Abbeydale Brewery Opens Employee-Owned Beerworks Taproom on 30th Anniversary

Abbeydale Brewery turned its 30th anniversary into a concrete expansion on Thursday, cutting the ribbon on Abbeydale Beerworks and opening a new taproom at 298 Abbeydale Road, just 200 steps from the brewery itself. The venue opened to the public from 4pm and gives the Sheffield brewer a direct, neighborhood-facing space after years of selling mainly through wholesale and outside venues.

The new taproom takes over the former Turner’s Bottle Shop and Turner’s Bottle and Tap unit, a site that closed in January 2026. That location, close to Abbeydale’s brewery and near The Rising Sun pub, gives Abbeydale a tightly linked cluster of places for drinkers to find the brand in person, from pub to brewery to taproom. Abbeydale has said the space will be a welcoming destination for its latest brews and small-batch specials, along with exclusive tasting events.

The opening matters because it changes how Abbeydale can meet its audience. Instead of sending beer out into the market and hoping customers find it elsewhere, Abbeydale Beerworks gives the brewery its own front room for fresh pours, take-home cans, and direct conversation with the team. Trade coverage said the site has eight keg lines and four casks, a setup that should let Abbeydale rotate core beers alongside one-off releases and taproom-only runs. Abbeydale has also said it plans community-focused programming, including a running club, which pushes the venue beyond a simple bar into a regular meeting place.

The timing adds another layer. Abbeydale says it was founded in 1996, making 2026 its 30th anniversary year, and it describes itself as Sheffield’s first 100% employee-owned brewery. The company became employee owned in 2024, and Abbeydale says the Beerworks space matches that structure, with the taproom itself fully employee owned. Abbeydale has also leaned into inclusivity: the brewery says all of its beers are gluten free, and it committed in October 2024 to making every beer to a gluten-free recipe containing less than 20 ppm gluten. For a market crowded with brewery bars and taprooms, Abbeydale Beerworks now gives Sheffield a new place to see that model in action, one pour at a time.