See Britain By Ale

Just in case you haven’t noticed, we are pretty fond of cask beer here. We’ve made rather a lot of it in 28 years. Cask beer is something to be treasured – a link with our history, the essence of our present, and a crucial part of our future too. It deserves to be celebrated.

We know we aren’t the only ones who think this way (if we were, we wouldn’t sell over two million pints of cask beer every year!), and so we’ve recently introduced a new range to our offering which allows us to share this love of all things cask with our friends from breweries across the country that pay it just as much reverence as we do – appreciating the art of understatement, the joy of simplicity and the unadulterated pleasure that comes from a perfectly poured pint of cask beer.

The Travel Poster series is inspired by the home towns of our collaboration partners, and the varied look of this range takes inspiration from the British Railways branding of the early/mid-20th century and esteemed travel posters throughout history. Our designer James has revered this style and aesthetic for a long time, and we’ve been waiting for the right moment to introduce this look – and showcasing it by shining a distinctive light across a range of beer styles, all of which consider the history and traditions of cask ale, seemed just the right fit.

James has been delving deep into researching the areas the breweries visit us from represent, coming to have an even deeper appreciation for this beautiful country and celebrating our diverse landscape.

So far we have created “Explore the River Aire”, a New Zealand hopped ESB, with Anthology (who hail from Leeds), “Walk the Loxley Valley”, a delectable Sabro pale ale with Loxley Brewery (based in north Sheffield), and “Discover Ossett”, a collaboration with Ossett Brewery (from erm… Ossett), which was a hybrid between our beloved Deception and Ossett’s incredibly popular White Rat. Each beer has its very own beautiful, original artwork that depicts the area the visiting brewery calls home and comprises a style that plays to our collective strengths. In addition, we used a little creative license and collaborated with ourselves to make “Swing by Beauchief”, a charming homage to the area where the abbey that our brewery logo is based upon stands – this recipe was an Abbeydale classic, the sort of well-hopped pale ale that we’re best known for.

Next up we’re incredibly excited to be working with Fell Brewery, based in the stunning Lake District, which again gives great scope for another eye-catching cask clip to showcase another tasty beer – “Fall for the Lakes” (see what we did there?!). We’re teaming up to produce a Transatlantic Pale Ale (a small tribute to Fell’s brewer Scott, who hails from upstate New York and joined us for the brewday), hopped with UK grown Harlequin and American classics Simcoe and Chinook to create a vivid and vibrant beer with notes of pine, passionfruit, peach and pineapple. Due for release the week commencing 20th May, so keep your eyes peeled for this one.

So there you have it. The Abbeydale Brewery Travel Poster series, created in the spirit of collaboration and community, designed not only to have great flavour but to invoke a little nostalgia too. Best enjoyed in your local pub with a gentle sense of wanderlust. We can’t wait to see where the next adventure will take us…