A Right To Roam Beer Launch For Sheffield Beer Week

Sheffield Beer Week is back for it’s 8th year and we’re extremely happy that in-person events can go full steam ahead. We all need a little bit of joy back in our lives! This year we’ve teamed up with good friends Saint Mars of the Desert, author Nick Hayes and Sheffield Beer Week; releasing our collab Koelship hopped IPA beer in the week with a walking tour event. Here’s a little more on the project below….

Sunday Times best-selling author Nick Hayes has been on a mission to highlight and campaign for the right to access more of the UK's countryside for everyone. Connecting to the countryside is proven to help mental health and wellbeing and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic was a vital resource for folks fortunate enough to be able to access green spaces. However not everyone has access and only 8% of England is open to such access, for example National Parks. In Sheffield citizens are fortunate to have a wealth of green spaces, parks and of course direct access to the Peak District national park.

Joining forces on a collaborative beer with Sheffield independent businesses, who reside on the Peak District's border for Sheffield Beer Week. The project brings together a number of threads – celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Mass Kinder Trespass which happened within the Peak District. This was key in opening up the area as the first UK National Park some 50 years later, highlighting the much-needed spotlight on the work of the Right To Roam campaign to continue efforts. This also celebrates Sheffield as The Outdoor City and its citizen's access to green, open spaces and adventure trails.

Launching Saturday March 12th, for a whole month of focus leading up to the April anniversary of the Mass Kinder Trespass, will be 'A Right To Roam' beer collaboration between Nick Hayes, Saint Mars of the Desert brewery, Hop Hideout beer shop and Sheffield Beer Week. Tickets for the roam walking tour and beer launch are available via Hop Hideout: https://www.hophideout.co.uk/brew-kits-books/arighttoroam-launch

What better way to call for a right to roam than by ordering a pint of it in a pub, direct at the brewery or a can at your local beer shop!

A Right To Roam, Riwaka and Nectaron hopped hazy IPA,

5.4%

“On 24th April 1932, 400 young people walked up Kinder Scout to protest the lack of public access to the moors. They were beaten by gamekeepers, six were imprisoned, but ultimately they won. We now have a right to roam over 8% of England.

But today, 97% of rivers and 92% of our land is still forbidden to us. Science has proven how urgently we need regular access to natural spaces, for our mental health and physical health and also how we car more for nature if we have a personal connection to it. The Kinder Trespass, in what is now the Peak District, was the first step towards a new relationship with the countryside, but there is still much to be done.

Join us at rightroam.org.uk to campaign for greater access to the English countryside.”

Shine A Light: Saint Mars of the Desert

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).

James Beeson is an award-winning beer writer and photographer. To see more of his work follow him on Twitter and Instagram for links.

Celebrate The Endless Toil, Send Beer!

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:

1. Forget Me-Not

2. Plenty More Fish

3. Swan Song

4. Pass The Torch

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.