are still mildly unconvinced (I’m nearly done, I promise), and I’d love you to help me prove them wrong! [*Edited to add on 01/04/24 at 12.37 – cask all gone, thank you Mild Things!]

Cheers!

Laura – A Mildly Delighted Marketing Manager

PS – Such has been my yearning for a mild that I first started writing notes for this blog post in February 2021. Once it was (a little reluctantly) agreed that this beer could be added to the plan, we came to officially give it a place it on our recipe database. A list of beer styles is pre-populated for us to choose from… and out of 43 in total ranging from imperial stout to gruit, there was no option for mild! Consider this heinous oversight officially rectified. The mild comeback is well and truly on.

Last week we released our latest collaborative brew, Fly P.A., which brings together two Sheffield stalwarts in a cross-industry amalgam. Brewed to celebrate the 20^th anniversary, re-release and subsequent tour of ‘Neveroddoreven’, we’re delighted to have welcomed Jarrod and Dean, otherwise known as I Monster, to our humble brewery – to create a beer that’s perfect for dreaming amid the flowers, for a couple of hours, on a beautiful day.  

The electronic music duo, who hail from Sheffield and are best known for their worldwide smash hit ‘Daydream In Blue’, are keen beer enthusiasts and jumped at the opportunity for us to work together to help celebrate the milestone of their early ‘00s creativity – they said, “We’re buzzing to collaborate with Abbeydale Brewery for this high flying, high flavour pale ale!”

The beer itself is a 4.7% dry hopped hazy pale, oozing with Galaxy & Sabro hops for a tropical fruit explosion. Expect notes of tangerine, peach and passionfruit with a delicate hint of coconut. The combination of malts and oats provide a soft, pillowy mouthfeel for the hops to shine through. It’s also vegan friendly and gluten free!

…And it has to be said, we don’t normally allow any flies in our canning room (in fact it was specifically designed to ensure they aren’t able to get in!), but in this instance we decided to make an exception!

The artwork for the beer, created by our in house designer James Murphy, is inspired by the golden age of aviation and gives a nod to the jetsetting antics that the beer was in part brewed to commemorate. You will find the band out on tour in Europe this Spring, with homecoming gigs in London as well as the Leadmill in Sheffield on June 21st, where you will no doubt find the beer on sale at the bar! If you can’t wait that long, you can buy the beer directly from our online shop, as well as finding it on the shelves of independent retailers. Casks and kegs are now available to trade customers, please give our sales team a call on 0114 2812712 or drop your account manager an email for more details!

Cheers!

Introducing Aquanaut! The first in a new series focused around new and exciting experimental hop products, we’re diving in with a full-flavoured and thirst quenching 4.6% pale ale.

Expect intense tropical aroma notes from Spectrum Galaxy and Lupomax Azacca hops, with cutting edge Incognito Centennial added to the whirlpool for a piney, resinous finish.

Chances are you’ve read the above and might be thinking – “what on earth are they are on about now?!” So what are Lupomax, Spectrum, and Incognito, and why are we so excited about them?!

Well, you’ll hopefully be aware that we’re pretty fond of hops round here, with our hop-forward pale ales forming our key house style. Hops contribute enormously to the flavour of beer, and in certain styles such as IPAs they’re the key driver behind all those delicious nuances that entice you in on the aroma and that you taste as you drink.

Hops are beautiful little plants with bags of character, but they’re also expensive, fragile, and those flavours and aromas that we love can be lost over time. On top of that, the more hops you add to beer in leaf or pellet form, the more the beer soaks into them – so for our hoppiest beers, we can lose up to a third of the brew length to those thirsty green little nuggets, which is one of the reasons why big, bold IPAs can be on the pricey side.

This has led to constant experimentation by hop producers as they try and give the freshest hop hit whilst maximising the bang for buck. One thing you may have seen us use before is Cryo hops, which we’ve been using for years now – these are cryogenically frozen hops, turned into essentially hop dust.  They’re more costly than “regular” hops, but they really deliver in flavour.

Hop oils are another option – again, they’re nothing new in the beer world, having been used for decades by large scale commercial brewers because they reduce waste and increase consistency. But until recently they couldn’t really deliver that fresh hop character that we’re after, so they’ve never been of much interest to craft and independent brewers such as ourselves. And it has to be said, it’s hard to get a beer drinker excited by phrases such as “improved maximization of raw materials”!

If only there was something that could do all that AND keep all that fresh, hoppy goodness, then we’d be talking!

The very latest hop products, those we’re showcasing in our new series, are focusing on taking out the vegetal matter in hops that the beer soaks into, and creating a super fresh yet stable flavour that does not decay over time. They’re more environmentally friendly too – with reduced storage and transportation requirements, as well as making cleaning up a little easier which means we use less water. Hop products including Spectrum, Lupomax and Incognito are currently being tried by many breweries around the world and we first used them in Incognito Heathen back in November – which you can learn more about here.

