CoffeeBeer >> Pint Pleasures >> Triple Point
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Triple Point Brewing, 178 Shoreham Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire |
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a pub review, but this has definitely not been a good year for writing about new pubs. With all of them in the country forced to close back in mid-March, and only some re-opening in July and then having to re-close again a few weeks ago, this month’s column is about a pub I visited months and months ago, at the beginning of January. And although it’s closed right now, I know the brewery is active and I feel confident the pub will reopen when it can.
Founded in November 2018 by father and son team Mike and George Brook, Triple Point Brewing is located in the former premises of Sentinel Brewery. My first visit was with my workmate John, on a Friday after work. There was a Sheffield United match scheduled at nearby Bramall Lane, and as Triple Point is a Blades-friendly pub it was bound to fill up with football fans. As the kickoff wasn't until 8:00pm, and it was only a little after 5:00 when we stopped in, we figured we'd miss most of the crowd.
Fortunately we were right. We passed under the new entryway, a long welcoming canopy that stretches from the pavement to the front door and made us almost feel as though we were about to be greeted by the concierge of a boutique hotel. Inside the place was pleasantly crowded, with a lot of non-football customers along with a few Blades who weren't actually going to the match but just wanted to stop in for a beer and a bite.
We stood at the bar (back in the old days when you were allowed to do that) and spent some time studying the lists of cask ales and craft beers on tap. John went for a pint of Nektar US-hopped Pilsner (4.6% ABV), which is a keg beer. The only cask beer available that appealed to me was the Debut US-Style IPA, but as it was a whopping 5.5% ABV I decided on a safer pint of SIPA (4.5% ABV), also on keg. Brewed with with Admiral, Chinook, Citra, Simcoe, and Mosaic hops, this made me quite happy.
We sat at a communal table over on the side towards the back, next to the glass wall of the brewery in which people were still actively working. As quite a few customers were ordering food I glanced at the menu to see what they were having. The meals are provided by the Twisted Burger Company, and they were currently advertising their Veganuary menu -- featuring the ironically named Vegan Cheeseburger -- as well as gyoza, tacos, and fries, all obviously vegan versions. (I noticed the two Blades we had been chatting with had ordered the regular carnivore-appeasing burgers off the main menu.)
My second visit was a couple of weeks later on a Saturday evening when my friend Mike and I had arrived back on the train from a day in Manchester. As Triple Point is just down Shoreham Street from Sheffield Station, this seemed a potentially less crowded option for a pint than the completely rammed station pub. Both of us had the keg versions of Cryo (4.2% ABV), described as a cryo-hopped pale ale. I first learned about cryo hops in California where the leaves of hops are exposed to extremely low temperatures and separated into concentrated lupulin and bract. Also brewed with rye, wheat, and oats, this was a lovely pint, imparting an aura of freezing in the Arctic. After our busy day visiting the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry as well as spending a bit of time chatting with Alan Turing in Sackville Park, these pints were a wonderful refresher.
A few months ago, when pubs reopened on the 4th of July after the first lockdown, Triple Point’s taproom reopened to serve beer and food, and they stayed open during the Tier 3 restrictions as a pub that served “substantial meals”. Now that everybody’s closed again for a second lockdown, the brewery is still going strong and they’re doing deliveries of cans and minikegs, and they also offer pick-up orders direct from their Shoreham Street warehouse. I look forward to visiting the pub again once this is all over. But then again I, not to mention everybody else, look forward to visiting all of the pubs that will reopen. Let’s just hope that most of them are still able to do that.
| Triple Point Updates (Last updated 20 March 2023) |
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