Author: Andy Cullen

Andy has been actively involved in CAMRA since the early 2000s after being recruited to sit on a National Younger Members Task Group. Since then he has held roles on the branch committee including Secretary, Membership Secretary, Magazine Editor, Chair and now Social Secretary. Andy has also been involved with the Steel City Beer & Cider Festival almost every year since becoming active in the branch.

Toolmakers Brewery

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Following a successful series of open days at the brewery in the run up to Christmas, another one is planned for Saturday 7th February. It is expected to then become a monthly event. On the open day the Toolmakers bar opens up with a range of beers brewed on site, live music to keep everyone entertained, a BBQ in the courtyard and tours around the brewhouse conducted by the brewers themselves. Additionally the Forest pub around the corner features Toolmaker beers that are different to the ones on the brewery bar at the same reasonable price.

Fuggle Bunny Brew House

Posted on by Andy Cullen
The brewery will be celebrating its first anniversary of brewing in March 2015, there is going to be a Limited Edition Birthday Ale to celebrate their success.   Their latest offering, Chapter 7 – Russian Rare-Bit, a 5% Imperial Black Stout afforded them their first award, securing 1st Place in the stout category at the 40th Sheffield Steel City Beer & Cider festival in October 2014. Due to a successful first year they are currently investing in another FV to keep up with demand, enabling greater production of their Quintessential – Quaffable – Quality award winning Ales. The Brewery caught the eye of the Sheffield Hallam University Students, who chose them from the many established breweries in Sheffield to use as their project called ‘This is Sheffield’ which will be exhibited from 21st January until 23rd February at the Made in North Gallery, on Brown Street. Keep hoping onto their website www.fugglebunnybrewhouse.co.uk, facebook & Twitter accounts to keep a breast of more exciting news to follow….The future is bright, the future is FUGGLE.

Intrepid Brewing Co

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Having established their core range of three beers, a programme of interesting one off beers under the banner of ‘Intrepid Journeys’ has commenced. Beers in this range will be interpretations of various beer styles from around the world often brewed in small batches, starting off with a Belgian Saison.

journey

So Journey number 1 is a short hop over the channel into Belgium which is home to some fantastic beer, typically associated with high gravity beers that you might sip or have just one of. The Saison is a departure from the Belgian norm in that it is the easy drinking sibling of the Tripel. A concern given the time of year is being able to maintain the temperature in the fermentation vessel. Belgian yeast ferments fairly warm and the brewery is about 5 degrees at this time of year which means the beer may stall. A difference from a true Saison this beer will be casked rather than bottled and served through a pump meaning we can’t carbonate the beer as highly as a Saison would normally be.
Saison is a style of beer that is reputed to originate from Wallona which is in the south of Belgium. It’s also known as Farmhouse beer, brewed in fairly variable conditions to quench thirst, not knock you out after two pints. As with other Belgian beers, the defining characteristic is the flavours from the specific yeast rather than the trend these days towards hoppy pale beers. The Belgian yeasts tend to generate spicy / peppery flavours, described as earthy. So this will be an interesting journey for us as too as our standard beers are defined by the hops, the oak or the malt, the
Journey #1 is expected to be 4.6% ABV with an OG of about 1.046 – medium body – and an  IBU of around 25 Not massively bitter – Explorer is 35 IBUs for comparison. Noble hops, Perle & East Kent Goldings to extenuate the earthy, spicy flavours. Possibly some Cascade to give it a bit more fruitiness.
The colour is an EBC of 10 – about the same colour as Explorer.   Malts used are UK Pale, Pilsner, Munich & Wheat possibly a small amount of Special B.

Pub of the Season Winter 2014/15

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Our Dronfield & District sub branch have voted the Miners Arms at Hundall as the winner of their Winter Pub of the Season award. POTS WINTER14-15 MINERS ARMS HUNDALL The Miners is a cosy, traditional rural community pub offering  a friendly atmosphere, pool table, TV and a civilised quiet lounge are across its 3 opened out rooms. There is also a conservatory area and outside a fantastic view towards over the valley towards Chesterfield. It also boasts a range of three well kept and keenly priced real ales. MinersHundallHandover At the time of making the award, the landlord of the last three years was Andrew Gledhill, however by the time this issue of Beer Matters is published he will have left the Miners and the pub trade, with the pub taken over by Lauren White who has previously worked as bar manager at the Tickled Trout in Barlow and Travellers Rest in Apperknowle. She plans on developing the winning formula further! The pub has a small car park, there is also a very limited bus service through the village that passes the pub’s front door – TM Travel route 14 from Dronfield to Chesterfield runs once every 2 hours Monday to Saturday daytime. There is no public transport in Hundall evenings or Sundays. The Miners will also be taking part in Three Valleys beer festival this summer on 6th June with a free bus every half hour from Dronfield Station.

