Using their ‘koelship’ to intensify their beer flavours….
Photo: Hop Hideout
Shine a Light: Saint Mars of the Desert
As far as names go, this Sheffield microbrewery’s doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue. It’s a good job then, that their beers are remarkable enough to demand you pay them attention. “I don’t think it’s a breweries job to even think about beer styles per se,” says Dann Paquette, in his signature Boston drawl.
“We try to make what we make as good as possible. If it goes out of style category, that’s for someone else to worry about.”
Dann and his partner Martha have rarely done things by the book. The duos previous brewery, Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, was so wildly successful that they could have quite conceivably sold up and kicked off into the sunset. Instead, in 2015, they shut down the cuckoo brewing project and, after two years traveling, arrived in Sheffield, where they found a home to set up The Brewery of Saint Mars of the Desert (SMOD).
Boston’s loss, has been Sheffield’s gain, but it so nearly wasn’t this way. Enticed by the idea of brewing in a rural, farmhouse location, Dann & Martha almost settled in a small French village (from which SMOD now takes its name). In the end, however, Sheffield, with its rich brewing history, won the day. Setting up shop in Attercliffe, an industrial suburb in the north-east of the city, and brewing on a 10hl kit complete with coolship, SMOD has been quietly establishing a reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting, yet unconventional breweries. While New England IPAs are a feature (somewhat inevitably given Dann spent much of 25 year’s brewing experience in actual New England), both stylistically and in terms of flavour profile, there’s a huge amount of variety - and not a whole lot of predictability - in the brewery’s output.
Take, for example, its Hopfenpils World Lager, which is brewed with a combination of new-world, Southern Hemisphere, and traditional noble hops, and mashed using an old-world European souring technique. The result is a balanced and exceptionally drinkable lager with tart, refreshing character, lingering hop bitterness and enough complexity to keep you coming back for more.
“To me, all the good beers are like that,” Dann says. “Sure, if you buy a can and drink it alongside a 13% chocolate what-have you, it might not stand out, but if you want to take the time with it, as Martha and I frequently do - we both analyse these things endlessly - you’ll taste things that are embedded in these beers.”
The complexity in other SMOD beers is more immediately obvious. Inspired by the brewing traditions of Europe, the brewery produces regular releases of rustic, mixed-fermentation pale ales. One such beer is Mixto - produced as a celebration of The Independent Manchester Beer Convention (Indy Man), which this year, like so many other festivals, was sadly unable to take place. To the eye, there’s nothing particularly to distinguish Mixto from countless other pale ales on the market (aside from its wonderful, foamy, effervescent head - we’ll get to that later). Take a sniff, however, and things start to get a little weird. Sure, there’s orange, tangerine and other more tropical fruit notes, but underpinning it all is the unmistakable funky, leathery smell of fresh Brettanomyces. To taste, the beer is something of a hybrid - a modern pale ale, with fresh citrus and an underlying sweetness, balanced by more complex Belgian characteristics.
“We’re looking to create a house character that’s not, you know, the more esoteric sense of place that you hear people talking about, but is about the brewery itself,” Dann says. “We like beers that have all the benefits and all the faults of our processes here.”
One theme that runs throughout SMOD’s beers is their remarkable head-retention. Dann attributes this to the brewery using whole-leaf hops, and passing the wort through a stainless steel basket on entry to the coolship. The end result is a head that’s soft, loose and fluffy, but lingers on long after the can has been poured.
“Yeah, it’s dreamy that,” Dann remarks, almost whimsically. “I love it. I’ll never go back. I always say it’s what real beer looks like. And you know, that’s literally just from running into a coolship and using a very small quantity of hops.”
One consequence of this process, is that some of SMOD’s beers don’t always come out exactly as intended. Take Leavy Greave, the brewery’s New England-style Double IPA. Made using whole-leaf Mosaic hops, Dann had hoped the finished beer would give off huge, overripe fruit flavours.
“We had a hop that we thought was going to give us massive fruit character,” Dann tells me. “But it tastes a little bit more of a tobacco-like flavour, and the booziness is crazy! I’ve always been known as someone who makes strong beers tastes like low gravity, So it’s an odd one!”
That’s not to say the beer is without its attractions, however, and drinkers who are into big, boozy, piney Double IPAs will certainly find something to enjoy here. But a classic, juicy, smooth New England it is not. Perhaps though, given SMOD’s distain for sticking to traditional style guidelines, that’s all part of the charm.
Next on the release radar for SMOD is a series of Abbey inspired beers including a Belgian-style Quad. If the brewery’s beers to date are anything to go by, these should be right at the top of any beer geek’s Christmas list.
(Note from Hop Hideout - the Smod Belgian beer range was so popular we sold out really quick! We do have a limited supply of their Quad left in store HERE).
