Blue Bee Brewery Tour

On Friday we were invited on a tour of Blue Bee Brewery, one of Sheffield’s newest breweries. We met at Interval at 18:00 before catching the tram down to Infirmary Road and then walking to Neepsend where the brewery is located in an industrial unit.
Andy from Blue Bee gave a very enjoyable and humorous description of the brewing process and answering a wide range of questions from the colour of casks to blogging in the beer scene whilst offering copious amounts of beer around.
After the tour of the brewery we then made our way to the Gardeners Rest pub where Andy very generously purchased a round of Pink Ball, one of Blue Bee’s Snooker Themed beers for all the members that had attended. After this we then moved onto the Fat Cat, Kelham Island & Shakespeares pubs all situated in the surrounding area offering a great selection of real ale

Brewing in the name of St. George

We were asked the Students’ Union to provide some details about Real Ale & Brewing for St George’s Day, so here it is. Real ale or cask-conditioned beer differs from other types of beer for a number of reasons. It has it’s roots in Britain. Real ale is a natural, living product. It is not filtered or pasteurised like lagers. By legal definition ‘beer’ can be made with rice, maize, corn syrup and flavoured with the juice of hops but real ale instead uses a mixture of natural hops and malting barley to produce a variety of styles and flavours.

The Brewing process:

Malt is added to the hopper and is ground into grist. The grist is then dropped into the mash tun. Pure hot water, called ‘liquor’ is mixed into the mash tun with the grist. The malt starch then ferments into sugar. When complete, the grain is ‘sparged’ or washed with hot liquor to removed remaining malt sugars. The ‘wort’ or sugar run outs of the mash tun and then is checked before going to the copper. The wort is boiled in the copper with the hops; this extracts acids and tannins from the hops with add flavour and aroma to the beer. Some more hops can be added at a later stage to add more of an aroma. The hopped wort is then put into a fermenting vessel where yeast is ‘pitched’ or added to the wort to start fermentation. To keep the yeast working the brew is occasionally oxygenated. The beer is then put into casks and finings are added to filter the beer. The beer is then ready to drink!

There are many styles of real ale, here are just a few of the most common;

Porter and stout– named after the London porters that used to drink it in the 18th century and stout, literally meaning strong this is a strong dark beer. These beers are made using heavily-roasted malts that give it their dark colour and strong flavour. Often have a roasted malt flavour with hints or raisin, coffee, chocolate and liquorice.

Mild – unsurprisingly, these are dark beers with a milder flavour than stouts and porters. Expect similar flavours of coffee, chocolate and dark fruits but with a hint of hops.

IPA – created in the 19th century as technology developed that allowed the use of paler malts giving the beer a lighter colour. These were made to be more alcoholic and with a high hop content to keep them in good condition for the journey to the British colonies, such as India. Falling out of fashion for European lagers, this style is not in a resurgence. Expect a hoppy, peppery taste and citrus fruit flavours.

Pale Ale – like IPA, but with a lower alcohol and hop content.

Bitter –  arguably the most typical style of real ale. Bitters are similar to pale ales but brewed with a slightly darker malt, such a cystal. Best bitters are a stronger version of bitter with 4%+ ABV. Ordinary bitters have a spicy, peppery malt flavour and a juicy, nutty malt flavour. Best and strong bitters the malty, fruity taste will be more strong.

The Broomhill Tavern – Pub Review

“Fill out the quiz in duplicate. For those of you who’re students, that means twice.”

Considering it is one of the more affluent areas of Sheffield, there is a depressing lack of decent pubs in Broomhill. In my mind, the only one good enough to merit being put in a Good Beer Guide would be the York on Fulwood Road, with six hand pull ales and three hand pull ciders. Besides this pub, the only one I frequent is the Broomhill Tavern. I first stumbled across it in the first few weeks of University thanks to the eagle vision of one my comrades. It was a Monday night, the night of the ‘Tav Quiz’. The quiz comprises of two sections: 20 general knowledge questions and a Family Fortunes round. It is in the latter that the quiz is won or lost. We had no idea what we letting ourselves into. Anyone who has been before will fondly know of the light-hearted weekly jokes from the landlord about “female blondes from Liverpool”. From then on we carried on going almost every week up until Christmas. Missed quizzes were met with feelings of disappointment. What spell had the Broomhill Tavern cast over us? We couldn’t quite put our finger on what was so alluring about the place. As ale enthusiasts it only offered us the Kelham Island Pale Rider and the Broomhill Tavern Cask Ale, not a fantastic selection I have to begrudgingly admit. However it does offer something else. It offers a very friendly bar staff. It offers a classic pub interior. It offers a friendly atmosphere. And of course, it offers a very enjoyable pub quiz on a Monday (and Tuesday!) read out by the immediately likeable character that is the pub landlord. And for me, that is an important part of what a public house should offer you. It should be a place where you always feel welcome, can sit down with friends and relax. If the Tav does begin to offer more ales, I can safely say it’ll be more than just Monday nights that I waste away down there! Perhaps if you’re walking past on a Monday evening with mates, pop in. If you’re anything like me, I guarantee you won’t regret it.

The Broomhill Tavern is at 484 Glossop Road, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S10 2QA, just off Fulwood Road in Broomhill.

Rutland Arms Quiz

On Thursday night we had the upstairs room in the Rutland Arms booked for the quiz. Whilst having the room booked we took the opportunity to purchase a cask of Dark Star’s American Pale Ale beer for exclusive drinking by society members. Joe from the Rutland decided to add his own contraption to the line between the barrel and the hand pump, his “Smooth Hoperator” which essentially pulled the beer through a bottle full of hops adding more taste to the beer.

 

 

 

Once the APA had run out we had a cask of Dark Star’s Golden Gate which lasted us through the quiz written by Nathan.

All in all it was very enjoyable night, amongst the various Nerf Gun fights that occurred, a big thank you to all the staff at the Rutland Arms for making us welcome and allowing us to do this.
The picture is by Andy Cullen and shows the Hoperator in action.

Interval Night

On Tuesday we visited Interval Bar in the Students’ Union for their Scottish Themed night as part of World Week.

As part of the Scottish them, aswell as having Haggis on the menu, there were beers from Cairngorm & Loch Lomond Breweries. Complementing this was what was supposedly the last ever cask of Brew Dog beer after they moved to keg only, Alice Porter. Aswell as that the normal selection of Brew Dog beers in bottles and Punk IPA on keg were on offerHowever amongst all this the Interval Management were awarded their “Outstanding Award for the Promotion of Real Ale” from Sheffield CAMRA. This is excellent for Interval, as they with no doubt deserve it with 5 Hand Pumps on during the day, with the great bottle selection & keg beers from Brew Dog & Thornbridge.

Interval also has a mini beer festival with a featured brewery each Tuesday, but better than that is the annual Beer Festival held in the Raynor Lounge. This year it will be on the 4th & 5th of May (Friday & Saturday) with the Cider day on the 6th (Sunday), last year featuring over 80 different beers.