Andy Cullen – Page 105 – CAMRA Sheffield & District

Sheffield Brewery Company

Posted on 12 Mar 201514 Mar 2015 by Andy Cullen

Sheffield Brewery are known for their range of good quality, easy drinking session beers, however their new CAMRA Brewery Liaison Officer, Gavin Kieran, suggested they brewed a rather more hoppy IPA. Head brewer, Dr Tim Stillman, agreed to do it on the condition Gavin came down and help brew it – so he did. The result is called Siege IPA, brewed with a cocktail of five different hop varities – Chinook, Nugget, Summit, Cascade and Amarillo – bringing a fruity bitterness to the beer with aromas of orange and citrus flavours.

However, despite the explosion of flavours in this limited edition beer it does retain one Sheffield Brewery hallmark – at 4.5% ABV it is still quite session friendly! It also joins the Castle Porter from earlier this year in being a beer that is badged up in support of the Friends of Sheffield Castle. Meanwhile those that have joined Sheffield Brewery’s Beer Club, the next members social night at the brewery will be 27th March with a home brew theme and as usual, live music, beer and food.

Acorn Brewery

Posted on 12 Mar 201514 Mar 2015 by Andy Cullen

A couple of special beers for April;

St Georges Best 4.6% Deep golden/amber coloured beer with sweet roast malts, good bitterness levels and a delicate citrus aroma.

Wai-iti IPA 5% 11th in our next range of IPA’s featuring New Zealand & Australian Hops. Rich Golden coloured ale with a smooth bitterness and an array of Citrus aromas mainly of Mandarin, Lemon and zesty Lime.

Steel City Brewing

Posted on 12 Mar 201514 Mar 2015 by Andy Cullen

Diabolis Interium came out at 5.5% and is now doing the rounds, while Funeral in Carpathia is a very irresponsible 8.7%, look out for it on cask at the Shakespeare and in bottles at Beer Central and Hop Hideout. The Shakespeare also has the sole cask of Rum Rum Gimme More Rum, the first person to guess the mystery adjunct wins the usual Steel City competition prize of **** all…

Some more details have now emerged regarding the away collaboration weekend in March – the first brew was at Hopcraft (Gazza ‘Two Hats’ Prescott again representing both breweries), and following on from the numerous Black IPAs both have brewed insults history a different way, being a White Porter. Insult to History II has all the body and flavour hallmarks of a porter – coffee, chocolate, etc, along with coconut, but is pale – not strictly white, but a pale golden colour. The second brew, at Arbor in Bristol, is another style twist, this time a black barley wine.

Back at home, Steel City hosted a three-way collaboration with David from Raw and Sue from Waen (in deepest Wales). Troika, named after the Soviet judicial commissions which also involved three people, is appropriately a ‘Red IPA’. In keeping with the ‘theme’, Troika uses three hops for flavour, though these aren’t known at the time of writing! The minikit was used to make another irresponsible brew, Raw Steel Barley Waen… A variation on the main brew, yet to be named, will be out at the end of April to celebrate a special birthday for Shazz (her 21st, obviously…) Steel City All Hallows Eve was named by Ratebeer as Best Beer in South Yorkshire, the second year in a row Steel City have picked up this award, but this year they went one better and also picked up Best Brewer.

Blue Bee Brewery

Posted on 12 Mar 201514 Mar 2015 by Andy Cullen

The first week in April is not just Easter weekend but also the Sheffield Sessions Festival which is centred around the fantastic pubs of Kelham Island. This festival sees folk musicians playing in numerous pubs in the Valley of Beer. This year we have been asked to brew a special beer for the event: Oh Good Pale 3.8% which is a refreshing pale session beer packed with Chinook and Brewers Gold hops. It should be available throughout the Easter weekend at venues including The Shakespeares, The Kelham Island Tavern and The Three Tuns.