Just for a few more details on the brewing process used in our Aquanaut – the Incognito liquid version of Centennial (one of our favourite hops) is added at the whirlpool stage, as a substitute for hop pellets which means less losses and more impact. The temperature they’re added at means we don’t get too much isomerisation – which means less bitterness, more aroma and more bombastic flavour in the beer. On the brewday we were struck by the intense, piney, resinous aroma – and as an aside, it was also very sticky! The Lupomax and Spectrum hops (Azacca and Galaxy respectively) are used at the dry-hopping stage, added directly to packaging tank for extra pizazz and a final boost of flavour and aroma.

Hop suppliers are describing these products as “revolutionary”! So do they work? We’ve been impressed so far, but would definitely encourage you to drink it for yourself and find out! We’re really excited to keep trialling these products and seeing how they work for us, so Aquanaut is the first of a new “exploration” experimental series designed to do just that, with more to follow. Aquanaut is available now in cask, keg and can (including on our online shop!).

Cheers!

Team Abbeydale

Note: We’ve definitely gone with the short and snappy version here, but if you’re interested in more details relating to the biochemistry behind these new products, feel free to properly geek out on the Baath Haas (our suppliers of Lupomax, Spectrum and Incognito hops) website here.

It’s almost time for the 10^th anniversary of Sheffield Beer Week! Taking place from March 4^th to 10^th 2024, expect beery events galore across our wonderful city.

Collaboration is one of the key elements of this citywide festival, so to celebrate, we’ve brought back our collaboration with Sheffield Beer Week itself – Cloud Peak, a 4.8% Cryo Session IPA.

First brewed in 2023, Cloud Peak is not quite a West Coast and not quite a NEIPA, but a mountain-style pale ale merging the two somewhere in the middle. Flavour-wise, expect a hop forward beer that’s packed with ripe mango and juicy pineapple character. Soft, smooth and fluffy, with a crisp, bitter finish making it perfectly well-balanced. It’s also vegan friendly and gluten free.

We’ll also have limited edition A4 art prints available, showcasing the wonderful artwork of this special release.

The beer is available now in cask, keg and can, so look out for it on bars and the shelves of independent retailers for the perfect way to warm up for Sheffield Beer Week! You can also find it on our online shop. We’ll be sure to save a keg for Indie Beer Feast too, which takes place on Friday 1^st and Saturday 2^nd March – tickets are available here.

Keep your eyes peeled for more news on our plans for Sheffield Beer Week, including more special beers on the way inspired by our heritage, our location and the history of the city we call home.

Hop Smash is BACK! First brewed in 2016 in collaboration with our friends from Michigan’s Kuhnhenn Brew Co. and one of our highly regarded and most requested beers, this big, bold, bitter and beautiful IPA has had Citra, Centennial and Amarillo hops added at each stage of the brewing process. A generous malt bill provides balance to the beer, giving a full body and a robust 7.4% ABV.  To boost the hefty hop character still further, we’ve added plenty of fresh grapefruit including hot side in our hopback grapefruit-back, for a pithy, citrus bite that builds to a dry, fruity finish. All enhanced by a clean fermentation, co-pitching our house ale yeast with lager yeast. Plus, it’s also vegan friendly and gluten free.

Hop Smash is a showcase of our magnificent hop store, and also exemplifies the style of beer for which Kuhnhenn Brew Co. have won numerous awards at both the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival (amongst the world’s most prestigious brewing competitions) – notably for their DRIPA (a double rice IPA) which was awarded the Best IPA in the WORLD(!!) accolade in 2012. So a big American style IPA seemed like the perfect beer style to combine our skills, push the boundaries and have some fun!

The original brew involved us attempting a step mash in an isothermal mashtun, which is not quite how our kit is intended to be used (square peg, round hole comes to mind!). The team distinctly remember our brewer Jim coming into the office at the end of a particularly long and challenging (but very fun and educational) day, and declaring “well, I’m glad I never have to brew like that again!” only to receive a letter from the Great British Beer Festival inviting us to send a cask of it there, just far enough in the future that meant a repeat brew was essential. And here we are, 8 years later and on our 4^th release! We’ve refined our processes and made the best use of our shiny new(ish) whirlpool this time, streamlining the brew but maintaining the flavour profile and character of the beer.

Crisp, juicy, and dangerously quaffable – definitely not breakfast juice (although we’re not going to judge you if you fancy using it to make yourself a mimosa…)!

Same refreshing beer, refreshed new look!  

Having taken a break from our brewing schedule since 2020, we felt the time was right to update the aesthetics of the pumpclips and cans, reflecting how our approach to design has progressed in the intervening years and bringing it in line with the rest of our Brewers Emporium range, but retaining the iconic grapefruit motif which has become synonymous with this very special beer. 

Hop Smash will be available in cask, keg and 440ml cans, and we’re now taking pre-orders across all formats. Trade customers can give us a call on 0114 2812712, and head here to bag yourself a 6-pack (or case!) on our online shop.

