Good times at @torrside.bsky.social Smokefest - perhaps the most niche beer festival in the country...

Excellent! See you then!

Takeaway request (maple)

Smoke Desk report -

Successes :
Monster Munch (pickled onion) / hickory smoke
Greggs Sausage roll / beech smoke
Profiteroles / cherry smoke
Blue cheese / oak smoke
Assorted confectionery / any smoke
Rice crispie cakes / maple smoke

Unconvincing:
Apple slices
Crab roe flavour broad beans

Welcome to the 2026 @torrside.bsky.social Smokefest

Very much in line with our thoughts, too - and very happy we could entertain your palate!

A little crazy 1. In search of Monsters I don’t know how I missed this, but miss it – dammit! – I did. Readers outside Stockport and environs may be unaware of the ‘Monsters Weekends’ which have…

On the beer blog: one beer that I liked more than another beer, and what this tells us about BrewDog's refinancing deal. (Probably not very much, but humour me.)

ohgoodale.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/a...

Tomorrow and this weekend!

It’s Monsters Weekend next weekend - here’s the beers!!

Brewery Tap dates for 2026

One of the things some people forget is that Sorachi is Ace by definition... Cheers! 🍻

Cheers Keef, see you soon! 🍻

Well, that's Saturday all sold - good few for Sunday still available, and you've plenty of advance warning to book Monday off... 😁

#beer #smoke #forwardplanning

🔥🔥 Smokefest 2026 🔥🔥🔥

11-12th April 2026

Full details and tickets here 👇

torrside.co.uk/smokefest.html

Yuki, a small dark coloured Shiba Inu, in shiny red devil horns and surrounded by fake cobweb, pumpkins, skeletons, etc, and looking remarkably unimpressed even for her.

Happy Halloween from our Head Of Compliance

The third beer for our Barley Wine Festival is a little more local. @torrside.bsky.social's Captain Scarlet & The Nectarons. A 10% Red Barley Wine brewed for Independent Salford Beer Festival 8, in 2023!

#barleywinefestival #barleywine #barleywineislife #craftbeer #kegbeer #EscapeTheChaos

Cheers!

#ISBFX Brewday 1 or "Over The Hills & Far Away Where Monsters Come Out To Play" — ISBFX Jim : “In the dim and distant past, way before ISBF was a ‘thing’, I was a blogger - mostly about beer - with a small readership. Manchester had a small, yet vibrant, modern beer (I still loathe th...

#Repost

#ISBFX Brewday 1 or "Over The Hills & Far Away Where Monsters Come Out To Play" — ISBFX share.google/ZRg2No6wB8Xj...

The #ISBFX Begins. In New Mills.

With the wonderful (literally) @torrside.bsky.social.

Read on. Please share. And grab one of the few remaining tickets.

Random 10th birthday event! On Thurs 25th Sept, it's a bottle tasting at the brewery: we've dug into our brewers' hoard for bottle numbers 1-6 of the earliest Dogs Of War (barrel aged series) - 3 from 2018, 4 from 2019.

More detail & tickets on the website, here:
www.torrside.co.uk/events.html

Cheers Keef!

The winners of our beer of the festival have been announced! Congrats to the following:

Gold – @torrside.bsky.social Grendel with homebrewer Jon Britton.
Silver – Bridgehouse Rum & Raisin Stout
Bronze - @marblebrewers.bsky.social Stratagem, which was with homebrewer Joe Lee.

Congratulations to @brewclubshef.bsky.social member Jon Britton & @torrside.bsky.social whose collab beer 'Grendel' has won beer of the festival at @skbeerfestival.bsky.social !🏆
Joe Lee's collab with @marblebrewers.bsky.social 'Stratagem' came 3rd🥳

Thought we ought to pop in and at least secure the account name :)

Also, hello Bluesky

Artwork on 2 750ml beer bottles, one a Shinobi Shiba in a red & pink kimono with a two-bladed tachi, in front of a skull mountain and all surrounded with a sakura background; and one a Samurai Shiba in a Nobunaga era armour style & with a war fan, where the crest on the fan and helmet is a furiously angry hop.

Artwork on 2 750ml beer bottles, one is the Battle Pug (who is dressed as a landsknecht) and one is the Blue Merle Militia, in a rather flaboyant cavalieresque get-up

Artwork on 3 750ml beer bottles: Stanlius Caesar, an imperious bichon frise as a Roman Emperor; the War Russell, a Moche warrior jack russell with gold helmet, war club, red and gold poncho and a shield showing the decapitator crab deity; and the Swiss Guard Sighthound, in the traditonal Vatican blue yellow & red stripes and sitting over his ceremonial pike.

Artwork on 3 750ml beer bottles: Cleocatra, an Egyptian looking gold-and-lapis adorned grey shorthair cat; Obi & Olive, two cats in front of a forest background, the large fluffy one looking like a jedi master and the other much smaller one like the padawan; and Shogun Yogi, a grizzled one-eyed tabby cat dressed in a shogunate era armour style sitting by a katana with a background of a japanese scroll depicting a landscape and a battle.

Out next week - 10 barrel aged beers.
Dogs of War releases (and Cats of Chaos) for 2025.