Steel City Brewing

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Steel City’s first brew of the year is an away collaboration… Dave realised that he’d somehow managed to not do a single collaboration with Raw in 2014, so put this right with a visit to brew Ceremony of Opposites (name inspired by the Samael album, obviously…), an oxymoronic Black IPA with the tropical-flavoured Galaxy and Citra hops supplemented by mango and passion fruit. The second brew was just a day later at ‘home’ (Toolmakers), this time a stout. Diabolis Interium, meaning, as any scholar of Latin or fan of Dark Funeral will know, ‘Devil Within’, is the latest instalment in the Black Metal series. It’s a dry stout made with oats, dark muscovado sugar for a rummy molasses flavour, chocolate malt and roasted barley, with a big flame-out charge of Bramling Cross hops. A kegged (but still real!) version with honey will be available at the Shakespeare and the Craven Arms in Birmingham, and is called Mead From Hell (well, it has been a few months since Dave brewed an Alestorm-related beer…). The Shakey will also be getting a version with added rum. The minikit also made an appearance, for an exclusive 9-gallon brew of Funeral in Carpathia, an Imperial Stout named after a Cradle of Filth track (are you spotting a theme here…). Final ABV is not yet known, but Dave expects to be paying ‘Tramp Tax’ on this one! A pin of it will appear at the Shakespeare, while the rest will go in bottles. Recently we’ve seen quite a few cases of breweries taking legal action against other brewers over similar names – e.g. Brewsters taking on Brew Star, Camden taking on just about everybody – so when Dave saw there’s now a Black Metal brewery in Edinburgh there was only one thing to do – a collaboration! Nothing confirmed yet, but Steel City/Black Metal collabs will definitely happen this year. More collaborations are lined up for March – a long overdue away collab at not-so-silent Steel City partner Gazza’s Hopcraft brewery in Wales, then later the same weekend away to Arbor to brew a sour beer, hopefully with different fruit versions.

Is your local pub an asset of Community Value (ACV) ?

Posted on by Andy Cullen
The Sheffield Star (27th December) recently commented on the low number of Sheffield pubs which are officially an ‘Asset of Community Value.’ The Localism Act (2011) allowed communities in England to nominate valued facilities such as pubs as “assets of community value” (ACV). When pubs are listed this enables communities to “stop the clock” for up to six months if they are put up for sale in order to consider local options to save the pub. In Sheffield, there have been only three applications to list a pub as an ACV. The Castle Inn at Bolsterstone was successfully listed in April 2014. The Sheffield City Council (SCC) evaluation document states: ‘This is a commercially viable pub business. However in addition it also facilitates community activities on a regular basis……. the evidence provided shows that the pub provides a number of community uses and that these community uses could legitimately be considered to contribute to its viability ……. it appears that the evidence provided demonstrates that this property’s actual and current use furthers the social wellbeing and interests of the local community and satisfies the statutory tests.’ However, applications to list the Queens Ground (Langsett Road) and the Old Cart and Horses (High Green) were both unsuccessful (August and September 2014). The main reasons seem to be a lack of ‘evidence to paint a picture of a cohesive section of the community centred around the Property’ (Queens Ground). The City Council documentation also mentions that, in each case, there are a number of other pubs available locally. In contrast, two Derbyshire pubs in the Sheffield CAMRA Branch area have applied for, and are listed as, an ACV. The Angel (Spinkhill) is expected to reopen in the near future and the Anglers Rest (Bamford) is now a successfully-run community-owned local, including a cafe and Post Office. It is difficult to extrapolate from only three applications. However, it seems that, perhaps, SCC is taking an unduly rigorous line regarding the interpretation of the evaluation criteria. We await, other ACV applications, with interest. Sheffield City Council documentation: http://tinyurl.com/ls7qkww CAMRA guide to listing a pub as an ACV: http://tinyurl.com/k4yvdna –          Dave Pickersgill, Sheffield CAMRA Pub Preservation Officer

