Saint Mars of the Desert “Abbey” Beer Series
November 20, 2020“Austere” is a word often used to describe monastic beers, be they lagers or ales, and it really is a fitting word. Back in the 70’s when adjunct lagers ruled the earth, or today when highly flavoured craft beers are often at centre stage, the comparative gravitas and simplicity of monastic beers is an exciting draw (to us anyway). Often brewed using one malt, one hop, one yeast, and sometimes one sugar, these are intriguingly complex beers, and this complexity is achieved through this great simplicity. As Michael Jackson noted in his fantastic book “Great Beers of Belgium” published in 1991, these…
Process Developments at S.M.O.D.
Beer is a tortuous beverage for the folks trying to make it. While it’s easy to devote your whole life to making the stuff, it is really hard to translate that into truly “great” beer. Here at the Brewery of…
A Cooler for All Occasions
Going on a tour of our small brewery at Saint Mars of the Desert is an easy task. If you can turn your head, you can see the whole place. But we almost always find ourselves lingering in one specific corner with our…
Wundo and Koel It!
There’s a long gap between this and my previous writings and I should apologize to anyone who cares. We’ve been busy, of course but we had been allowing the beers and taproom to speak for us I guess. Mostly people…
The Urchin’s Tale
The Urchin was a small creature. Insignificant-looking, perhaps. But to some he was very much the opposite, as we shall see. He lived on a moor, a moor on a hilltop, in a land of misty hills and billowy dales. …
There’s no such thing as saison: the story of Jack D’Or.
I had just finished speaking to a group of hot and sweaty home brewers in the mediaeval vaults of a fortified village on a sweltering summer day in Italy. The topic was “saison brewing”, and the reason why I was…
Jack D’Or Must Die
Our newest beer here at Saint Mars is not new at all in some ways. In other ways, it’s totally new, and in yet more ways, it’s just plain WRONG. For our new Sheffield friends, we aren’t trying to leave…
Hello Attercliffe
Welcome to St.Mars of the Desert
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