Author: abbeydale.admin

A couple of weeks ago we had the absolute honour of welcoming Travis and Khara Tolson from Amor Artis Brewing to Sheffield – all the way from Fort Mill in South Carolina. The Tolson team, which also includes Travis’ brother Steve, have a rich pedigree when it comes to brewing and a wonderful outlook on the industry which we at Abbeydale definitely share, so we were overjoyed to have the opportunity to create a beer in collaboration with them.

The brewery taproom in Fort Mill, the hometown of Travis and Steve, is designed to be a true community hub – warm and welcoming, family friendly, and the kind of place where you’re encouraged to meet your neighbour for a beer as well as talk to somebody you’ve never spoken to before. Opening in the town they grew up in meant that the community were already familiar with the Tolson brothers, so they’ve always had a loyal neighbourhood following and it’s evident that so much of what they do is inspired by their locality, something which has a really strong impact on us here too.

Husband and wife team Travis and Khara met in 2008, when Khara was in the military – the Coastguards, to be precise. Her work took them firstly to upstate New York, where Travis began to engage with the thriving homebrewing community there. When Khara was later stationed in Alaska, Travis decided to look for work relating to one of his two main passions – bikes, or beer. Upon discovering that the local cycle shop wasn’t hiring, he found work initially as a bartender at Kodiak Brewery, which was expanding at the time, and so he was steadily able to work his way up through the ranks and learn to brew.

After leaving Alaska, Travis and Khara moved closer to home and to Asheville, North Carolina, where Travis began working at a little brewpub called Wicked Weed. Within six months he had taken on the head brewer position there, and as well as brewing all of the beers sold in the pub (around one million pints per year), Travis was responsible for creating the sour base for what was to grow into a world famous sour programme.

As well as this, the time at Wicked Weed taught Travis the business of running a business, and so in 2017, along with Khara and Steve, the plan for Amor Artis was born. The family eventually got the keys to their facility in October of that year, and already had the kit and licence ready to go. Having been contract brewing since May 2017, by the time the brewpub opened on January 26^th 2018, true barrel aged beer was already ready to pour, a real statement of intent for what was to come from this fantastic project. 78 different beer styles were released in the first year of trading, and already this year another 20 have followed. The Amor Artis crew has stayed the same since day 1 – as Khara puts it, “the brewery feels empty when one person is missing from the puzzle”.

Amor Artis’ output emphasises fresh, local ingredients, and has a true seasonality to it. They use only whole fruit from Springs Farm, just half a mile down the road from the brewery, which provides them with strawberries, peaches, cucumbers and melon. The Greenway, also within arms reach of the brewery, provides 2100 acres of protected land rich with ingredients suitable for foraging, where they can source the fruit for beers such as their astonishingly good Blackberry Sour (Khara’s favourite) amidst a whole range of other tasty morsels. All beers brewed with foraged ingredients raise money for the Greenway, with a dollar for each pint sold going to the organisation.

Travis declares his favourite beer to make to be a sour – as he describes it, “you get to really make a beer when you brew a sour. In an IPA, it’s the yeast and the hops which do all the hard work, but in a sour you get to really create something, for someone”.

Having visited their taproom on a trip to North and South Carolina last year and tasting those creations, we were keen to get Travis over here to collaborate, and the feeling was mutual to gain some expertise and knowledge from us around cask beer and real ale. Sharing experiences is such a huge part of beer drinking as well as beer making – Travis told us how regulars to their taproom have moved on from drinking their IPAs and pale ales to trying all their new and innovative releases, borne of a trust for the passion and craft of the product, with customer engagement and loyalty being hugely important for the team, as it is for us here at Abbeydale.

And so, you may be wondering just what we’ve rustled up between us! Greetings from Fort Mill is a 3.8% Grisette, the first beer of such style we’ve made here at Abbeydale. The beer was brewed with wheat, oats, rice and Munich malt which provide an interesting biscuity backbone to work with. We added orange peel, yarrow and Cardinal hops, and fermented using our ever evolving house saison yeast blend. Expect a light and refreshing beer that’s just perfect in the early summer sun, with a delicate citrus oiliness, herbal honey notes from the yarrow and a spicy finish.

