Author: abbeydale.admin

We can’t quite believe 2022 is drawing to a close already, it’s been another rollercoaster of a year – what better way to round things off than with some Christmas magic, and beer of course!

We’ve got some ace gift ideas available, including our beautiful new gift boxes! Each features 3 beers and a glass, perfect for a Secret Santa present. Choose from our ever-popular core range gift pack, Brewers Emporium flagships, a hop forward selection box or a trilogy of dark beers. Plus coming soon we’ll have the Heathen Trinity box, featuring “regular” Heathen, Cryo Heathen, and Fresh Hop Cryo Heathen!

In other gifting news, we’ve got plenty of lovely merchandise available, so take your pick from glassware and other goodies to make your home bar feel more like the real deal, to kitting out in Abbeydale clothing from head to toe… we’ve got t-shirts, snuggly hoodies, and even Moonshine socks! Don’t forget we have gift vouchers available too if you’re not sure exactly what your beer loving pal is looking for.

And if you want to make it to the very top of the nice list, really spoil that special someone with a subscription to our monthly beer boxes – truly the gift that keeps on giving!

Moonshine minikegs are now available to pre-order for Christmas too – these will be filled the week before the big day so they’ll be tasting at their finest over the festive period. 

We can deliver to your door wherever you are (throughout mainland UK) and delivery is free for all orders of a case of cans or more. For those of you local to Sheffield, you can also choose to pop in to the brewery to collect your beery treats – do please note that we do not have an actual shop here though, so all purchases need to have been made online in advance. We’re open on Saturdays in the run up to Christmas (3rd, 10th and 17th December, 10am-2pm) as well as our usual 2pm-5pm weekdays, to make it as easy as possible for you to pop by. Full details of our delivery and collection options can be found here.

And don’t forget, if you’re still looking for the perfect spot for a Christmas get together, our lovely pub would love you to try out their delicious seasonal menu! Get in touch with The Rising Sun for further information and to book!

Finally, we’d just like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to our charity of the year, Roundabout. Their work at this time of year is as critical as ever, and they have an Amazon wishlist running to help make Christmas a special occasion for the vulnerable young people they support. They also have a downloadable activity pack full of puzzles and colouring in, available for a suggested donation of £2. Head to their Christmas fundraising page here if you’re able to support them.

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale x

Introducing Fresh Hop Heathen: Cryo APA! All the buzz words, all of the flavour. This year we’re pioneering the use of YCH 301 Mosaic hops from the Yakima Chief Hops Elite Product Trial programme… essentially freshly harvested, unkilned hops, which are firstly flash frozen (like peas or sweetcorn!) and then cryogenically processed. This state-of-the-art process keeps all those beautifully delicate fresh hop aromas and flavours, but with all that lovely lupulin concentrated down into a punchy little pellet! It’s another groundbreaking development in the hop world, and we’re thrilled to yet again be taking part in some of the very first brews making use of such an exciting hop product.

Using Cryo pellets (rather than the whole cones we used last year) means we can add them at any point in the brewing process more easily and more efficiently 2021’s edition (and as an added bonus, the shipping is more environmentally friendly too). The hops still arrived to us frozen, which meant that we had a 48 hour window after arrival to use them in the brew. This has meant keeping our brew plan in flux for the last few weeks, whilst we eagerly awaited them to reach us, but we were able to use them both hot side on the brewday itself and then dry hop with them on day 2 – meaning that there is no need for any other hop additions at all other than our usual bittering hops, making this a completely “fresh hopped’ beer. 3g/litre were added at the whirlpool stage, with a whopping 40kg (8.15g/l) of frozies added at the dry hop phase.

The aroma of the hops was absolutely spectacular – hugely zesty, with a fragrant lemon-lime character (does anyone else remember those Solero Shots?!). The brewday was a breeze thanks to our new kettle and its built-in whirlpool and the beer is now merrily fermenting away.

The recipe has been calculated to 40 IBU (lower than that of normal Heathen, which sits at 60) to allow for a little more room on the palate for the delicate fresh hop flavours to come through as clearly as possible, but still with enough whack to be Heathenesque!

We have kept the beer at the same ABV as “regular” Heathen (4.1%) to ensure the finished beer is light, refreshing and overall incredibly drinkable. Expect the classic Mosaic aromas of blueberry, citrus and tropical notes to come through, with layers of juicy mango and ripe papaya atop a gorgeously fresh, grassy backbone.

