It’s been a few months since we last updated our blog and a lot has happened since then! We’re now nearly 3 months into the new opening of Hop Hideout at food hall Kommune, in Sheffield city centre. Not sure where the time has flown to, but it’s been a bit of a whirlwind (good). Now that we’re getting a little more settled, we’ve started to organise more events and exciting collabs. Whit whoo….
First up, Thursday June 20th, is our beer collaboration launch celebrating Tom J Newell’s latest art exhibition at The Viewing Room gallery space at Kommune entitled Endless Toil. We’ve collaborated with local hotly-tipped Sheffield brewery Saint Mars of the Desert and Tom to brew up an orangey summer ale, a perfect sup’ to help you ease the endless toil and see the beauty in life’s drudgery. Read more about Saint Mars and their intriguing beer journey over at Food & Wine - HERE. We first discovered their beers a number of years ago under their Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project brewing moniker. One of the beers we bought on holiday - Field Mouse’s Farewell was inspired by a little field mouse found in their Yorkshire home (they’ve lived back and forth between American and the UK; and Martha is from Yorkshire. Just to add more intrigue to their story!). An apt beer connection as we now find ourselves sharing our lives in the same beery city of Sheffield.
Tom’s used inspiration from his exhibition pieces to bring four designs to life on the can labels:
Forget Me-Not
Plenty More Fish
Swan Song
The Endless Toil exhibition covers a series of his new paintings and prints celebrating the suffering of our everyday existence, embracing the struggle, and finding beauty in life’s relentless drudgery.
A 1300 litre orangey brew meant plenty of naval oranges were needed and Martha from Saint Mars spent a good few hours peeling and juicing [insert hearty round of applause].
With a sizeable addition of Centennial hops in the koelschip (a tasty bit of kit usually seen in spontaneous ale brewing such as Belgian lambic or German lager brewing for resting beer to reduce DMS). Saint Mars use their bespoke built koelschip currently to rest the beer and boost the flavours. In this collab beer there’s ‘‘Super Cascade’’ Centennial hop addition layered with candied peel and zest of orange. The beer was then dry-hopped with bags of Amarillo. The base malt has wheat, barley and oats - accentuating the smooth mouthfeel. The hop varieties chosen add more tropical/orange notes hinting at a ‘New England’ style reference point alongside the American yeast strain.
We hope you enjoy our beer and embrace the Endless Toil…..
The exhibition runs from June 20th through till July 20th. To keep the celebrations bubblin’ throughout the month we’ll be hosting the Sheffield Chapter Mikkeller Running Club route on Sat 6th July from the exhibition to Saint Mars via the scenic Five Weirs route AND releasing a limited Tom J Newell designed glass on Saturday July 20th. You can find more details on our Facebook events page - HERE.