On top of that we have a few other specials hitting bars this month. First up is the next in our series of beers named after types of numbers: Rational 4.4% is a hoppy Cascadian dark ale with a full flavoured malty body and bags of hop flavours from a combination of Cascade, Citra and Columbus hops. Also our single hopped IPA for April will be Comet IPA 5.0% this will feature American Comet hops. Comet IPA 5.0% has spicy grapefruit flavours and a dry bitter finish.

Kelham Island Brewery

Posted on 12 Mar 201514 Mar 2015 by Andy Cullen

A couple of seasonal favourites are back on the bars for April…

Gentleman Death 6% Baltic Porter. A devilishly delicious dark porter makes its annual appearance for April. Brewed with the darkest of roasted malts and Polish hops. The aroma is sweet, toasted and seductive, the malty body is dangerously smooth and the after flavour is silky, satisfying and luscious.

King of the Rocket Men 4.5% Pale Golden Ale. Always one of our fastest selling ales is back for April. Pale and golden with an interesting blend of internationally sourced hops to give a crisp light flavour. This blazing adventure in a glass will take you to infinity & beyond.

Inn Brief

Posted on 21 Feb 201514 Mar 2015 by Andy Cullen

Following Danny Grayson handing the lease of the White Lion in Heeley back to Punch Taverns in order to concentrate on developing his chain of sports bars, a temporary holding company has been running the pub (badly) since, however the new management of Jon and Mandy – who have been regular customers – takeover on Monday 23rd February and will reopen the pub on the Wednesday after getting themselves organised. Under Jon and Mandy’s stewardship it should not only return to being a classic, heritage good beer pub but also have the live music offer developed. The Rivelin is under new management and now run by the same people as the Old Horns in Bradfield.

Butchers Arms, Marsh Lane

Posted on 21 Feb 2015 by Andy Cullen

New management in the form of Steve and Becky Kier have moved into the Butchers Arms and aim to maintain a traditional feel to the pub. Four real ales will be available with Theakston’s Lightfoot as the regular beer, the other three will be regularly changing guests. A 10% discount off a pint of real ale is being offered to CAMRA members producing their membership card when ordering. Live music will feature every other Saturday from the 14th March which will be a selection of folk , Americana, and accoustic music. The pub also has a bar billiards table and a quiz night. A limited food menu is served daily until 8pm (except Monday when the pub is closed) with two meals for a tenner offers available.

Fancy joining the committee?

Posted on 16 Feb 201516 Feb 2015 by Andy Cullen

As we approach the branch AGM, we are looking for volunteers to join the committee that does the day to day running of the CAMRA branch – the committee for the new year ahead gets voted in at the AGM. At present we do not have enough volunteers to fill every role on the committee and have a small bunch of old hands that do more than one job to keep things ticking over. There is a feeling that the branch needs some new people with fresh ideas and enthusiasm to shake things up, bring some passion back to the branch and in turn get more people involved across the board. Any new volunteers that get voted into roles will of course enjoy support and guidance from the ‘old hands’. The committee positions include Chairman Secretary Membership Secretary Treasurer Social Secretary Pubs Officer (including What Pub database management) Heritage Pub Protection Officer Beer Matters Editor Stakeholder/Local politician relationship Young Members Co-ordinator (including University Real Ale Society Liaison) Aside from the committee, we also look for people wishing to help out with roles such as co-ordinating our Pub of the Year and Pub of the Month competitions, the selection of pubs for the Good Beer Guide and writing articles for Beer Matters magazine. We also still have some vacancies for Brewery Liaison Officers.