Cans are available via our online shop (including in a special "Heathen Trinity" gift pack), and trade customers can get in touch with us right now to reserve a keg or case – casks are already all spoken for, having sold out on pre-order alone! The beer is shipping from today (29th November onwards) and it will soon be available at our very own Rising Sun, as well as on bars in towns and cities including Leeds, York, Stockport, Huddersfield and many more, as well as all around Sheffield… give us a shout if you’d like any help in hunting down a pint!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale

It’s been a busy, somewhat nerve wracking but ultimately very exciting couple of weeks for us here at Abbeydale Brewery as we’ve successfully commissioned a brand new brew kettle! The kettle is an absolutely crucial piece of our brewkit, used for every single beer we’ve ever made (except for that one raw ale created for our Funk Dungeon project!), so this is a really important development here at Abbeydale HQ. Our previous kettle had been with us since 2009, and used for literally thousands of brews – the hope is that our new kettle will see us through just as many years and provide a considerable upgrade to our brewing capabilities.

The kettle has travelled a whopping 14,000km from China to reach us here in Sheffield, and we were able to track the progress of our new vessel on its voyage across the seas, which Pat in particular watched with keen interest! The changeover of kit meant we were unable to brew for ten days whilst the installation took place – the longest break we’ve had since the very early days of the brewery.  To counter this, in the weeks leading up the anticipated arrival of the new kettle, our brewteam ramped up production, ensuring that every single tank was full before the old kettle was decommissioned. And we haven’t run out of Moonshine, so we’re definitely calling that a job well done!

The project was undertaken with our suppliers SSV, who designed and commissioned our new piece of kit, working closely with us throughout the whole process. Although we’re currently keeping our batches the same volume while we get used to how everything works, the new kettle is almost twice the size of the previous one, with a working capacity of 6000l.

Our new kettle is more energy efficient than its predecessor – it has a built in vapour condensing unit which recovers energy, meaning we can capture the heat from the steam used for boiling our wort and recycle water at 95 degrees back to our hot liquor tank, ready for the next brew.

A built in whirlpool separates the flocculated proteins (trub) and additional hop matter from the wort, which should help us to create a cleaner flavour profile and clearer beer more easily. The whirlpool also includes the potential to more quickly chill the wort down to 80 degrees (any surplus cold liquor used for chilling here is also able to be recycled as hot liquor for the next brew), which can reduce hop isomerisation where desired, making it that bit more straightforward for us to brew beers with a lower bitterness but just as much delicious flavour. We will be using more hop pellets as a result – these are less absorbent to wort than whole leaf cones, meaning a higher yield in fermenter. Overall, the whirlpool gives us another way to experiment with hop additions and provides greater flexibility in terms of beer flavour and production for our brewteam to experiment with.

The external wort boiler is another new component to our kit, which can increase the efficiency of isomerisation due to a more active and higher temperature boil. This also helps prevent caramelisation, which is perfect for those light and crisp pale ales that we’re so well known for.

By heating wort in the external wort boiler (EWB), cooler (99 degree) wort is taken from the bottom of the kettle into the EWB, which is then heated by steam to 103 degrees and pushed out of the distribution plate back onto the wort at the top of the kettle. A thermosiphon current is thus formed, without the need for a pump. As well as reducing energy consumption and preventing too much agitation of the wort, it also looks pretty cool (#science)!

Finally, our brewers have access to lots more feedback on how the brew is progressing, with a plethora of more sophisticated sensors giving our team more detailed data across parameters such as flow rates, temperatures and volumes, ensuring more control and therefore more consistency than ever before. All this information is displayed on a swish new control panel, which has further potential for upgrading into our existing milling equipment in the future too.

The first brew on the new kettle was, of course, Moonshine, and the team are now starting to put it through its paces with some new specials as well! We’re excited to announce that our Deliverance collaboration with Yakima Chief, a 7% IPA featuring Sabro, Talus, and experimental hop HBC 472, was the first brew using the new whirlpool to its full potential. This beer is one of highest rated of all time, and we can’t wait to see it making another appearance on our availability lists very soon!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale

When we first started brewing keg beers early in 2014, we set about a series of one-off beers that were (imaginatively) named ‘Pale Ale #1′, ‘Pale Ale #2, and so on.  Our favourite recipe was ‘Pale Ale #6′, which was later renamed Mosaic, after the hop it was brewed with. The initial artwork for Mosaic was originally intended to be a stop gap and the long-term plan had always been to rebrand and rename the beer to bring it into our range of permanently available brews. So we set about the task of coming up with a new name for this wonderful beer.  We wanted something that was worthy of us shouting about, something that recognised our past, but also that could help drive the image of the brewery forward in this ever-changing industry. 