Available in cask, keg and can (with artwork by James Murphy) from Monday 20th May!

A huge thank you to Travis, Khara, and the whole Amor Artis team for coming all the way to our humble hometown to share their passion and knowledge with us.

Cheers!

Next in our experimental IPA series we have teamed up with our good pals and Abbeydale Road neighbours Forge Bakehouse to create a recipe which celebrates our joint ancient heritage… that of the humble grain. Introducing Forge IPA!

We’ve been working with Forge Bakehouse since their opening in late 2012 – their festive mince pies feature our Daily Bread bitter, they’ve hosted a beer and food pairing evening where every single dish featured one of our brews, and their Caramalt Sourdough made with malt from our brewery as well as our Kid Ryenamite Baltic Porter won Runner-Up in its category at the World Bread Awards 2018. Of course our team here are regular customers on our lunch breaks too!

To create Forge IPA, we’ve gone back to the very roots of both brewing and baking and made use of the oldest known variety of grain. Einkorn is the most primitive of wheats, and was first grown over 5,000 years ago. It has never been modified by man and has a considerable advantage over modern wheat varieties in both flavour and nutrition. The gluten in einkorn is in a different form to modern wheats and is easier to digest. We’ve also added rye for a spicy finish – rye is similarly considered an ancient grain and benefits from the same sort of flavour and nutritional benefits as einkorn. 

To complete the grist, there’s plenty of our trusty Low Colour Maris Otter pale ale malt in there (by far our most used malt), torrefied rice which allows a gentle lightness in the final product, and torrefied oats which have given that silky mouthfeel without the heavier “milkshake” vibe that using rolled oats provides.

Amarillo, Citra and Simcoe hops and of course our inimitable house yeast complete the recipe.

In grain-ception news, the talented team at Forge have used a blend of flours and whole grains matching those used during the brewing process (with the exception of rice), as well as some of the beer itself, to create a delicious loaf. The use of einkorn and rye (in milled, whole grain and malted forms) gives a deeper flavour and much improved nutritional content. These are blended with high extraction and extra strong white flours to improve crumb structure and texture. Hydration is at 90% and total fermentation takes around 18 hours. Works deliciously with a can of Forge IPA!

To the early risers and magicians making your daily bread… this one’s for you!

*Forge IPA is available now in cask, keg and can (you can grab a six pack from our online shop!). Trade customers please contact us via [email protected] if you are interested in stocking us.

For this year’s Funk Fest, we wanted to add something a little bit different and a little extra to the Sunday session of the festival. And so we will be running a funky home brew competition, with an amazing range of beery treats to be won… the overall prize being to brew your beer to a commercial brew length here at Abbeydale Brewery with Lead Brewer of the Funk Dungeon project, Jim Rangeley!

We will be looking for beers using alternative yeast strains such as Kveik, Brett, mixed fermentation beers, with Lactobacillus alongside the primary yeast, or maybe even full spontaneous! This is up to you.

We are encouraging everyone who wants to to get involved no matter their skill level or equipment size, full grain, brew in bag, or extract brewing. Fruited beers, gruits, braggots and so on all welcome. As long as it fits into one of the categories outlined below then we are happy!

To enter, please send your name, the category/categories you would like to enter and a brief descriptor of the beer(s) you will be entering to [email protected].

All entrants will receive one guestlist place to Funk Fest Sunday 8^th September, which will be the day of judging. We would then ask that you bring the beers you have submitted along with you to the festival where they will be collected upon arrival (please contact us if you would prefer to make other arrangements).

All email entries must be received by 2^nd September 2019.

We will need at least 1.5l of bottled beer clearly labelled with your details and the category that you wish to enter as well as adjuncts, ABV and style. 

As the overall winning beer will be brewed on a commercial scale we will need all the brew information, ingredients/brewhouse process/ fermentation schedule, as this will form part of the decision for overall winner. This can be submitted separately to the bottle but it must be clearly linked with the bottle submissions. (Of course, this will only be used for beer judging purposes and to help us to jointly formulate the full recipe with you should you win. It will remain entirely your intellectual property!)

Maximum of one submission per category and three submissions in total.

There will be prizes per category, but the final winner of the competition will be the beer judged overall to be the best on the day with consideration taken for the one that is most commercially viable for our production brewhouse.

