Well, what can we say. Another great festival, possibly the best ever.
The attendance figures were back to pre-covid levels with almost 6,500 people coming to enjoy the festival. In fact the Saturday morning saw us bringing in a large batch of casks and kegs to ensure we didn’t run out!
Our special edition glasses were a big hit with visitors, and we completely sold out of them on the Friday. Like wise our Steel City 50 t-shirts which sold out even quicker.
We also sold all the remaining bottles of our Limited Edition run of Henderson’s Relish. A very popular souvenir for Sheffielders, with all 800 bottles being highly sought after.
The Wednesday night saw us present several awards. A Special award for services to CAMRA and support of cask ale were given to long-time CAMRA member John Beardshaw, the only person to have worked all 50 festivals. Another award was presented to Jules Gray of Hop Hideout for services to the Sheffield Beer scene, including organising Sheffield Beer Week and Indie Beer Feast.
Details of the winners of the Beer of The Festival competition and our new Homebrew competition are elsewhere in this issue. Suffice it to say the standard was very high from all entrants, A fantastic reflection on the brewers in the city, both professional and amateur.
Among the highlights of the beer on offer was 3 beers in wooden casks, including Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter and Theakston’s Old Peculier. We also had St Mars of The Desert serving ‘Kirschewalder”, a smoked rotbier collaboration with Torrside Brewing, directly from one of their Stichfass kegs.
Our “Women On Tap” bar was a great success, showcasing seven of the great women brewers we have in the locality. Several of them worked on the bar and were able to chat to interested visitors about their beers and breweries.
The live music was a particularly high standard with Highway Child, Soul Battalion and The 88’s entertaining the evening crowds, and Loxley Silver Band and Sheffield Steel Rapper keeping everyone on their toes on Saturday afternoon.
The Kelham Island Museum itself is a big part of the festival’s atmosphere, and contributed to proceedings with the usual runs of the RiverDon Steam Engine, and, new this year, a couple of open Sessions of the Hawley Tool Collection where visitors could chat to Museum staff about the exhibits.
Our festival charity was Support Dogs and we’re delighted to say we raised £4000 for them. As a locally-based charity doing valuable work to improve the lives of children and adults with various challenging medical conditions, we know this will help them enormously. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated.
Overall, a fabulous 4 days. Thanks, as ever, must go to the 200+ volunteers who come and work tirelessly to make the event what it is. We really couldn’t do it without them.
Lets’s do it again in 2027!
Steel City Beer & Cider Festival #51 is planned to take place at Kelham Island Museum 20-23 October 2027.
