A pilgrimage

As I mentioned on Monday, I paid a flying visit to Sheffield last month. There wasn't much time for beer drinking, but there was a window in my schedule which happened to coincide with the opening hours of a celebrated local brewery: St Mars of the Desert.

I had previously encountered Dann and Martha's wares some years ago, when they worked at the Pretty Things brewery in Boston. They since moved to England where they have been taking the beer world by storm. The brewery was a must-visit as far as I was concerned.

The location is unglamourous to say the least, tucked away in a light industrial strip on the edge of town, surrounded by car tyre and bodyshops. A unit that may itself have been a garage or similar has been kitted out as a small brewery and taproom, aided on this sunny Friday afternoon by a sizeable beer garden out front. It was buzzy with locals and the staff, running a table-service-only system, were kept on their feet. Still, the service was prompt and friendly. To drink?

The place was in the midst of its SMODfest Oktoberfest-style celebrations, and there were a couple of beers created especially for it, served from Lukr taps at the underback bar. I began with SMODfest Hell, two thirds of a pint, served in a half litre mug with a huge pillar of foam on it. They say they don't believe in styles, but this was every inch a festbier: 5.7% ABV with a chewy, filling, malt heft. An intense grassy bitterness gets the flavour going, tempered somewhat by a slight peach softness. The noble hop intensity was a little too much for me, and I was disappointed that it wasn't the refresher I had been seeking after my journey. Still, there was a definite raw and rustic charm about it which was hard not to enjoy.

I recall Jack D'Or being the name of a saison by Pretty Things, and it seems they've transferred that to the new brewery. There's still not much refreshment on offer as it's 5.8% ABV. It's clear, though, which I thought unusual for a saison, and I was a little unsettled by a plasticky tang from the aroma. The flavour is clean, however, with more of the old-world bitterness I found in the festbier. Saison's earthiness is still present, but in a supporting role to the hops. It's a little unorthodox, and I'm sure that's by design, but it's enjoyable too, in quite a grown-up way. The return of that tiny echo of stonefruit is the only nod towards our current fashion for lots of fruity hops.

At this stage I was gasping for something lighter so chose Stingo: Apricot & Peach, a fruited sour ale, though a big enough one at 5% ABV. It introduces itself with an intense aroma of tinned peaches but leaves that behind in the flavour, where a mineral sourness is the central feature. Not much complexity is on offer beyond this, though I did detect a very slightly cheesy funk late on. Still, it did the job of properly quenching my thirst, and I didn't really have any other requirements of it. I think it could probably have done that just as well at a lower ABV, however.

I was intrigued by what was meant by a "koelship IPA" and Dann explained that it's a quirk of their system: they don't have a whirlpool to put late hops in, so they use a more old-fashioned shallow copper cooler and hop the IPA there. As a brewery with New England roots, this is their take on New England's IPA. Fantastico! is 6% ABV and hopped with Nectaron and Citra. It's a very pale yellow and only moderately hazy. That burnt plastic tang I got from the saison was back in the aroma here, and the juicy fruit which one might have thought would be the main flavour is dialled well back. Instead it's another quite bitter one, with concentrated grassy hop resins coating the palate, finishing on a jaw-pinching lime-peel rasp. Anyone looking for juicy haze here will be disappointed. I have to say I liked this more serious and adult take on the style, one that isn't trying to convince you it's secretly a soft drink.

A beer that caught my eye as soon as I picked up the menu was recommended as the last beer to try. This is the innocent-sounding Smoky Bock: three syllables that it turned out have a lot going on behind them, starting with the substantial 6.9% ABV. It arrived a medium amber colour with a slight haze. I think I've had more misses than hits when drinking smoked beers from non-German microbreweries, but this was an absolute hit, expressing perfectly the smooth and meaty smoke effect that the best of them do. There's a note of caramel which slides into a maple-cured bacon smoky richness. And no off-flavours: no unwelcome phenols or the kippery tang that plagues lesser examples. Once again they haven't gone for complexity, or tried to stack flavour upon flavour. It barely counts as a novelty beer, so well-composed and balanced a lager it is. Despite all the busy smoke and high gravity, it was still enormously sinkable in that Bavarian way, which I appreciated as my leaving time drew nigh.

I'm glad I stopped by. St Mars of the Desert is a charming spot; a brewery that could really be anywhere in the modern beer world, doing things in its own unique way. I overheard that they're on a limited lease, so I recommend catching this incarnation some Friday or Saturday afternoon, before they move on to the next one.