In recent years, Sheffield has forged a reputation as being the beer capital of the north, but a popular city brewery is going one stage further and setting its sights on the lager market.
Twelve months ago, Stancill Brewery dipped its toe into the lager market for the first time, launching Sheffield Pilsner, a traditional 5% Pilsner lager. Now the brewing company has decided to develop a recipe which will see the first lager designed and brewed in Sheffield.
The result of head brewer Dean Pleasant’s hard work is Stancill Lager, a smooth, quadruple-filtered lager — a refreshing, easy drinking brew and Sheffield’s very first lager. Although Sheffield is home to more than 25 breweries, Stancill Brewery is the only one in the city which has the specialist equipment needed to brew and filter lager, resulting in a clean-tasting smooth drink.
Stancill Brewery managing director, Thomas Gill (pictured), said: “Many brewers tend to avoid producing lagers because they require specialist filtering equipment which can be expensive to purchase, and without experience it can be difficult to produce.
“We inherited some equipment suitable for producing lager from Oakwell Brewery, but we put it to one side and decided to concentrate upon developing our own core range of beers. We just couldn’t forget about the equipment, though, and kept looking at it wondering what we could produce with it.
“Last year we decided to take the plunge and brew our own Pilsner. The beer was very well received, and we started to receive enquiries from publicans and lager drinkers about creating our own lager. We went back to the drawing board and decided to create a brand new recipe, designed to appeal to the tastes of the city’s lager drinkers. So far it’s created a lot of interest and I hope that when it starts appearing in pubs and bars across the city, that drinkers will give it a try.”
Stancill Brewery was formed in 2013 by friends Thomas Gill and Dr Adam Hague after learning of the closure of Barnsley’s Oakwell Brewery and with it, the end of production of Barnsley Bitter – a beer which had been brewed at Oakwell for over 200 years. The pair secured the assets of the brewery, relocating production from Barnsley to Sheffield to create as beer as true to the original as possible, using the original recipes and equipment owned by Oakwell.
Although Stancill Brewery’s new lager is the first to be designed and produced exclusively within Sheffield, it’s not the first time lager has been brewed in the Steel City.
Until the 1950s, lager was only sold in pubs within bottles and accounted for just 1% of all beer sales. However, that soon changed when a deal was brokered between Sheffield’s now defunct Hope & Anchor brewery and a Canadian brewery company, which saw a little-known lager introduced into the UK. The beer was Carling Black Label, with one Sheffield pub laying claim to being the first in the UK to sell lager on draught.
Lager continued to be brewed in Sheffield until the early 1990s when the Hope & Anchor brewery closed. The first pub to sell Stancill Lager will be Stancill’s brewery tap, The Horse and Jockey, on Wadsley Lane.