The Categories: 

Kettle Soured Beer – Soured with a Lactobacillus strain of your choosing, then pasteurised before primary fermentation with Saccharomyces or Brettanomyces. 

Brett Beer – Fully fermented with Brett strains, or primary with Sacch then finished with Brett in secondary/ bottling, but no bacteria, just yeasts.

Mixed Fermentation Sour Beer – Co-fermented with multiple strains of yeast and bacteria. Feel free to ferment in a vessel of your choice, including in wood or with chips. Acidity is important for this category.

Saison – Highly attenuated, could be mixed fermentation, could be single strain, could be spiced/hopped/ fruited… or none of the above! Lack of a lot of acidity is important here.

If you have any questions please send us an email to [email protected] or tweet @abbeydalefunk.

We look forward to receiving your entries!

Yes, yes, we know we’ve only just finished tidying up after last weekend’s Piss Up in the Brewery, but we had such a great time welcoming you all to our home that we just couldn’t wait any longer to get cracking on the plans for this year’s Funk Fest!

We’ve moved the date away from the bank holiday following feedback from last year’s event, so are excited to announce that Funk Fest this year will be on 7th-8^th September.

Expect a full line up of mixed fermentation and sour beer showcasing a multitude of amazing producers in this area as well as plenty from our very own Funk Dungeon barrel project, served across keg and cask. Of course we’ll have the ubiquitous Moonshine available too as that perfect palate cleanser!

Music and street food will be on offer too, which we intend to be in keeping with our funky fermented theme.

We’re also planning on running a homebrew competition during the Sunday session, with the prize being the opportunity to brew a commercial brew length version of your beer with our Funk Dungeon Lead Brewer Jim Rangeley… more details are now available here.

If you get in there quick, the first 50 tickets to each session are available at a special early bird price of £5, which includes your festival drinking vessel.

Tickets are available from bit.ly/funkfest19 now!

It’s just over one week to go until our Piss Up in The Brewery event on April 6^th and 7^th… so we thought it was high time to share our beer list with you!

CASK BAR – All Abbeydale Brewery beers

Belgian Inspired Pale – 4.5% – **Collaboration with Melissa Cole** Belgian inspired pale ale with orange zest.

Brimstone – 3.9% – Amarillo hopped American Brown Ale, making a welcome return to our cask roster!

Encantada – 7.1% – The very last cask of our inimitable gruit!

Scott’s Broth – 5.8% – **Festival exclusive** Earl Grey tea and lemon infused pale ale.

Tutti Fruitti – 6.5% – **Festival exclusive** Vegan oat milk stout with berries, dark fruits and spices.

We Need to Talk – 4.4% – **Collaboration with Festival of Debate** Willamette hopped pale ale.

 

KEG BAR – Abbeydale Brewery

12 Noon – 6.5% – **Collaboration with Wilde Child Brewery, Leeds** A crisp and clean West Coast style IPA, heavily hopped with Ekuanot, Amarillo and Eureka for a vibrant and fruity character packed with notes of papaya, orange and grapefruit.

Din Dins – 7.5% – **Festival exclusive** A Mosaic, Cascade, Citra, Ekuanot, Simcoe and Loral cryo-hopped powerhouse of an IPA!

Grafter – 5.8% – **Collaboration with the Devonshire Cat** DDH IPA packed with outrageous quantities of Sorachi Ace, Enigma & Vic Secret.

Heathen – 4.1% – Wonderfully refreshing pale session beer showcasing the marvellous Mosaic hops from America. Bursting with tropical fruit flavours and a pleasant citrus bitterness.

Heretic #1 – 4.5% –  The first batch of our lager! Clean and crisp, refreshing and super drinkable.

Last Rites – 11.0% – Dry hopped barley wine. Superbly strong with a boozy aroma of caramel & fresh citrus. Smooth & robust with warming alcohol, lots of toffee, candied peel & dried citrus fruits.

Lil Boochie – <1% – **Festival exclusive** Hop Boocha – a fermented tea brewed with Citra and Mosaic hops.

