Our 42nd annual Steel City Beer & Cider Festival – 19th to 22nd October

New Keg Bar for Steel City Beer & Cider Festival This year’s festival will see an important addition to the beer offering. A keg bar is being installed for the first time at the festival to showcase CAMRA-approved cask-conditioned KeyKeg beers. Several local brewers have been producing keg beers that fall within CAMRA’s definition of Real Ale and we are pleased that we now have the means of offering them to our visitors. All the equipment for the bar is being kindly provided by Abbeydale Brewery and will be sited in an additional room made available to us by the Kelham Island Museum. 12 different keg beers will be on sale and we are delighted that we are able to include this popular development within the UK brewing scene in our festival. The whole subject of Keykeg beers has been a controversial one for some time from CAMRA’s point of view, but now that approval has been given for cask-conditioned keg beers, we can showcase some of the excellent beers available, showing a different side to modern brewing. FESTIVAL TIME! By the time you get this copy of Beer Matters the Steel City Beer & Cider Festival will be just a few weeks away. So here’s a last quick rundown of what all you eager visitors can expect. Over 300 Beers & Ciders Why not visit our website to look at the full beer and cider list to see what beery delights are available to try. Several brewers have produced one-off specials for the festival. New KeyKeg bar Don’t faint! This year sees the introduction of a KeyKeg bar offering CAMRA-approved cask-conditioned KeyKeg beers. This will be in our new extra room downstairs. International Bottle Bars You can also try a range of International bottled beers if your tastes run further afield. With a bottle bar in each of the main rooms, you don’t need to leave your friends to get that extra-strong belgian sour you’ve been thinking about. Fancy Dress Friday Volunteer types will already know that Friday night is fancy dress night, but customers are encouraged to come in fancy dress too. There’s no prizes, but a good chance your photo might end up in Beer Matters. This year’s theme is Sci-FI so we’re expecting some interesting costumes. Kelham Island Museum For the third year running the festival is taking place at the atmospheric and hugely popular Kelham Island Museum. The Museum will be running their famous Steam Engine at 6pm and 8pm on Friday. Live Music The upstairs room will be featuring great live bands in the evenings, and the Loxley Silver Brass Band on Saturday Afternoon. Thursday night is soul band The Basement, Friday night is rock’n’roll with Vegas 6, and rockabilly outfit The Slingshots round things off Saturday night. Food Stalls Festival regulars will know that we have a great selection of hot food, and this year is no exception, with several stalls returning once again. If you want more details on the festival, please visit sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival. (For anyone who spotted the subliminal message in the above article, well done! Visit the website, then click on “Get Involved” to claim your prize!) VOLUNTEERS STILL WANTED If you’ve been thinking of volunteering, but haven’t got round to it, the good news is that there’s still time. Just head over to sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival and click on Get Involved to offer your services. Don’t worry if you don’t have any experience of working at a festival, we’ll find something nice and simple to ease you into it. Don’t forget that you’ll get free beer tokens, a free festival t-shirt (although numbers are limited so best be quick), and a volunteers trip out to a Manchester brewery and  later in the year. If you’re still not sure about anything you can always email members of the committee directly to ask any questions you might have. And… we’ve said it before but it really is true…the biggest  benefit to volunteering is that you’ll have the satisfaction of being part of the team that delivers another successful festival.