Very pale straw-coloured beer with lovely herby aromas. The flavour is pleasant and grassy with hints of green peppers and a moderate bitterness. It has lots of body for its gravity and is crisp, fresh and clean tasting; an excellent session beer.
Matins came about as a consequence of deciding to "brew a beer from muesli," deeming it suitable for the sort of liquid breakfast that ought to find its way onto the set of Red Dwarf or Men Behaving Badly. The inventive grist has long since given way to pure Maris Otter pale malt.
Matins (a good Yorkshire word,) is pronounced "Mat-tins" and not "ma-tan" as it would be in French.
Russet brown beer made with Amarillo hops. It has aromas of malt loaf, marmalade and apricots with some burnt toast coming through from the dark malt. The flavours are of coffee, toffee and liquorice with underlying spices, especially cloves. There is bitterness throughout, growing during the long finish. Abbeydale’s refreshing take on a classic English bitter.
We had tried a Best Bitter but people seemed to think that was too ordinary for our brewery. So we sat down and had a big think. We came up with a new recipe and a new name. It has proven very popular.
A beautifully balanced pale straw-coloured premium bitter with a distinctive floral aroma, leading to a predominantly citrus taste, with grapefruit and lemons to the fore, and a quenching bitter finish.
This is consistently Abbeydale Brewery's biggest selling beer.
First brewed in 1996 it was designed as a premium pale bitter to show drinkers of a very big and old-established brewery's offering just what a beer could taste like... After a bit of name-calling and throwing of stones, it had no trouble in establishing a reputation as the genuine Sheffield Gold Beer. It is now available as a "regular" beer at a number of outlets in and around Sheffield.
It was an immediate hit - the very first batch won the "Beer of The festival" prize at Sheffield Beer Festival.
Mid-straw coloured beer with aromas of tropical fruit, particularly mangoes. The beer is sweet all the way through, balanced by bitterness at the finish. Flavours are fruity with toffee-apples and bananas. A clean tasting beer, sweetish but not cloying. Very drinkable.
Abbeydale Brewery brews a range of beers throughout the seasons, and demand for Absolution constantly increases as time goes on, season in and season out.
The first brew was in August 1996 and the beer was showcased at the Derbyshire Three Stags Heads (see our pubs section) Three firkins were delivered and upon return of the delivery vehicle to the brewery, a plaintive phonecall from the recipient landlord, "Customers in desperate need of Absolution" meant a trip back out again with more.
Winner of many awards, Absolution is a perennial favourite. We're proud of it and we drink it at home.
Very dark ruby ale with a rich creamy head. Aromas of dark chocolate, coffee and burnt toast. Full bodied and warming with strong flavours of bitter chocolate, fruitcake, raisins and hints of cherries. A lingering bitter finish.
This is a beer brewed with complex malts and hops which give rise to complex flavours. A beast of a brew.
This beer won Champion Beer of Sheffield 2006 in a blind tasting organised by Sheffield CAMRA as part of the annual Sheffield Beer Festival in September. Cheers!
Superbly strong and full-bodied ale which is very pale for its strength. It has aromas full of toffee and caramel. The flavour is smooth and sweet with warming alcohol and lots of toffee, candied peel and dried citrus fruits. The beer is quite vinous and has lots of depth and lingering flavours. Dangerously more-ish and some people have drunk far more than was good for them.
High A.B.V. beers have been described as "gimmick" beers, to be enjoyed only in small quantities for their hideous potency. They are also often dark - to hide the murkiness. This is not the case at all with Last Rites. Patrick set out to create a high gravity beer which was as pale as it could be, and truly drinkable.
Last Rites really IS a premium brew, unusually pale in colour and full of rich malt and hop flavours to tease and satisfy the palate. At 11% alcohol by volume, Last Rites is more of a wine than a beer and its drinking should therefore be treated with the respect becoming such a solemn undertaking.
It is brewed only two or three times a year. Whenever we can it is lagered for 100 days to give time for the flavours to mature and develop. This gives an unusually smooth beer with strong tones of smooth subtle toffee and a hint of roasted sugar which doesn't overpower the full hop flavours. The bitterness from the hops keeps the sweetness in check and allows the fuller spectrum of flavours to reach the palate without the cloying burning honey and acid effect of many high alcohol recipes.
In short, in spite of its fearsome alcohol content, Last Rites is a thoroughly delicious drink which has been brewed with every care for it flavour and potability.
Last Rites - Pale and fantastically strong.