Salvation – 5.4% – Breakfast stout with a robust backbone, and a hint of smoked malt for added complexity. Coffee from Sheffield based roastery Cafeology gives an intensity to the aroma alongside layers of bittersweet flavour. The most important beverage of the day?

Stroopwafel Stout – 10.0% – **Festival exclusive** Imperial stout brewed with maple syrup, vanilla, and one whole stroopwafel per litre!

Unbeliever – 4.9% – Sour beer inspired by the classic Pina Colada cocktail, with pineapple, toasted coconut and Sorachi Ace hops to provide a totally tropical sensation!

Voyager – 5.6% – **First pour** Our first cryo-hopped Voyager IPA! With Ekuanot, Simcoe and Mosaic.

Wanderer – 4.5% – Citra and Cascade hopped IPA, with fresh watermelon and dried hibiscus flowers adding a burst of juiciness, a delicate hint of tartness and a super refreshing finish.

From the Funk Dungeon:

Hop Bretta: El Dorado – 3.7% – An accessible bretted beer, using our house brett blend and single hopped with El Dorado.

Laid To Rest – 6.5% – **Collaboration with Fyne Ales, Scotland** Oak aged mixed fermentation pale, conditioned on dried apples for two months in ex-Speyside whisky butts for a rounded yet tart beer full of orchard notes.

Sow the Seeds – 5.5% – **Collaboration with Siren Craft Brew** Delicately bretted farmhouse IPA hopped with Mosaic and Simcoe. Notes of fruit and pine which harmonise beautifully with our house brett blend.

Wild Plum – 6.5% – A blend of three beers, with the oldest rested on plums from Heeley City Farm and finished with a touch of vanilla. Fermented with a combination of house and wild yeasts including those from the skins of the plums themselves. Slightly tart with a complex aroma.

 

KEG BAR – Guest beers

Brew York (York) – Skoda War – 11.5% – **Collaboration with Two Tribes** A cherry and tonka bean infused Belgian Quad.

ORA Brewing (Modena, Italy) – Balsamic – 6.0% – Milk stout brewed with barrel aged balsamic vinegar from Modena.

Ridgeside Brewery (Leeds) – Crack the Skye – 6.0% – A spicy rye IPA brewed with Chinook and Amarillo hops.

Siren Craft Brew (Reading) – Mind On My Honey – 10.2% – **Collaboration with Superstition Meadery** Expect a heavy honey aroma, big creamy mouthfeel,  depth of flavour of Morita and Hatch chillis (from Arizona) and a gorgeous roasty base.

Thornbridge Brewery (Bakewell) – Heartland – 4.9% – English cellar beer, a modern take on a traditional style, brewed using Thornbridge’s house cask ale yeast… but served on keg!

Torrside Brewery (New Mills) – Vapour of Reason – 5.5% – **Collaboration with Elusive Brewing** Torrside are on a mission to bring back the BIPA! Using tonnes of Simcoe, Citra, Centennial and Warrior hops.

Wild Card Brewery (London) – Queen of Diamonds – 5.0% – A continually hopped IPA. Hops are added continuously throughout the boil, developing a complex citrus flavour and fresh bitter edge.

Wilde Child Brewery (Leeds) – Opaque Reality – 5.9% – Mango and passionfruit milkshake IPA, with bags of Galaxy and Citra hops, and a decent hit of real fruits.

 

(Please note that these beers may not all be pouring at once and are strictly subject to availability!)

Hope to see you next weekend – tickets are still available via Party for the People, and include not only your entry but also a bespoke stainless steel pint pot and your first pint of Moonshine fresh from the tank to fill it!

Cheers!

We are very excited to announce that for the first time in our 23 year history, we are introducing a lager to our core range of permanently available beers. Welcome Heresy!

We have been thinking about brewing a lager for many a year (some of you may remember our lagered Moonshine, Full Moon, that we released for our 20^th birthday back in 2016), but to brew one regularly and consistently on the kit we had in the past was somewhat of a pipe dream. However, with recent investment in our facilities in terms of tanks and glycol chilling upgrades, we now have the ability to control temperature throughout the fermentation, condition and lagering process, widening our horizons and meaning that we can finally unleash an Abbeydale lager upon the world. We’ve always had the name Heresy in our back pocket, and brewery owners Pat and Sue were insistent that we needed to save it for our lager, and we’re so happy that finally the name has a beer to belong to!