And so it was that back in 2016, we enlisted the talents of an artist called James Murphy, who was asked to create a contemporary design for our Mosaic release. Many names and ideas were passed back and forth over a couple of months and after meeting brewery owners Sue and Pat, and Sales Director Dan, for pizza and tank beers at Crate Brewery in London; James came up with three working ideas for the newly named Heathen American Pale Ale, alongside a re-drawn Abbeydale logo.

The first of these designs, and the one favoured by James, was a sea god and crow with waves crashing over the Abbeydale logo. Following on in a similar fashion, the second was a stylised Norse helmet with the Abbeydale logo within. In hindsight, both these ideas had their limitations and would have had a restricting effect on any future expansion or development of a range.

The third design shows the origins of the now well-known ‘praying hands’ design we have come to love. At first, it was felt that the crossed fingers did not necessarily work and the hands would simply be praying to the Abbeydale logo instead but throughout the development, the crossed fingers were brought back in – insinuating that the character was not actually praying, but believed in luck instead.

The background and supporting information were then neatened up and the ubiquitous rays were introduced – starting with a bright red alongside a complementary amber to represent the beer colour.

At the time of the Heathen launch, we said “we hope this is the start of a long working relationship between James and the brewery” and we’re absolutely delighted that this wish came true! Over five years on and Heathen was effectively the kickstarter for our Brewers Emporium range, which we officially launched in March 2017 – and James is now our in house designer!

So for our 25^th anniversary we felt it was only proper to celebrate not just those beers which have been with us since the very beginning, but those that have become a key part of our identity in the years since. And it was so popular back in August last year that we’ve made it again in time to enjoy before the first frost of winter arrives!

Welcome back Cryo Heathen – a ramped up, special edition, even more Mosaic-y version of Heathen! Weighing in at just a slightly heftier 5.0% ABV, it holds those familiar flavours of grapefruit, mango, and peachy undertones that we know and love but with everything given that extra bit of a boost. Mosaic has been added in leaf, T90 and cryo hop form, resulting in an aromatic and flavourful beer with a lipsmacking bitter finish.

Cryo hops have undergone a process whereby the hops themselves are preserved at low temperatures, and the lupulin (where all the good stuff is!) is separated out and concentrated into a pellet – so it’s absolutely packed full of intense flavour and aroma (you can read more about these tasty little things here!)

The term “Cryo” comes from the Greek word ‘kryos’, which means “frost”, so for the artwork for this special release we looked to communicate this without steering too far away from the familiar Heathen identity. This release was originally part of our 25^th Silver Anniversary celebratory range of beers and we wanted to use a technique that would help the beer stand out. The use of transparent labels, as with our Funk Dungeon range, allowed us to utilise the cold, reflective silver of the can alongside the cool blue to emphasise the ‘Cryo’ to great effect.

Cryo Heathen is available to buy in can from our online shop from Monday 30th May, as well as from independent retailers, with cask and keg available for our trade customers too.

Cheers!

Same beer, stronger identity!

Black Mass has previously been described as a bit of an enigma… a hop forward dark beer, too hoppy to be labelled a straightforward stout and without a category to define it over 25 years ago. The term “Black IPA” simply wasn’t around when the beer was first made, on 6^th November 1996, and as a descriptor it didn’t really become part of the beery lexicon until circa 2008 – with its oxymoronic nature causing both consternation and fascination in the beer world ever since!

We’ve always made a point of brewing whatever we want and not really following the fashions, and we reckon that we were ahead of the curve with this one. We’ve edged around relabelling Black Mass as a Black IPA for a few years now, and it seems to be that that’s what most of you like to describe it as, so we’re being bold, we’re nailing our flag to the mast, and we’re calling it… Black Mass is not just a Black IPA, but it’s one of the world’s first, and certainly one of the most long-standing.

In exciting news, to go with its new identity, Black Mass is now going to be AVAILABLE IN KEG as well as cask and can! We trialled this at a Tap Takeover at the King’s Arms in London a few months ago and it went down so well we’re making it a regular feature.

