Everybody Knows That They Make Moonshine — Abbeydale Brewery, Sheffield
“The name ‘Abbeydale’ sounds quite bucolic, really,” Pat Morton tells me with a chuckle.
In reality, the brewery he founded in 1996 with his wife Sue lives within the faded yellow stone facade of a former steelworks. Flanked by engineering and metalwork firms, its position off Sheffield’s Abbeydale Road—just south of the city centre—places it between the city’s Antiques Quarter and a busy section jammed with local shops selling delights from Poland, Portugal, Pakistan, and many others. While the crumbling stone archway that forms the brewery’s logo was inspired by the twelfth-century Beauchief Abbey that’s just a couple of miles from its front door, (the company’s website helpfully points out that locals pronounce it “bee-chiff”) Abbeydale Brewery’s location presents a very different picture.
Photography by Mark Newton
That contrast seems fitting for a place that effortlessly merges its hometown connections with a desire to look outwards, and where consistency and creativity seem to coexist in harmony. How many breweries can you name which pour almost 90% of their efforts into the traditional cask format, but also find time to organise Funk Fest—a festival in celebration of sour beers—along with releasing a kaleidoscopic set of special, and one-off beers? For context, this might refer to Crossing the Threshold, a dessert stout inspired by Vietnamese steamed rice cakes, which featured additions of rice, coconut and coconut milk. Or perhaps Iced Tea Dead People—an iced-tea pale ale made with fresh peaches, hibiscus flowers and sencha tea from fellow Sheffielder Birdhouse Tea Kitchen.
And while Abbeydale’s beers may be stylistically diverse, they’re also invariably delicious. In 2021, the year of its 25th anniversary, I wanted to know the recipe behind this understated—and perhaps still criminally underrated—South Yorkshire success.
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Pat Morton’s home address has always been within the same Sheffield postcode, and his links to the Steel City’s heritage extend to his former job in his family’s scissor-making business. But when he launched Abbeydale in 1996, he and Sue were fans of beer from further afield, particularly Belgium and the USA. They also shared a dislike of the flavour of crystal malt, which was utilised in many “brown beers” then popular in the UK from established brands like Tetley’s and John Smith’s. Pat and Sue’s intention for their new brewery was simple: “Make pale beers which were very highly hopped for the time.”
The couple felt this plan was more likely to succeed in Sheffield, because they’d observed that local drinkers had a taste for paler beers compared to other regions such as Cumbria, to the northwest. Today, Pat’s very first Abbeydale recipe, a pale ale called Moonshine, remains a fixture on bars across the city, having collected various regional and national awards along the way.
To learn why simply arrive in Sheffield thirsty and order yourself a pint. Pale gold in the glass, a sniff reveals a slightly grassy, floral aroma, while Moonshine’s texture is light and crisp, its dry finish ensuring one sip is never far from another. If you happen to be in a sunny beer garden, you may find “sip” quickly replaced by “pint”.
“The secret of its success is that it appeals to an enormous range of people,” Sue tells me. She recalls Moonshine converting drinkers who had previously stuck to lager or swerved beer entirely, including numerous students at the nearby University of Sheffield. The Union served keg beer only before Moonshine arrived at the bar, and at one point the venue was Abbeydale’s biggest customer.
This enduring appeal meant that about five years ago there were discussions about turning the brewery into a “Moonshine factory”, with the beer sold in supermarkets and on a national scale to large pub chains.
“It might well have got us bought out for loads of money,” Sue says. “But we made a conscious decision not to do that, because it wasn’t fun or interesting.”
Since then Moonshine has remained about 50% of Abbeydale’s production. Meanwhile, the brewery’s core offering has expanded to include the clean, quaffable Heresy lager, alongside award-winning cask stalwarts like Daily Bread bitter. The latter was released in 2005 when the brewery acquired its first pub, The Rising Sun in Fulwood, to appease regulars who could not be swayed from their beloved John Smith’s. (Presumably, Sue nobly put her feelings on “hideous crystal malt flavours” to one side so that Abbeydale could cater for such diehards.)
““It might well have got us bought out for loads of money. But we made a conscious decision not to do that, because it wasn’t fun or interesting.””
Its ‘Brewers’ Emporium’ range—where Abbeydale’s brewing team regularly rotate recipes across more modern beer styles—has also continued to evolve. Take Indulgence; a mocha stout with coffee and chocolate from independent Sheffield traders, rich flavours layered so smoothly that the beer slips by before you realise it's 7.4%.
Then there are the guest beers, released weekly for the past 15 years. The non-stop schedule has seen partnerships forged all over the map, from an archaic gruit (a beer style that utilises roots and herbs instead of hops) with Barcelona’s Instituto de la Cerveza Artesana to the foraged nettle saison made with Sheffield vegan bar and eatery, Church.
Pat—who began homebrewing in 1968 when he was just 15—credits young brewers he’s employed with helping push Abbeydale in new directions. Similarly, Sue, a former university computing lecturer, says the couple have always sought a wide range of opinions.
“Younger people have got a different experience,” she tells me. “They’ve brought ideas, and as far as we can, we've supported them.”
“To survive we need to be creative, we need to move forward, we need to stay on top of what's happening. That's truer now than it's ever been.”
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90 minutes into our conversation Abbeydale’s owners are still chatting cheerfully, and with undimmed energy about the future: from how more women could be encouraged into beer production roles, to whether the likes of kombucha, or even hard seltzer could potentially escape from the Funk Dungeon.