The lager itself is clean and crisp, similar to a continental style, with good carbonation and a fresh and floral aroma. Sessionable, with a slight sweetness and low bitterness, perfect for quaffing on a few pints. The strain of Sacchromyces Pastorianus (lager yeast) we use is derived from a German lager yeast. It is neutral in flavour and therefore great for our target end product of a clean, easy drinking beer with a clear and bright presence in the glass.

We initially intended to run a number of trial recipes whilst we dial in our process, similar to how we brought our American Pale Ale Heathen into being (Heathen beginning life as the catchily named Pale Ale #6). However with the very first batch now ready for kegging, we have come to the decision that we’re very nearly there with the recipe – getting things right first time around isn’t generally quite how we do things here at Abbeydale, so this has come as a bit of a surprise to us all! We feel this is definitely testament to the investment in terms of time as well as new kit that we have all put into making sure our lager is just what we wanted it to be.

Heresy will sit happily alongside Heathen in our Brewers Emporium range, and we love the design our artist James Murphy has given it. As our sales head honcho Dan Baxter puts it, “it’s about offering something we produce to absolutely everyone. From a well established core range for regular cask drinkers. To brand new weekly specials for the thrill seekers, cold refreshing heavily hopped hazy keg beers (again both core & weekly specials), small pack, VF & GF beers. Now we have another string to our bow in a smashable lager!”

The first trial batches (called Heretic, a temporary name to reflect that it isn’t quite the finalised recipe) will initially be sent just to our own two pubs, the Devonshire Cat and the Rising Sun, and a small number of other long standing customers, whilst we continue our learning and brewer training and can be confident in achieving the consistency of quality that we always strive for. We would like to use this trial period to ask for feedback from you, our drinking public, so please do get yourself down to the pub and try a pint! You can email us at [email protected], comment on this blog post, or get in touch via any of our social media platforms if you have any thoughts you would like to share.

It’s been a long time coming, with the recipe development taking place over months (if not years!) whilst we have been undergoing extensive research and taking advice from our peers in the industry. The team is hugely excited that this is all now finally reaching fruition, and we can’t wait for you to try our Heresy!

If you’re a trade customer and are interested in stocking our lager, please contact [email protected].

*As of late 2019, cans of our Heresy lager are also available, via our online shop as well as from independent retailers. Let us know if you need assistance hunting down a stockist in your area!

Those of you who’ve been following our progress for a while will already know that we’ve been hoping to expand, and have been bursting at the seams of our current premises for a good few years now. And back in December, we shared the news that we’ve finally got our mitts on some much needed extra space (7426 square feet of it, to be precise) which joins on to our existing home just off Abbeydale Road. And now that we can see an end to those chilly winter months, we’re ready to show it off by hosting our next beer festival!

Taking place over three sessions during the weekend of the 6^th April, we intend our third ever event to be held here (following on from 2017’s first Piss Up In The Brewery, and last year’s Funk Fest) to be the biggest yet, with music, food from Get Wurst (vegan and gluten free options will be available) and of course oodles of beer!

Our offering will include beers served from cask, keg and tank, including some one-off festival exclusives. We’ll be featuring not only Abbeydale beers but some from our brewery pals too.

Ticket holders will have the opportunity to go on brewery tours encompassing our new space and see how far we’ve come on our journey so far. But please do bear in mind it’s still a bit of a work in progress, and we hope you’ll continue to join us over the coming weeks, months and years, as our ambitious programme of expansion aimed at bringing you ever more and ever better beer continues. It’s you, the people who drink our beer, who have got us this far, and we’re so excited to warmly welcome you to share this space with us.

So come and join us on the 6th and 7th April for a real celebration and experience our sights, our sounds and our smells in the heart of the community we love so much. We can’t wait to see you there!

Visit bit.ly/pissupinthebrewery to get your tickets now!

You might have spotted that we have recently made a Funk Dungeon release available in can for the first time – the Mosaic edition of our Hop Bretta series. The majority of our beers created here at Abbeydale Brewery are fermented using our house saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strain, something we’re very proud of which forms a fundamental part of the character of most of our brews. However, the recent development of our own brettanomyces blend, as the Funk Dungeon project has grown, has allowed us to explore different fermentation techniques and experiment further. This new can is the result of one such experiment.