We’re also pleased to announce that Black Mass now joins many of our other beers in having Brewers’ Clarex added to the brew, so is labelled GF moving forwards. And while we’re at it, we’ve removed the finings too, meaning it is vegan friendly! (Please note there is likely to be some overlap in batches on bars and shelves, so do check at the point of purchase if you have any dietary requirements!) Other than these small tweaks, which in no way affect the flavour, the recipe remains exactly the same.

Black Mass has been with us since our very beginnings as a brewery, and we feel this move to strengthen its identity helps it prove its place as a beer which is still incredibly relevant to where we are today. It’s heavily hopped with predominantly Cascade, weighing in at over 150 IBUs and 6.66%. Rich and smooth on the palate, with delectable flavours reminiscent of bitter chocolate, fruitcake and raisins, and aromas of coffee, dark chocolate, and just a hint of burnt toast, it’s classic and familiar yet simultaneously unique and boundary defying.

(You can read more on the history of and inspirations behind Black Mass in this blog post, published last year in celebration of its 25^th birthday, too).

#BIPAComeback? We’re all for it! But maybe, just maybe, it’s been there all along…

Cheers!

PS of course we had to ask brewery owner and Black Mass creator Pat for permission – here’s a sneak peek into our decision making process!

Some of you may remember that back in July 2019, we released Chapter 1 from our Funk Dungeon project in can. That beer was Ryes From the Grave – a statement of intent for the project and the culmination of almost two years of time, care and attention (you can refresh your memory here if you’d like to read more). And now it’s time to Ryes Again…

The nature of our Funk Dungeon means that no two beers will ever be exactly the same – whilst in the rest of the brewery (with our core range in particular) we aim for absolute consistency, barrel aged beers and those made with wild yeasts are much more of their time and are harder to constrain to a set flavour profile. So this isn’t a re-release, but more of a reworking, turning back the pages on the project in an attempt to harness a memory, whilst showcasing where we’re at right now at the same time.

Ryes Again contains a blend of beers aged for up to four years, including some two year old spontaneously fermented Kriek and the very last barrel of the very first batch of our Flemish Red style beer, Sheffield Red – we’re sad to see the end of this one, but pleased it’s found a place in such a special beer for its final resting place. A barrel of stock ale was dosed with fruit from the allotment of one of our lovely Rising Sun regulars (cheers, Les!) – blackcurrants, which were also used in Ryes From the Grave, and a new addition of raspberries layering up yet more character alongside the cherries from the Kriek.

The resulting beer is bold and intense in flavour, 6.0% ABV, with a huge hit of tart berry fruits, oodles of cherry character, and a hint of soft vanillins paired with unctuous marzipan. There’s a spicy, slightly dry finish with an almost balsamic sourness. It’s reminiscent of Ryes From the Grave whilst still holding its own unique character. As with all of our Funk Dungeon releases, we’ve aimed to showcase the influence of classic Belgian styles alongside being inspired by the eclectic and innovative world of contemporary sours, whilst brewing, fermenting, blending and packaging our beers in our own unique way, producing something that is modern beer and yet steeped in tradition.

In terms of the design for the can, it felt appropriate to revisit the artwork from Chapter 1, where we first met our skele friend – a character now synonymous with our Funk Dungeon project. Our designer James Murphy chose to reflect the additional complexities found in this release with a little extra shimmer here and there and added depth to the colouring on the character, whilst also making sure the core colours of the range (purple and green) remained apparent. The main change comes in the background, with a new bright, shimmering cherry-red sky behind our skele friend as he emerges again from his grave.

Whether you were a fan of the original release or are coming to this beer for the very first time, we’d love to know what you think. It’s a style that we feel will develop well over time, too, so we’ll be cellaring a few cans for a special occasion as well as enjoying it fresh (well, as fresh as a barrel aged beer can be!) right now. Cans are available from our online shop, or via an array of independent retailers nationwide, and limited kegs are available for trade customers too.

Stay funky – cheers!

Our latest Funk Dungeon release is here! Introducing Pull of Gravity, a 5.6% apple raw ale which was brewed during a live brewday event as part of Funk Fest 2021, in collaboration with the amazing aeronauts at Ascension Cider.

One of the key focuses of our Funk Dungeon project now and moving forwards is around our locality and celebrating the produce the UK has to offer, so Pull of Gravity has been created using solely ingredients grown in the UK: Plumage Archer heritage barley, juice from pressed Cripps Pink apples (fruit rejected from supermarkets for not conforming to their superficial beauty standards, and rescued by Ascension!), and Olicana hops.