The aforementioned is the brewery’s outlet for wild, sour and mixed-fermentation beers—a more unpredictable style that involves combining wild yeasts and bacteria. These beers are usually matured in oak barrels that formerly housed wine or spirits, which means separate versions of beer can absorb different flavours and potentially be blended together to produce the final, delicious product.
The Funk Dungeon began with just seven barrels but now holds about 50, with beers such as Ryes from the Grave—a blended barrel-aged sour beer aged on cherries and blackcurrants—helping bring Abbeydale to a completely new audience. But not an entirely new audience. At least according to the brewery’s marketing manager Laura Rangeley.
“We’d never want to be patronising or pigeonhole a drinker into: ‘You like Moonshine, so this sour lager isn't for you,’” she tells me.
The beer Laura refers to being Funk in Drublic, which spent 14 months in oak barrels before it was released in August 2020. The result was sparky, mildly fruity, and drew the same response from both of my unofficial taste test subjects: “I don’t like sours, but I like this.”
Which should please the Dungeon master—which happens to be Laura’s husband—Jim, whose goal is to make similar beer styles accessible to more drinkers. As well as tending a house blend of Brettanomyces—a yeast strain commonly used in mixed-fermentation brewing—Jim was central to establishing Funk Fest, Abbeydale’s annual celebration of all things funky which first ran in 2018.
“It was a big thing for us, setting our flag down and saying we know what we're doing,” Jim tells me. “And here’s 20 other breweries from the UK doing great things that we want to showcase with us.”
That aim was still evident in October 2020, when due to the pandemic the brewery ran “Funk Fest at Home.” In one session Suffolk’s Little Earth Project joined an online tasting to talk about collaborating with Abbeydale on a beer called Through the Sticks; a rosemary and lemon smoked sour that was improbably balanced and approachable. The virtual festival also saw the debut of another notable brew that had taken place during 2019’s event, when a collaboration with London Beer Factory brought Jim and Pat an opportunity to use a technique they had long wanted to try. Using a coolship to collect and inoculate wort via exposure to the atmosphere alone, the finished product—according to Jim—was Sheffield’s first “intentionally” spontaneous beer.
“I’d never done [spontaneous fermentation] before,” Jim says. “But it’s all part of expanding the project and learning more about how to look after yeast and bacteria.”
Although Abbeydale doesn’t have its own coolship, London Beer Factory does. And it so happens that it attaches to the back of a 4x4, enabling it to be reversed into the brewery before production could begin. For the somewhat appropriately named Brett Moore, who led the collaboration for London Beer Factory, a delicious outcome would be a bonus from his first ever trip to Sheffield.
““To survive we need to be creative, we need to move forward, we need to stay on top of what’s happening. That’s truer now than it’s ever been.””
“I’d never had Abbeydale’s beers, but I love their beers now,” Brett says. “Their team was so welcoming and the people at Funk Fest were really nice. I look forward to ageing a bottle [of the coolship brew] to see where it ends up—the early signs are very promising!”
While Brett’s return trip from London to Sheffield and back was about 330 miles, last year Laura met drinkers who had travelled from Germany and Holland for Funk Fest.
“It was humbling really,” she says “That word had spread and people had come to Sheffield just for that. That was really special.”
Despite that success, Laura dismisses the notion of Abbeydale being a “hype brewery,” and sounds similarly unpretentious when asked about the brewery’s support for initiatives like The Queer Brewing Project and Out & About Sheffield.
“I don't want to overstate it, because I'm very conscious it's not something we do for the sake of shouting about it,” she says. “We don't have any grand visions of what we are, but we have a voice and can make quite a lot of beer. Using that to put forward other attitudes and messages is just something I feel is very important for us to do.”
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Browse the shelves in any Sheffield bottle shop and you’ll get a snapshot of Abbeydale’s evolution. Core-range cans with the brewery’s modern classic pump-clip designs stand next to illustrator James Murphy’s bright and colourful Brewers’ Emporium and Funk Dungeon designs, with the assorted work of other artists such as Theo Matthews and Lewis Ryan featuring on its guest beer labels.
“I can’t think of any other breweries where you have standout cask beer, which is consistent and attracts every level of drinker, and really niche, wild-fermented, genuinely forward-thinking styles,” Kate Major, who has spent almost a decade working in Sheffield’s pub scene and co-owns both the excellent Rutland Arms and Crow Inn, tells me. “The beautiful thing about Abbeydale is that you can have both.”
“Even the more esoteric styles are accessible, not exclusive. It’s not that they’ve molly-coddled the flavours; I think it’s more their general brand of being trustworthy that allows people who don’t necessarily stray from their usual style to branch out. That’s really good for beer drinkers in general, and for the Sheffield scene,” she adds.
Ultimately, for every example of Abbeydale’s difference and diversity, Kate says her customers always seem to agree on one thing.
“You know you’re going to get quality.”
Reflecting on the opinion Abbeydale has earned over almost a quarter of a century, Pat points out in understated fashion that getting to this point hasn’t been easy.
“Making a living was problematic,” he says of the brewery’s early years, when he travelled across the country to find pubs which weren’t restricted, or “tied”, to particular beer brands. “Without the introduction of progressive beer duty in 2002, (where small brewers got up to a 50% reduction in the tax they pay on beer produced) I don’t think we could have stayed in business.”
But in the same response—and while drinking a can of Funk in Drublic—Pat conveys the open-mindedness and enthusiasm which seems to characterise Abbeydale’s approach.
“The recent pace of change has been phenomenal,” he says. “A barrel-aged sour lager; this would have been unthinkable just five years ago!”