It’s not the first mixed fermentation beer we have packaged into can, with three of our collaboration beers brewed last year (Creeping Brett, Sage Advice & Laid To Rest, available as a six pack here) all having been primary fermented with the addition of our house Brett culture. However as it’s the first to be shown under our Funk Dungeon branding we thought now was a good time to give you a little more information regarding the extra steps and considerations we need to make to ensure when packaged into cans, the beer reaches you just as we intended.

For us the most important thing is time – it is imperative that we allow the beer enough time to secondary ferment as far as possible. As we have been using our house Brett culture for over a year now, we can be confident that the furthest it will take a beer is to a PG of 1003, which means there’s barely any sugar remaining and any that is still present cannot be nibbled up by our blend of yeasties and beasties. We therefore allow the beer to rest in tank, or in the case of Hop Bretta Mosaic specifically, in barrel (the barrels used were a mixture of second fill barrels, predominantly 500L ex-sherry casks) until it reaches this point, before moving it to our bright tank ready for packaging.

In addition to this whilst we play the waiting game, we also employ forced fermentation methods with small samples, including warming and agitating the beer, to further ensure that there are minimal residual sugars remaining which ensures the stability of the finished product. At the point at which this forcing method has no result (also in this case at a PG of 1003), we can be confident that the beer is ready to go into can.

Anyway, after all that, onto the beer itself! Our new Hop Bretta series is an occasional release of lower alcohol single hopped beers, fermented using our usual yeast, but finished in wood with our house Brett culture which gives a light funky (rather than sour) character. Our intention is that these beers will be very accessible and a great introduction to our Funk Dungeon range and to wild ales more generally. This Mosaic edition (4.6%) has a fresh and floral aroma and notes of grapefruit, balanced by a delicate earthy Brett character which gradually builds upon the palate. It’s out now in keg as well as in can (cans available via our online shop), so do keep your eyes peeled for it and be sure to let us know what you think!

Cheers,

Jim

Funk Dungeon Lead Brewer

1997. The country was gearing up for a monumental general election that would culminate in a landslide victory for Tony Blair’s Labour government and lead to the transformation of the UK and the world as we knew it.

2019. We’re in the midst of a political maelstrom, with our position on the world stage about to change in ways that we are yet to discover.

And through all this time, despite all of the changes we’ve seen, there’s been a deliciously boozy barley wine that has remained just the same…

First brewed on February 15^th, 1997, and returning next week in cask, keg, and for the first time ever IN CAN, please welcome back Last Rites!

Brewed using a carefully selected combination of pale malts and all American hops, Last Rites is at heart a fantastically strong barley wine with tons of flavour. Our wonderful brewery owner and beery mastermind Patrick Morton originally set out to create a high gravity beer which somehow managed to still be eminently drinkable. Last Rites is just that – it’s full of rich flavour to tease and satisfy the palate, an unusually smooth beer with tones of subtle caramel and a hint of roasted sugar which doesn’t overpower the full malt flavour base. The bitterness from the hops keeps the sweetness in check and allows the fuller spectrum of flavours to reach the palate without the cloying effect that is often found with high alcohol recipes. We use a similar hop combination to Moonshine – Willamette, Cascade and Chinook, and originally Last Rites was brewed from the first runnings of our beloved flagship pale ale. We’ve been dry hopping it since 1997 too, so this technique is nothing new – the hops for this have changed a little over the years, but the new batch has been lovingly packed full with Cascade and Mosaic for a zesty citrus burst that rounds out the malt character beautifully, leading to a robust and lingering finish.

Brews of Last Rites haven’t always gone to plan over the years, it’s a tricky beast to get right and is the true mettle test for our brewers! Until 2016 only Pat had achieved the perfect brew to get the beer into spec, but when we brought it back after a 6-year absence to help us celebrate our 20^th anniversary, brewer Jim (best known for his Funk Dungeon beers) was able to resurrect it successfully, with our Scott mastering it just before Christmas – despite it being even more difficult at this chilly time of year.

