Posted on

Heritage Brewing

Heritage Brewing

For our first ever heritage brew we have teamed up with legendary beer historian Ron Pattinson, in conjunction with Jules from Sheffield Beer Week.

Together, we’ve revived an 1868 William Younger No 1 recipe, which in today’s terms would probably be labelled a barley wine. As we’ve learned from Ron, however, it’s difficult to fit these historical beers into the constraints of our modern beer styles! At the time, this would have been described as a Scotch Ale, an Edinburgh Ale, or simply (and pretty accurately!) as a Strong Ale. Weighing in at a hefty 10.3%, we plan to release some of the beer in steel casks with the remainder being barrel aged for an even more authentic flavour. We will be using a variety of sizes and types of barrel, and testing and comparing the different types throughout the ageing process (with continued input from Ron and Jules) to get the tastiest beer possible.

…And the first of these casks is heading to Sheffield CAMRA’s Steel City Beer Festival this week!

Originally created by Younger’s in the 1850s, their No 1 “King of Ales” continued to be made for a full century, although it underwent many recipe changes throughout this period. We’ve kept ours as close as possible to the 1868 version of the recipe, with a few small amendments due to modern constraints.

The brew day itself was pretty unusual, with different techniques needed to recreate the recipe effectively. Our usual 1 hour 15 minute boil was increased to 2 hours, darkening and strengthening the wort “manually” – usually, we’d add a darker malt and some sugar!

We are planning to launch the barrel aged version of this beer at a special event during Sheffield Beer Week in March 2018, keep your eyes peeled for more details on this nearer the time.

For more on historic Scottish beer styles, we can highly recommend Ron’s new book “Macbeth!”. It was a privilege to spend the day with such a knowledgeable man with so many interesting, thought provoking and often hilarious stories to tell.

 

We also just wanted to make a quick comment on the news that SIBA Beer X, the trade exhibition and beer festival run by the Society of Independent Brewers (of which we are a member) has moved to a bigger venue in Liverpool after 5 years in Sheffield. Sheffield Beer Week has always been run at the same time as this festival since it’s inception three years ago, so what happens now?

It’s fair to say that Sheffield Beer Week coinciding with Beer X was initially an advantage, as it meant that many brewers and other industry people had already flocked to Sheffield and so were in the area to attend and deliver events. However, we certainly believe here that Beer Week itself now has so much momentum and is such a great thing for our wonderful beery city that it is a huge attraction for the industry and customers alike, in and of itself.

And so whilst it’s a shame that SIBA has made the move, we support their decision in terms of the new improved venue that Liverpool is able to offer, and look forward to Sheffield Beer Week continuing to expand independently.

Cheers!

Posted on

Don’t Go Bacon My Heart…

Don't Go Bacon My Heart...

BEHOLD our most recent transatlantic collaboration! After visiting Ass Clown Brewing in North Carolina last year, we were absolutely blown away by their astonishingly tasty, culinary inspired beers, dreamed up by head brewer Matt. For his trip back across the pond to visit us here in Sheffield, we really wanted to make the most of his remarkable knowledge and bring the worlds of beer and food together. The result? A bacon and ice cream stout, weighing in at 7.1% ABV.

We got in touch with our good friends at Whirlow Hall Farm Trust, who provided us with 30kg of locally reared, high welfare smoky bacon (according to Matt, using unsmoked bacon results in beer that tastes of hotdogs, not quite what we were aiming for!) which was BBQ’d outside the brewery by our Sales Director and Pitmaster Dan. Dan has long wanted to create a hearty, meaty beer, so this was a bit of a dream come true. 10kg was added to the hopback during the brewday itself, overseen by our brewer Scott who devised the recipe along with Matt, with the remaining 20kg (well, let’s say 19ish… sandwiches may have happened) being used to add it’s delicious smoky flavour during fermentation. The ice cream character is present in scoopfuls, with plenty of vanilla and lactose in the recipe for a velvety, sumptuous mouthfeel.

The incredible artwork has been created by Jake Baggs, who has worked with Ass Clown on a number of projects in the past and has given our collaboration a fun yet slightly subversive image which fits it absolutely perfectly! Here’s a sneak peek at his initial ideas below…

We can also recommend “going the whole hog” and ramping up this ridiculous flavour combination even further! Ted and the team at the Itchy Pig micropub in Broomhill (Sheffield CAMRA’s current Pub of the Month!) hosted us for a fantastic evening of bacon beer ice cream sundaes, using Sheffield’s favourite Our Cow Molly ice cream and complete with salt and vinegar pork scratching dust sprinkled atop the concoction (we’re really not sure why this worked, but trust us, it was epic.

The beer is available now and is absolutely flying out of the brewery. Who ever said pigs can’t fly?!

Cheers!

Posted on

#Collabfest2017

#Collabfest2017

We are thrilled to announce that we have been selected to take part in Brewdog Collabfest for the second year in a row, following on from the success of last year’s Iced Tea Dead People peach iced tea brew!

Full details of the beer we’ve made with our friends at Brewdog Sheffield this year are still under wraps (although there’s a cheeky clue in the photo!), but get yourself down to any Brewdog bar nationwide between October 20th-22nd to try it! We’ll be hosting a Meet the Team session at the Sheffield bar from 8pm on Friday 20th, so hope to see plenty of you down there.

We’re in some absolutely epic company this year as you can see from the image above – for more information, check out this blog from Brewdog HQ.

Bring it on!

  • About Us

    A true Sheffield institution founded in 1996, Abbeydale Brewery blends heritage and tradition with creativity and innovation, showcasing these values across an unparalleled range of beers.

    Abbeydale Brewery brochure

  • Contact Us

    Abbeydale Brewery Ltd
    Unit 8, Aizlewood Road
    Sheffield
    S8 0YX
    Telephone: 0114 281 2712
    Email: [email protected]

Hello

Sign Up