CAMRA urges swift action to stop pubs closing

Posted on 16 Feb 2015 by Andy Cullen

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is pressing the Government to act now to help save pubs in light of the latest CGA-CAMRA Pub Tracker, which shows that the number of net pub closures in the UK remains high at 29 per week – almost twice the number of pub closures in 2011^{^[1]}. These figures coincide with a new clause to the Infrastructure Bill^{^[2]} in England, tabled this week by a cross-party group of MPs, which would mean that planning permission is always required before demolishing or converting a pub into a supermarket convenience store or other retail use. Tim Page, CAMRA Chief Executive says: “It is currently possible to convert a pub into a betting shop, pay-day loan store or supermarket without the need for planning permission, making it far too easy for pubs valued by the community to be lost without local people having a say. Given the huge contribution that pubs make to community life in Britain we believe this cannot be right.” “The clause tabled by Charlotte Leslie MP is a fantastic opportunity to get the Government to take swift action to close these planning loopholes. We urge every MP who supports local communities and local pubs to get behind this clause and help secure a better future for the great British pub industry. We hope that we can rally support from sufficient MPs to persuade Ministers to reconsider their current refusal to provide effective planning protection for viable and valued pubs.” This attempt to amend the Infrastructure Bill is a huge step forward for CAMRA’s Pubs Matter campaign, which calls on the Government to make a simple change to the law in England so that a planning application is required before a pub is demolished or converted into another use. This change would give pubs the same protection that exists for sites such as theatres, scrap yards and nightclubs. It would also give communities the chance to have a say when their local pub is under threat. The campaign has so far secured the support of nearly 100 MPs for an Early Day Motion on pub demolition and change of use^{^[3]}. CAMRA is calling on all MPs to support the clause and make the changes necessary to support local pubs across the country. Charlotte Leslie MP for Bristol North West says: “We urgently need a change to the law to protect pubs like The Bourne End in Brentry in my constituency from being simply demolished, or turned into a supermarket before the community has had the ability to have its say. Of course there will be some pubs that simply are not viable, but we must reset the balance in favour of the community, not the big developers.” About Pubs Matter

Pubs support over 1 million UK jobs and inject an average of £80,000 into their local economy each year.
Research by CAMRA found that 2 pubs are converted to supermarkets every week
69% of pub-goers believe that a well-run community pub is as important to community life as a post office, local shop or community centre.**
75% of all adults believe that pubs make a valuable contribution to life in Britain.***
96 MPs have already signed a Parliamentary Early Day Motion in support of closing the planning loopholes. http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2014-15/208

For further information on the Pubs Matter campaign or to submit your campaign as a case study visit www.pubsmatter.org.uk

CAMRA say 600 Asset of Community Value Pubs landmark is bittersweet

Posted on 16 Feb 2015 by Andy Cullen

600 pubs now listed as Assets of Community Value in England – but campaigners say Government are letting communities down by allowing conversion of pubs to supermarkets without planning permission

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, have today announced reaching 600 pubs listed as Assets of Community Value, following a campaign to encourage local groups to register pubs as ACVs. However CAMRA say with 31 pubs still closing per week more needs to be done to protect pubs – with the Government letting communities down by allowing conversion of pubs to supermarkets without planning permission. “The Government introduced Assets of Community Value to help communities retain valued community assets such as pubs by providing an opportunity to bid for the property if the owner intends to sell. But the scheme is undermined by rules that allow pubs to be converted into supermarket convenience stores and a wide range of other retail uses, without any need for a planning application.” Tom Stainer, CAMRA Head of Communications. Evidence collated by CAMRA earlier this year revealed that 2 pubs a week are converted into supermarket convenience stores, which led to the launch of their ‘Pubs Matter’ campaign which asks the Government to close the current loopholes and ensure planning permission is always required to convert a pub to other uses. “The fact pubs are the most listed community asset shows just how much people value their local pub. It is therefore hugely disappointing that the Government won’t act to close planning loopholes which allow developers to convert pubs to other uses without the requirement for planning permission.” “Planning permission is required to convert a convenience store into a pub but no permission is required to convert a pub into a convenience store. The lack of protection for pubs is a glaring anomaly in the English planning system which needs to be corrected. It is surely not right that a supermarket convenience store is given greater planning protection than a valued community pub.” CAMRA’s Head of Communications, Tom Stainer added “Local people are denied a say in the future of their own communities, and this is undermining the Government’s stated aim to empower local communities to protect local facilities such as pubs. Government Ministers are giving communities false hope by suggesting that listing a pub as an Asset of Community Value is the solution to gaps in the planning system when they are clearly not.”