The key challenge is enabling the conversion of sugars to ensure a highly fermentable wort, allowing the beer to reach the desired 11.0% ABV. To achieve this, Last Rites is mashed in at a lower temperature (63 rather than 68 degrees C) and is fermented warm so as to not limit the yeast potential. We used US-05 yeast, which gets less stressed at higher alcohols and temperatures than our house culture. It took around three times as long to ferment than our beers usually do, requiring concentration, care and attention all the way through through the process… as Scott says, he became a beer nanny as well as a brewer. That’s my kind of babysitting.

Last Rites has already had a longer conditioning period before packaging than is usual for us, and it will continue to age well.

Long-time Last Rites fans might also spot the new look for our barley wine, as it’s been reimagined by our Brewers Emporium artist James Murphy to make sure it looks rite-fully (see what we did there?!) at home as a part of the Abbeydale family.

In short, in spite of its some-may-say fearsome alcohol content (11.0% ABV), Last Rites is a thoroughly delicious drink which has been brewed with every care for depth of flavour and true drinkability. It is brewed only infrequently and its drinking should therefore be treated with the respect becoming such a solemn undertaking.

Look out for Last Rites in cask, keg and can from Monday 28th January.

Cheers!

Laura (Office Manager and Last Rites superfan)

2018.

365 days.

22 years since the brewery was founded.

100 different beers brewed.

26 can releases.

Over 11,000 BBL produced (that’s over 18,000 hL)

AND LOADS OF MOONSHINE… around 1.8 million pints supped!

Here’s just a select few of our highlights of our year in beer…

The biggest development of the year for us and something which will continue to have a massive influence in shaping our 2019 was our expansion. This is something we’d been quietly working on behind the scenes for pretty much the entirety of the year, so it was not only an exciting announcement for us to make back in November but also quite the relief! Our new tanks have already enabled us to boost our capacity and the much needed extra space means that we are able to stay right at the heart of our beloved Abbeydale Road community. You can read more about the details of our new space in this blog post.

We’ve expanded our reach in terms of brewery events, hosting our 12^th Sunfest festival at the Rising Sun, as well as Funk Fest, the very first (we think!) dedicated sour beer festival to be held in the UK outside of London. We’ve met more of our drinkers than ever before at tap takeovers all over the UK – from the Hanging Bat in Edinburgh to the Stoneworks in Peterborough and all sorts in between, including our first “Funk Dungeon on tour” event held at Tilt in Birmingham in October. We’ve also had stalls at a number of local Farmers Markets which has been a brilliant way to get to know our neighbourhood even better! And we’ve been lucky enough to be part of some amazing festivals including Fyne Fest, hosted by Fyne Ales in the most beautiful setting imaginable, and Thornbridge’s glorious Peakender.

Collaborations have continued to be a great way for us to try something new and mutually learn from our brewery pals, and we’ve worked with some truly incredible people throughout 2018 both home and away, including Yeastie Boys, Haandbryggeriet, Bad Seed, Alphabet and Northern Monk.

Talking of working with brilliant people, we’ve been lucky enough to have art created by some of the industry’s finest, including James Murphy continuing to develop wonderful pieces for our Brewers Emporium range, Jim Spendlove working with us on our series involving other local institutions like Peddler Market, and Lewis Ryan (Lewy) creating an awesome colourful beery jigsaw from the can labels for us, something we believe to be a world first.

Our flagship pale ale, Moonshine, took home a bronze medal in its category at the 2018 Champion Beer of Britain Awards, an achievement we’re hugely proud of – more on that here.

We also cranked up our charity efforts this year, not only in raising oodles of funds for Bluebell Wood with this year’s charity beer “Brewbell Wood”, but also with 11 of the team challenging themselves to take part in the Sheffield 10k on behalf of Cavendish Cancer Care, and raising over £1500 for the cause. A great big thank you to everyone who donated!

Looking ahead to 2019, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that once again we have a mega year planned, including the launch of our first ever lager! Heresy will sit alongside Heathen at the heart of our Brewers Emporium range – we’re still in the final planning stages at the moment but watch this space for more details! 

Colourway not yet confirmed… let us know what you think!

From all of us at Abbeydale HQ, a huge thank you for all your support this year. We can’t wait to find out what the year ahead has in store.

Cheers!