Of all the beer styles we have created in our 26-year history, the raw ale comes the closest to using bygone traditional brewing techniques in theoretical process, although modern technology (thankfully!) means we can measure temperature accurately and don’t need to do things by eye. We mashed in the Plumage Archer (which we also used in recent release Gothic Country, where we wrote a little more about it here) and some torrified wheat along with rye malt for a little bit of wort composition complexity and spicy flavour. The brew was mashed with no water treatment for around an hour, before running off into kettle, used here only as a collection vessel (as the name of the style suggests, with this being a raw ale the key difference between this and every other beer we’ve ever made is that this one didn’t get boiled!) before running off again into the hopback with Olicana at 2.5g/l. Olicana is one of our favourite new UK hops, showcasing lots of really nice citrus and grapefruit and a big hit of spice. But in the relatively low quantity we have used it here, rather than too much bold flavour it adds a nice layer of complexity to a drink that already has a lot going on.

After the hopback, we blended the raw ale with our freshly pressed apple juice before leaving for primary fermentation in stainless steel. We made the decision on the day not to pitch our house yeast straight away and see the kind of natural, spontaneous fermentation we’d get – by the next day the wort was vigorously and happily fermenting. Within 5 days the majority of primary fermentation had finished, and after another few days for the krausen to settle down a bit it was time to fill our barrels. We’ve used a mix of 6 ex-bourbon barrels, 2 ex-red wine casks and an IBC, where the beer has sat for around 9 months, drying out with brettanomyces fermentations and souring with the presence of both lactobacillus and pediococcus.

The resulting beer is clean, sweet and fresh, with (as you might expect) a prominent apple character. Delicate, juicy and floral – very easy drinking and sings of the orchard, with a gentle level of funk and light acidity coming through in the finish.

The artwork for chapter 11 from our Funk Dungeon project was, our designer James recounts, “A fun one to work on and particularly challenging to fit in everything within the loose brief!” The brief in question was inspired by the Misfits and the name of their song “Hybrid Moments” reflecting the hybrid nature of the graf style and also the collaboration between ourselves as a brewery and cider producers Ascension – which also works with the loose musical theme we like to see represented across all of our funky releases. Plus, of course, there simply had to be hot air balloons on there! The name of the beer comes from another of the Misfits songs, Black Hole, which James felt would work well within the range’s aesthetic (as well as giving a nod to the apple of Isaac Newton!). James adds, “there’s not so many ‘easter eggs’ within this one, just a broad range of hot-air balloon designs we hope you’ll agree would look amazing in reality (and one of them does, as we’ve included Matt from Ascension’s own balloon!).” Of course, Mind Your Head is still there for you to find, as it is on all of our Funk Dungeon labels – let us know when you’ve spotted it!

If you’d like to try this very special beer for yourself, it’s available now in 440ml cans from our online shop or via independent retailers, and kegs are available to our trade customers too. 

Cheers!

We’re very excited to announce that our charity partners for the duration of this year are Roundabout, a Sheffield based youth housing charity who do huge amounts of incredibly valuable work within our community. And we’ve teamed up with them to create their very own beer!

Fresh Start is a 4.1% dry hopped pale ale with Enigma, Simcoe and Vic Secret hops. Expect a vibrant, tropical character with a full bodied mouthfeel and a berry fruit flavour in the finish. The name “Fresh Start” was put forward by the Roundabout team and is reflective of the ethos of the charity and the difference they can make to the lives of young people in South Yorkshire.

In previous years, our charity beers have always launched at Sunfest, the beer festival at the Rising Sun which was held annually until 2019. And whilst we haven’t been able to bring the festival back this year, we felt the “would have been Sunfest week” was as good a time as any to bring 2022’s charity beer out into the world! So the beer will be available from 4^th July and is to be released in cask only – please give our friendly sales team a call on 0114 2812712 if you’d like some for your bar. We’re donating 10p from every pint sold to Roundabout, so you’ll be doing good just by drinking it!

A little more information on our charity partners – Roundabout are a local youth housing charity who provide shelter, support and life skills to young people (aged between 16-25) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We’ve been very fortunate to meet a number of their wonderful team, some of whom even joined in on the brewday! As well as the beer, do keep your eyes peeled as we’ll be supporting Roundabout with other fundraising activities later in the year too. For further information about the charity, please head to their website – and you can also donate to their work here.

Cheers!

We’re absolutely delighted to share the news that our wonderful community pub, The Rising Sun, has been awarded the 2022 Pub of the Year award by Sheffield & District CAMRA!

The criteria for judging the award covers a whole range of things – of course, the beer is very important, but it also takes into consideration the wider experience offered by the pub, including the knowledge and enthusiam of the staff, and the service, friendly atmosphere, and community focus they provide. With the people coming into it just as much as what goes in our customer’s glasses, it truly is a real honour and testament to the hard work of the team that this award has been won, especially after what has been an incredibly challenging few years for our industry.

This is the first time the Rising Sun has won this accolade, joining a prestigious list of wonderful venues include Shakespeares, The Kelham Island Tavern and our very first customers, the Three Stags Heads.

We hope this award helps to cement the pub’s status as a great destination venue for local regulars and visitors to Sheffield alike (and if you are unfamiliar with the area, there’s loads of information and suggestions for a beery weekend away on the Rising Sun’s website!).

The presentation evening is taking place from 8pm on Tuesday 14^th June (Facebook event here) – we do hope you can join landlord Garry and the Rising Sun team to help us celebrate!

The pub now goes forward as the local winner to the regional rounds as a Yorkshire Pub of the Year finalist… wish us luck!

Cheers,

Team Abbeydale

For the last two years, we have been sending pallets of our lovely beer over to the wonderful folks over at Bassan, Bernardo & Figli, in the little town of Thiene (Tee-en-eh), and a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to make the trip over to visit them and strengthen the bond between us. We first encountered the company over 10 years ago when Tommy and Angelo visited the brewery and enquired about us sending them some beer. Back in 2012, we were a 100% cask brewery, and although they do take some cask beer (both Acorn and Ilkley casks were in the warehouse!), it wasn’t the right time for us then.

Fast forward to early 2020 (pre lockdown), and Angelo and Tommy came to visit us again.  By then, we’d managed to send a few pallets around Europe, with no consistency or real vision… but following a very necessary and thorough tasting of our beers, they left desperate to start importing our beers to Italy in cans and kegs.  A few weeks later, the order landed in the inbox, transportation was arranged, and the beers were ready to ship! But then along came a virus…. The morning the first shipment should have departed, Italy was placed into full lockdown (9^th March 2020), and all the hard work in preparation for the shipment went up in the air. How long was it going to be delayed? Were we next? Would they still want the beer after lockdown? And all the other unanswerable questions were flying around. Thankfully, in June of 2020, they were in a position to receive an order, and away the beer went!  Several more orders followed in the second half of the year, and we had learnt to efficiently process the necessary paperwork. And then along came Brexit…. From January 2021, the rules changed, and the fairly straightforward process of making the declarations was gone, meaning that any export to Europe had to go through the same channels as the rest of the world, plus a whole host of other red-tape hoops that were unnecessary when we were part of the EU.

Not much happened with anything either here or in Italy in those first few months of last year, so it was near the end of May before our next shipment made its way to Thiene, with a far greater focus on cans than kegs at this time.  Further orders were shipped, but we were now getting snagged by long queues at Dover, and/or delays with Italian customs clearance. A journey that was taking 4-5 days was now taking up to 3 weeks. The majority of beer styles taste best when drank fresh, especially the hoppy pale ales we are well known for, so this extra time delay was concerning, as we couldn’t guarantee storage conditions.  Unfortunately this did lead to some beer spoilage, but with over 1000 mile and a language barrier, identifying the exact cause was not easy, and it was agreed the easiest way was for me to go and visit! International travel though was not easy to arrange, and Italy still had fairly restrictive measures in place for hospitality. 

On to the start of 2022. With the relaxation of COVID restrictions, the prospect of travelling became easier and when our contact Stefano again raised the idea of visiting, the wheels started moving, especially as Italy’s hospitality restrictions were ending at the end of March. A date was set for early April, flights were booked and passport was located (thankfully still in date!). 

An early morning flight from East Midlands to Treviso was boarded and I was able to appreciate the beauty of the Swiss and Italian Alps in their magnificence from 37000ft and basked in glorious sunshine.  I was greeted at the airport by Stefano, and it was a delight to meet him face to face rather than over Zoom. Following a fantastic lunch at BEAT, with Voyager on the bar, we went to visit the offices and warehouse at Bassan, Bernardo & Figli.  Here I met more of the team, including catching up with Tommy and Angelo and we had the opportunity to test the Heathen that needed sampling. I was very impressed to find out they employ four permanent cellar technicians that are on call 7 days a week. What excellent dedication to customer service.

