Our chair Paul Manning, his wife Bev and long standing Sheffield camra stalwart Alan Gibbons recently visited the Oktoberblest beer and gin festival at St Matthew’s on Carver street.
The church was built in 1855 amongst the slums of the city, is now grade 2 listed and has long been regarded as a sanctuary in the heart of the city. The church has an ambitious target to raise nearly £800,000 for interior restorations and money raised at the festival will go towards increasing the £450,000 raised to date.
The festival opened with Rt Revd Stephen Race, the bishop of Beverley blessing the beers accompanied by Fr Grant Naylor, the current vicar.
Nick Law the founder of Emmanuales gave a very illuminating talk on the brief history of beer and belief and we also enjoyed some great music whilst sampling the beers.
Nick had brought two beers – Noah’s Dark a 5.4% dark Belgian ale and Solomon’s gold a 4.5% Belgian golden ale. Both tasted great and we also tasted (mainly half’s!) of Reunion Witbier a 5% cloudy white ale from Mount St Bernard Trappist brewer in rural Leicestershire. This was followed by Juiceinator a 4.7% pale and Days of Thunder a 5% hazy pale both from Bang the Elephant brewery in Langley Mill, Derbyshire.
We ended with Santa’s Little Belter a 4.9% ginger and cinnamon dark ale from the recently closed Halton Turner brewery in Digbeth, Birmingham together with Jolly YPA a 4.8% pale from Jolly Boys brewery in Barnsley.
We enjoyed the evening and look forward to next years event as it becomes a regular on the Sheffield festival calendar.