You can also be amongst the first to try it at our launch event! Join the team at The Old Shoe, Orchard Square (S1 2FB) on Thursday 1^st February. Get it at its freshest… it’s the American way!

Cheers!

Continuing our series where you get to know the people who make up Team Abbeydale, our Marketing Manager Laura has erm… interviewed herself. Bit weird. Enjoy!

First up, the basics! What’s your name and where do you come from?

I’m Laura, and I’m Sheffield born and bred… I moved away for a few years for uni and work, but I’ve never left Yorkshire and I’ve always come back to the steel city!

What is your role at Abbeydale Brewery?

My job title is Marketing & Communications Manager, so mainly I’m the “voice” of the brewery and the person behind our website, social media and newsletters. I work closely with our designer James to organise and plan our artwork and design-based output, and I head up our Quality Control and sensory panel. I also get the opportunity to represent the business at events, which is always very fun!

What’s your favourite beer/beer style and why?

Since pubs re-opened after the pandemic, I’ve gained an ever-deeper love for a pint of well-kept cask, and now seek out a sessionable pale ale in the pub before looking for anything more unusual. Which is especially handy considering our brewers are really good at making them. I also bloody love a shandy, which I’m absolutely counting as a beer style.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Abbeydale Brewery?

My role is incredibly varied – I’ve worked here for almost nine years now and there’s still a surprise around many a corner! Plus, we’re a real team.

Best place to enjoy a pint?

Going to be cheesy and say it’s more about the people you’re with than the place you’re in! Having said that though, Jabbarwocky on London Road is one of my locals and I love going there for a few beers, followed by some dumplings and a White Russian. And The Old Shoe in Sheffield city centre is my favourite new bar – as well as a fantastic beer selection, they position all drinks alongside each other in a way I haven’t seen before and I’m always tempted to try something new, whether that’s a cider, a wine or one of their homemade non-alcoholic shrubs.

Where did you have your first (legal!) pint?

The Fat Cat in Kelham Island. It was my dad’s favourite pub when I was growing up, so it was the obvious place for him to buy me a beer as soon as I turned 18! I worked there for a while as well, I loved chatting to the customers but struggled to reach the pint glasses…

Fries: Bacon or Scampi?

Scampi fries save lives.

On the topic of snacks, my favourite crisps are Spicy Tomato Snaps, and I’m very partial to a pickle.

When you’re not chatting about beer, what do you get up to?

I mean I do do a LOT of chatting about beer… as well as my work here, I’m one of the panellists on local podcast the Sheffield Hopcast, and a fledgling YouTuber where myself and my pal Michael ask “Does it Shandy?” about any and all beer styles! I’m also a member of the British Guild of Beer Writers. Other than that, I’m a keen (if not particularly fast) runner, and love going on outdoor adventures – you’ll often find me at Parkrun on a Saturday morning, and recently I’ve been doing more longer distance trail stuff too. I’ve even signed up to my first ultra marathon for later in the year! It’s something that really helps me find balance and headspace, as well as being a brilliant way of making friends.

And finally… If you were a cartoon character, who would it be?

I’m going to go with the personality of Lisa Simpson combined with the aesthetic of Velma from Scooby Doo.

Doing Dry January and on the lookout for a zesty, refreshing, soft drink?! Our Sparkling Hop Water is the perfect non-alcoholic alternative to a beer, harnessing all that humulus lupulus goodness but with no artificial flavourings, sugar, caffeine or carbs and of course no booze! Vegan friendly and gluten free too.

Simply the finest Yorkshire water (the exact same that we use for our award-winning beers!), infused with some of our favourite hops and lightly carbonated. That’s it! Very much not an alcohol free beer, we like to think of our Sparkling Hop water as a beer adjacent soft drink, and a way for us to show off our ingredients in a whole new way.

The benefits of hops and their biochemical compounds when used and infused in this way (i.e without fermentation, and alcohol free) can be numerous. Studies have shown that the polyphenols and flavonoids found in hops work with other vitamins such as vitamin C to have antioxidant properties, which helps your body to ward off every day toxins. Hops also have mild sedative effects which can help improve your sleep quality, as well as helping to enhance the natural levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (a clever little chemical messenger) found in the brain, which can lower anxiety and help you to feel calmer.

We have two variations of our mindful, delicious and thirst-quenching Sparkling Hop Water to choose from – try clean and crisp grape-esque Nelson Sauvin, or go gently tropical with the Mosaic hopped variety. Or as the perfect pick-me-up for yourself or a great gift, try our new Dry January Survival Pack, containing 3 cans of each plus our always relevant “I’d rather be drinking Moonshine” mug!

Finally, whether you’re choosing to limit your alcohol intake this month or not – as always, a huge thank you for your support, and please do pop into your local pub when you’re able. They’re likely to have a fantastic array of AF options for you to choose from alongside their selection of beers (and will probably have the heating on!), so please do show them some love this month.

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale