Sheffield Beer Week 2017 - A Round-Up

Sheffield Beer Week is over for another year and we've flung ourselves in absolutely head first this time! Here's a quick overview of the events we attended...

MONDAY

A relatively quiet start to the week for us as we joined in a twitter hour with @catsontap. We've long been fans of beercats Rosie and Milly, and our Tosin is a regular on their page too! We kicked off with something pretty special brought back from our trip to Brussels last year - Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic Bio. Face-puckering, fruity and a glorious treat to kick off the week. We also imbibed Cloudwater's Seguin Biere Brut, reminiscent more of a wine than a beer and utterly delicious.

TUESDAY

Every week, Sentinel Brew Co host a film night, wittily titled Brew-vie Tuesdays. We've not made it down to this before but in conjunction with Sheffield Beer Week they decided to show "Beertickers: Beyond the Ale". Filmed in 2008 in and around Sheffield, it was so entertaining for us to look back at the beer scene as it was around the time we both first properly got into real ale, with many a familiar face amongst the footage! Great pizzas and popcorn, too.

WEDNESDAY

A Lervig tap takeover at the Rutland Arms kicked off our evening, with the highlight being Sippin' Into Darkness, a chocolate martini imperial stout at 12%. Bold, boozy and tasted like a Double Decker chocolate bar fondue.

We then headed up to Brewdog for the Mad Hatter meet the brewer event and bumped into the team from Weird Beard. Plenty of beery chat and a lot of laughs were had.

THURSDAY

An even bigger night for us on the Thursday. First off we hit up the Beer Engine's North vs South beer and food pairing, featuring four beers each from London based Fourpure and Fierce from Aberdeen. The food at the Beer Engine is some of the best in Sheffield as far as we're concerned, and a new guest chef brought in to create the pairing menus for this event elevated the offering to an even higher level. The highlight for us was Fierce's Tropical Tart, a beautifully light and tangy passionfruit sour, served with spicy prawns and crab laksa.

A short walk back to Sentinel for a tap takeover hosted by Yellowbelly Brewery where we sampled their collaboration with bloggers Wayne and Janice from IrishBeerSnob, Juice Wayne - a Rock Shandy IPA, inspired by an Irish soft drink and bursting with oranges and lemons. It took Laura until Sunday to realise that Juice rhymes with Bruce...

Finally we headed up to the launch of Abbeydale Brewery's new Brewers Emporium range at the newly refurbished Devonshire Cat, which was buzzing with a vibrant atmosphere and presented a great range of progressive beers to choose from.

FRIDAY

We started the day with a Beer Writers Breakfast hosted by the The Can Makers, giving us an insight into a truly up and coming portion of the market and with tasty pastries from Sheffield based Percy & Lily's. It was the first day of the Beer Now conference, ending with a trip to Beer Alive festival. It was the third time we've attended the festival and it's been scaled down pretty drastically this year. It's a shame that this resulted in a rather lacklustre beer selection - the lack of involvement from brewers directly, which was a great feature of last year's festival, was missed.

SATURDAY

A full on and inspiring day at the Beer Now conference, kicking off with Bob Pease of the Brewer's Association, who gave us useful insights into the American beer scene. Our favourite part of the day was undoubtedly the Live Beer Blogging featuring beers from Abbeydale, Ilkley, Lost Industry, Sentinel, Sharps, Thornbridge and Twisted Barrel - a frenzied hour of tweeting, chatting, learning and drinking.

A raucous coach journey later and we were treated to BBQ and beers at Thornbridge Brewery, a brilliant evening where we also discovered that table football is never going to be our forte!

SUNDAY

The Beer Now conference was wrapped up, with inspirational talks from Richard of Ferment magazine, Jules of Hop Hideout and of course Sheffield Beer Week fame, and Andy from the excellent Elusive Brewing.

FINALLY, we trekked up to the Greystones for a special edition of Karma Citra, pairing a selection of Tiny Rebel beers with some super spicy Caribbean food. Always a brilliant event and a fun and laid back end to a very hectic week.

To finish, it's worth mentioning that our festivities during the week didn't even scratch the surface in terms of the amount of events running. We really were spoilt for choice, and have been left feeling very lucky to live in a city with such a thriving, varied and exciting beer scene. A mighty round of applause to Jules Gray for co-ordinating everything... we're already looking forward to finding out what Sheffield Beer Week 2018 will bring! But first, a lie in and a green smoothie are most definitely in order.

Cheers!

Jim & Laura

Imperial Raspberry Stout: Thornbridge meets Yamazaki

Beer and whisky... in case you hadn't noticed, two of our favourite things. We just so happened to have one of each in the cupboard which we thought would work well in a joint tasting... Thornbridge Brewery's Imperial Raspberry Stout, brewed in collaboration with St Eriks, and a sample of the SMWS 119.14 Raspberry Imperial Stout.

We started with the beer and were instantly hit by the deep, rich raspberry aroma. The flavour bursts with raspberry coulis, slightly tart but balanced by bitter dark chocolate and hints of sweet bonfire toffee, all backed up with a smooth and roasted malty backbone. The finish is surprisingly short for such a robust stout (the ABV weighs in at 10%) but this makes it all the more drinkable. A total delight.

Onto the whisky - a single barrel Yamazaki bottled at 53.9%. Classically Japanese, light and distinctly yet delicately tannic on the nose, but with a fruity twist. Spicy and earthy with deeper woodiness on the palate, all alongside sweet raspberries. With time in the glass it opens up and becomes a little more rounded with a softer character that allows for more of the sherry to come through from the bota corta cask. Overall though, not particularly balanced for an 11 year old whisky, but no worse for this - it's a real experience to drink and excites the palate with every sip.

Obviously we couldn't resist mixing a bit of each together to create a boilermaker and it was a TRIUMPH. 

Cheers,

J&L

Easter treats: Egg-stra Chocolatey Beers

In the run-up to Easter, we've been saving up a little stash of beers involving chocolate. For Easter Sunday, we've cracked open three of them for a festive night in.

First up is Wild Beer Co's Millionaire (4.7%) - a salted caramel chocolate milk stout, themed around one of Mrs M's favourite desserts. Each promised flavour delivers in abundance, with the chocolate and caramel combining in a luxurious creamy sweetness before the salty notes come in at the end, and build and build in the finish. Without the salt (Cornish sea salt is used in this brew) it would undoubtedly still be delicious but possibly a little on the sickly side - with it, it just screams "DRINK ME MORE" right to the final sip.

Next we have Newcastle's Northern Alchemy, and their dark chocolate and mint milk stout (5.1%). This is a brewery that's not afraid to experiment with flavours, and it certainly shows in this beer. The aroma is intensely minty with none of that synthetic tang that you can sometimes get with essences and flavourings, as only fresh mint is used. It's light and easy to drink for a stout, and the flavour is fresh whilst still having intense chocolate notes and a roasted nature that hits the back of the palate. Nicely balanced, although slightly lacking the robust creaminess generally expected from a milk stout.

And finally for tonight is Thornbridge's Cocoa Wonderland, a 6.8% chocolate porter. Made in conjunction with the lovely Sheffield chocolate shop of the same name, we first tried this at the Sheffield CAMRA Beer Festival last year, where it won best beer of the festival, and remember it being just ridiculously chocolatey. Bottled, despite the slightly carbonated flavour, it's similarly decadent, full-bodied, and with a lip-smacking hit of cocoa. Vanilla aromas draw you in, intense creamy chocolate overwhelms the palate, and a pleasant bitterness is left behind. Scrumptious.


Cheers, and happy Easter!

J&L

Thornbridge Brewery Tour

Just outside the lovely Derbyshire village of Bakewell, hidden in a small industrial estate lying behind a timber mill, is the forward thinking and ever-growing 'craft' brewery Thornbridge. Since humble beginnings ten years ago, the brewery has become continually more prolific and their reputation for great quality beers has spread worldwide.

We're pretty spoiled by living in Sheffield, in that no matter which part of town you're in you can almost always find a Thornbridge beer. Their range of pubs really does have something for everyone - summed up nicely by twobeergeeks - and their brews are consistently top notch. Despite the brewery being a mere 15 miles from our doorstep, we'd never been to have a look around, so decided to put this to rights and headed off on a Wednesday afternoon.

First impressions... Huge. Slick. Contemporary. We were taken aback a little at just how much of an industrial operation this is, having only been to classic, traditional breweries before. We were greeted by our tour guide and technical whizz Richard and half a pint of Bohemia (4.8%), a refreshing dry-hopped Czech style pilsner.

After a quick Thornbridge history lesson, and a freshly bottled Kipling (where the newness of the beer allowed the Nelson Sauvin hops to shine to their full potential) it was on to the tour, now sporting some rather fetching hi-viz vests.

The continuing transformation of the brewery due to the demand that outstrips their current production means that the brewery building itself is almost overflowing with gleaming steel. We began in the malt room toward the back of the building, where some of the speciality malts are stored (the majority of their most commonly used Maris Otter malt is now stored in silos due to the sheer volume required). The malt room smelt delicious, but we were all ready to head up to have a closer look at the super shiny brewing equipment itself.

Heavyweight dark ale Bracia was being brewed as we were shown round, a little unusually as this is one of the brews that until recently has only been produced at the Thornbridge Hall site. After a little peep in the hopback we were shown into arguably the heart of the brewery - the control room! Every process is overseen by computer controls, ensuring consistency. There's also a lab which is full of high-tech gadgetry and enables a tight watch to be kept on quality control. The air was literally buzzing and we felt a bit like we'd fallen into Willy Wonka's factory.

We followed the brewing process through, wandering by the 18 100hl fermenters and conditioners to the bottling line. More technological wizardry here too, with a centrifuge to clarify the beer and a nifty bottling machine.

Finally, we headed back outside and into a separate warehouse - the Ageing Room. Floor to ceiling barrels contained an array of exciting projects, some to be revealed during their tenth anniversary year throughout 2015.

Thirsty work, this tour lark. Back in the shop we polished off some of the delicious Cocoa Wonderland, a 6.8% chocolate porter made in collaboration with the fantastic Sheffield chocolate shop of the same name. It's rich, full-flavoured, and delivers just the right amount of cocoa naughtiness - a deserving winner of last year's Steel City Beer Festival.

We left with arms full of the hotly-anticipated Jaipur X, firmly believing the Thornbridge motto - Innovation, Passion, Knowledge. It's clear that despite their growing stature, this is a brewery which is still prepared to take risks, implement new ideas, and bloody enjoy what they produce.

Cheers,

L&J