For 2025 the Winter edition of Great British Beer Festival moves to our area, being held at Magna Science Adventure centre, a former steelworks on the Sheffield/Rotherham border near Meadowhall.
If you’ve been to the long running charity real ale & music festival at Magna, which held its final event in 2024, you’ll recognise the layout but also notice we’ve taken the opportunity to update things a little. If you’ve previously been to GBBF Winter in Burton on Trent, you’ll find we’ve made it somewhat bigger and added new features!
At GBBF Winter you’ll find cask ales from breweries across our region as well as interesting choices from further afield. A number of breweries will also be bringing their own bar, often staffed by brewery representatives who can answer questions about the beer, these bars will feature their beers on both cask and keg. The festival will also have a dedicated bar for good quality craft beers in keykeg along with a world beers bar featuring a list of up to 100 imported beers in cans, bottles and on tap (the international tap list will be on rotation). All the bars will accept card payment, alternatively you can use cash to buy bar tokens from the token sales points around the venue.
The Champion Winter Beer of Britain is judged at GBBF Winter, with the winner going forward to the final of the Champion Beer of Britain competition which is judged at the summer Great British Beer Festival in Birmingham. At GBBF Winter there will be a dedicated bar featuring all the competition entries, this will open for service once the results have been announced on Wednesday evening.
There will also be a Cider & Perry bar with a list curated by CAMRA enthusiasts which will only feature your proper cider & perry made from fresh juice, never concentrate.
On the entertainment front there will be live music on Wednesday and Thursday evening then all day Friday and Saturday whilst throughout the festival volunteers from the local Rotherham CAMRA branch will be hosting traditional table top games and a tombola!
An optional extra you can book for is a tutored tasting events, however these have limited capacity! These include
- Champion Winter Beer of Britain tasting led by veteran beer writer & journalist Roger Protz (Wednesday 6:30pm and Thursday 2pm) – £12
- Brewed on the Union system beer tasting led by veteran beer writer & journalist Roger Protz and Thornbridge brewers Rob Lovatt and Dominic Driscoll (Thursday 6pm) – £12
- Beer & Cheese tasting, led by Annabel Smith (Friday 2pm) – £16
- Beer & Music matching, led by writer Pete Brown (Friday 6pm) – £12
There is a trade session on Wednesday for those that work in the pub and beer industry from 4pm (festival opens to the wider public at 5pm) and applications are open online for complimentary tickets for those eligible.
As with all CAMRA festivals GBBF Winter is staffed by volunteers, if you fancy getting involved please fill in the volunteering form on the website.
Opening hours: Wednesday 5pm-11pm; Thursday to Saturday midday to 11pm. Entry is £10 (£8 for CAMRA members) and there are also group and season ticket deals available online. The price includes a souvenir glass to keep. For advance tickets and information visit winter.gbbf.org.uk. If you can’t commit to buying tickets in advance don’t worry, you can simply turn up and pay on the door too!
Getting there: Bus X3, operated by First, runs from Sheffield to Doncaster via Meadowhall and Rotherham and drops off on the main road behind Magna. At Meadowhall Interchange the bus connects with trains and trams, the bus ride from Meadowhall is just 5 minutes. From Rotherham Interchange the bus takes about 10-15 minutes depending on traffic. The venue also has a large car park and is near M1 junction 34.