Tommy and Angelo became my partners in crime for the rest of the trip, and they wanted to take me to some of their best customers, and our biggest fans! They took me to check in at my hotel in Bassano del Grappa, a delightful historic medieval walled town. Our first stop was further South near Padua to Brenthaus Beer & Food. They had the last remaining keg of Cryo Heathen on the bar, and considering it was nearly 6 months old, the beer was tasting fantastic! Big shout out to Marco for hosting us, he said he got through lockdown by drinking our Moonshine cans! I also got my first taste of cask in Italy here, with Ilkley Olicana on the bar.

Our second stop was a bit further North to Goto Storto, nearer Treviso. This was a lively place with an almost dive bar feel, with an excellent choice of music too. Two Abbeydale kegs on the bar here, with Fremantle Aussie Pale and Hopback Vic Secret both on top form. Some delicious pizza plus some tasty Italian craft beer from Birra Brùton.  Big thanks go to Mattia for his kindness and the T-shirts.

Lastly, we made last orders (and a lock-in, shhhhh!) at Black Lotus in San Martino di Lupari, just South of Bassano del Grappa. This was set up much more like a traditional British pub, and were spoiled with a choice of three Abbeydale beers on tap! Hopback Vic Secret, Salvation Irish Stout and Sheffield Rocks all pouring. Marco and his team were again wonderfully generous hosts, especially when cracking open the whisky! A few of the staff from Goto Storto also arrived for the late drinking including Andrea, the very smiley bar man! After nearly 24 hours on the go, I finally crashed back at the hotel around 4am, very tired and rather tipsy!!!

Having unsurprisingly missed breakfast, Tommy found us a little pizzette (a sweet mini pizza really), and then a visit to a traditional grappa distillery, Nardini which is at the entrance of the famous 13^th Century Ponte Vecchio wooden bridge in the heart of Bassano del Grappa, for a little Mezzoemezzo (half grappa, half soda with a twist of lemon). A little pick me up to get the fuzziness clearing for the day’s work ahead!

Upon returning to Thiene around lunchtime, I met with the entire sales team of the company and proceeded to give what they termed an ‘Abbeydale Masterclass’ which was an in depth tasting of our beers, which allowed the rest of their staff to learn more about what we do and who we are. I took some very special beers with me including the recent Voyager There & Back Again, and some Hinterland that I’d filled straight from the tank before it had been canned. I might have* sneaked a couple of cans of our Ryes From The Grave, canned in 2019, from our very special stash, but don’t tell Dan or Toby!

*and by “might have” read “absolutely did”!

The evening started with a visit to the nearby Cutty Sark, a Scottish themed pub, and the décor was quintessentially traditional pub. Sheffield Rocks was on the bar and going down a storm with the locals. Had a lovely pint of Acorn Old Moor Porter too, albeit from Keykeg, not on cask. As we were leaving, a local musician arrived to start setting up, I’ve been told to bring my band next time I visit!!!

My last pub stop of the trip was in the heart of Bassano del Grappa (and staggering distance from the hotel!). Samsara had a lovely atmosphere, great service, delicious food and Heathen on tap! Paulo behind the bar was a true gent, and it was lovely to have a more sedate end to our visits. By the time we left around 11pm, it seemed that half of Bassano del Grappa was there, but Angelo did tell me it was half price Thursday!!!

Friday morning gave me the opportunity to explore a little more of the town and even a quick stop in the Grappa museum from the other distillery in town, Poli, which gave fascinating insights into the history of both distillation in general and grappa as a distillate.

Before I knew it, I was being picked up and on the way to the airport to come home. A whirlwind of just over 48 hours, over far too quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and Stefano, Tommy, Angelo and the rest of the Bassan, Bernardo & Figli team, plus everyone at the pubs we visited treated me like royalty and I can only say a huge ‘Grazie!”.  My Italian was incredibly limited, and not everyone had a good grasp of English, but that didn’t matter. Their passion for beer, and our beer in particular, was evident, and this is what drives good business relationships. We live and breathe beer day in day out, and this is matched by our Italian friends. They are a family owned and run company, so are we. Our beer is in safe hands and we can’t wait to continue our adventure along with them.

Saluti!

Robin