The local history column – Earl Grey update

Posted on by Andy Cullen
How did a bottle from Sheffield reach the Western Front? Thanks to John Stocks and Martine Welsh for responding to my notes in the December edition of ‘Beer Matters’ when a glass bottle which on display in the Hooge Crater Museum in Belgium was mentioned. This bottle has these words: W J Downes, Earl Grey Hotel, Sheffield The Earl Grey (97 Ecclesall Road) opened in 1833. The landlord from 1907-1939 was William Jackson Downes .The 1911 edition of ‘White’s Sheffield District Directory’ describes him as a ‘victualler.’ The prestige of the Earl Grey is indicated by the entry in this directory. There are five pages of listed, ‘Hotels, Inns and Taverns.’ Only two entries are listed in bold print: one is the Earl Grey. William married Florence Ann, the 1911 census including their son, William Sidney, born in 1894 and named after his father. On 18th.October 1915, the Sheffield Evening Telegraph announced the marriage on Thursday 14th.October, ‘by the Rev.F.Okell, of Private W.S.Downes, City Battalion, the only son of Mr. and Mrs.Downes, Earl Grey Hotel to May Crook.’ The Sheffield City Battalion was instigated by Sheffield University and aimed to recruit ‘professional men.’ By the end September 1914, 1,131  had enlisted. Training commenced at Bramall Lane, but quickly transferred to a Redmires. Accommodation was created on Redmires Road, this site becoming a POW camp in WW2. The area is currently forestry with a perimeter wall, a remnant from a 65 acre 1873 racecourse. Racing lasted for only four years, the final meeting taking place on 19th.July 1876. The City Battalion was in camp for about six months. They left on 13th.May 1915, arriving in France, via Egypt. After taking part in the Battle of the Somme (the ‘big push’ on 1st.July 1916), the Battalion withdrew on the evening of 3rd. July, having lost 513 officers and men killed, wounded or missing; a further 75 were slightly wounded. By the early weeks of 1918, the battalion was disbanded. It seems that William Sidney, returned to Sheffield and married before the Somme. As for the bottle, perhaps, it returned to France with William as a toast for his wedding? Subsequently, it was probably reused, before finally reaching Belgium. As for the Earl Grey, the pub was immortalised as part of a 1959 short film, ‘Short Stop’ http://yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/short-stop. This film includes scenes which were shot in the ‘back room.’ Martine, whose parents, Pam and Arthur Beardow, were  licensees of the Earl Grey from 1972 to 1979, has confirmed that this is the case. In the late 1950’s, the Earl Grey hosted a Friday night  jazz club where the Imperial Jazz Band played, filming taking place at one of the regular weekly sessions. The room was also used for private functions and included a small bar: by the 1970’s this dispensed Whitbread Trophy and Heineken Lager. The pub was demolished in the late 1980’s as part of the Sheffield Inner Ring Road development. Dave Pickersgill

The Beer House

Posted on by Andy Cullen
  Sheffield’s first micropub, the Beer House, opened on 14th December. The pub sells local ales and drinks, offer games (including chess and backgammon) as well as ‘convivial conversation’ in a former E-cigarette shop near Hunters Bar roundabout. Wines and spirits for the pub have been sourced locally, from shop Starmoreboss on Sharrowvale Road, with ales from local breweries. Organic rioja and other more unusual drinks are also on the menu. The venue consists of two small rooms and a shop front. In the front room is the bar, featuring 6 handpumps, generally with an every changing range of 5 cask ales – mostly from local breweries but now and again other beers of interest appear from breweries such as Marble of Manchester. There is also a single tap for draught lager – Stancill Brewery’s Sheffield Pilsener. There are also bar stools and a couple of tables in the bar room. Up a couple of steps to the rear room is a fireplace and some more tables, along with access to the toilets at the back. The micropub concept seems to have really caught the imagination of local people and proved popular, especially amongst those wanting to relax after shopping in the area!

Acorn Brewery

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Following another record breaking December the brewery is looking forward to a busy start to 2015. Hop contracts have been signed and delivery of the hops for the first half of the year have arrived. Please check our website for regular updated of new and old beers. Seasonal beers for February are; White Oak 4.8% – Pale and aromatic bitter with a citrus fruit aroma and hints of tangerine from the Crystal Hops. Kohatu IPA 5% – Rich golden in colour,this New Zealand hop variety has bags of tropical fruit, also plenty of lime and pineapple notes. Cheers, Dave Hughes