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.

Inn Brief

Posted on by Andy Cullen
The new Manager at the  Wharncliffe Arms, Wharncliffe Side is Dave Briggs. Dave has previously worked at the Royal Standard and the Arms.  Currently three Bradfield Beers are available, with the intention of both increasing the range and adding a basic food menu. Folk Night is monthly, on the fourth Wednesday. A Hungry Horse (Greene King) pub, ‘ The Hardy Pick,’ opened in early February. It is situated at Broadfields Business Park, Broadfield Road. Local Sheffield CAMRA members, Dave Pickersgill and John Stocks are giving an illustrated talk, ‘The Worksop and Retford Brewery,’ at The Station Hotel, Worksop on Thursday 26th.March 2015 (7:30 pm start). This talk is supported by the Worksop Archaeological and Local History Society. The Ball at Crookes now has a range of up to 14 real ales, a mix of Greene King house beers and interesting local guest ales. Pete from the Tapped Brew Company, based at the Sheffield Tap, recently took a trip down to Worcestershire to visit hop suppliers with a few of signing a contract to be supplied with new English hop varieties for their beers. The next up and coming real ale circuit in Sheffield may well be London Road if the current developments are a success. Long established is the Cremorne, we also now have real ale available at the Crown and the Albion, the latter having reopened as a freehouse under its old name after sadly not lasting as the Bell Jar. Next to reopen is what was latterly Delaney’s music bar on Cemetery Road, this pub is to revert to it’s previous name of the Beer Engine and feature 5 guest ales and a real cider. JD Wetherspoon has applied for a licence for a potential new pub in Meadowhall. Dada bar on Trippet Lane has closed down after Thornbridge were given an offer they couldn’t refuse to sell the premises. It is to remain a bar, however no more is known about the intentions of the new owner. The Rutland Arms on Brown Street, Sheffield Centre, is hosting a Siren Brewery Tap Takeover on 18th March from 6:30pm and will incorporate a meet-the-brewer session. 4 cask beers from Siren will be available on the bar to try alongside some keg and bottled offerings with at least 7 Siren beers available that haven’t previously been served at the Rutland. Wood Street Brewery at the Hillsborough Hotel are being kept busy hosting brewery tour inclusive social packages booked via Living Social. Their Christmas special, Old Mans’s beard, sold very well and was being brewed weekly. A number of previously popular specials such as that are being considered for another run. Dronfield Brewery Co have made their popular Dronfield Pale Ale, 4.3%, a regular beer and another batch has been brewed.

Angel, Holmesfield

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British Pie Week – Gluten free Cask Ale and Homemade Pies at The Angel Great British Pie Week begins on Monday 2nd March and the Angel at Holmesfield will again be marking this exciting event in style. Delicious homemade pies with a variety of fillings will be available on a specials board all week.  Nothing compliments homemade pie more than a real cask ale, the twist is – all the pies and one cask ale will be gluten free. beef pie 2014 023 Owner of  the Angel Mandy Drewery said  “it is very exciting, we have been catering for coeliacs for over 3 years and at last we can serve a gluten free cask ale alongside our food offer, this  is just great”.  “ Wold Top Brewery have crafted a truly wonderful ale” said Mandy “ but, its usually only available in bottles.”  “After speaking to the Rob at the East Yorkshire Brewey and explaining how difficult it has been to source a gluten free cask ale they are now going to provide us with Against The Grain in barrels for British Pie Week”. Wold Top – Against The Grain winner of the SIBA North Gold Award for speciality beers has proven to be the best tasting gluten free beer in many taste tests. Made from lager malt, maize, hops and yeast, it is a premium full flavoured bitter beer with a good creamy head, refreshing bitterness and citrus aftertaste.  The gluten free content is certified to be well below the required codex standard of 20ppm. against the grain The Angel will be serving a selection of mouthwatering pies & Against The Grain to celebrate Great British Pie Week from Monday 2nd March. For more information or to book a table call 0114 2890336

Best beer off in the North!

Posted on by Andy Cullen
The country’s best beer retailers were honoured at the inaugural Celebrate British Beer Awards held at the House of Commons last night. Leading industry names and MPs attended the event organised by trade magazine Off Licence News to recognise the retailers both big and small making the biggest contribution to selling our national drink.

OffLicenceNewsAwards

The awards singled out the top independent beer shops from across the UK – along with the best national drinks chain and supermarket. The winners were voted for by over 500 industry experts. Rosie Davenport, Editor at Off Licence News Editor, said: “Pubs do a great job promoting beer, but the swathes of great beer shops play just as important a role in enhancing consumers’ appreciation. More people are drinking great beer at home than ever before and the businesses recognised at Off Licence News’ Celebrate British Beer Awards are dedicated to sourcing and selling interesting brews and supporting the UK’s vibrant brewing scene. “ List of winners
Category Company Name Location
Supermarket of the Year Waitrose
Chain of the Year Oddbins
Regional Retailer of the Year – London Real Ale Twickenham
Regional Retailer of the Year – North Hop Hideout South Yorkshire
Regional Retailer   of the Year – South Beer Emporium Bristol
Regional Retailer of the Year – Midlands/East Hopology Nottingham
Regional Retailer of the Year – Scotland The Beer Hive Edinburgh
Regional Retailer of the Year – Wales Gwin Llŷn Wines Gwynedd, Pwllhel

Three Valleys Festival confirmed for 2015

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It has been confirmed the Three Valleys Festival will be back for 2015 on Saturday 6th June, hardly a surprise given how it has been a hit from day one and grown in popularity over the years it has run! Three Valleys is an almost unique event – a multi venue beer festival with a free bus service linking all the venues every half hour. The festival buses link the venues over three routes, all of which commence from Dronfield railway station, so to take part simply catch a train to Dronfield (10 minute ride from Sheffield) and within no more than 10-15 minutes you will be on a bus to a pub! The buses will run from midday until 11pm. All the participating venues will have an extended beer range, there will also be cider, food and live music to be enjoyed. As well as the bus service running free of charge, all the venues will offer free entry so all you have to pay for is what you eat and drink. 2015 will see the biggest and best festival yet. 18 venues are involved and will be making an effort to do something special. In addition for those wishing to stop over, camping will be available at two locations – Barlow Brewery and the Miners Arms in Hundall – and rooms are available to book at the Manor House Hotel in Dronfield. The participating venues this year are: Barlow Brewery (Barlow) Castle Inn (Bradway) Coach & Horses (Dronfield) Dronfield Arms (Dronfield) Green Dragon (Dronfield) Hyde Park Inn (Hill Top) Jolly Farmer (Dronfield Woodhouse) Manor House Hotel (Dronfield) Miners Arms (Dronfield Woodhouse) Miners Arms (Hundall) Royal Oak (Coal Aston) Shepley Spitfire (Totley Rise) Three Tuns (Dronfield Hallowes) Travellers Rest (Apperknowle) Talbot Arms (Dronfield Woodhouse) Tickled Trout (Barlow) Victoria (Dronfield) White Swan (Dronfield) Look out for news over the coming months as to what each venue are planning or watch the festival website – www.threevalleysfestival.org.uk.  

Happy New Year from your local CAMRA branch

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Welcome to the first Beer Matters of 2015, we hope you had an enjoyable Christmas and the new year so far is being kind to you! We seem to be living in good times for the discerning beer drinker, in our news columns you will read of various new, improved, reopened or reinvented pubs and bars and our growing number of local breweries continuing to be successful – with some of them trying  interesting and unusual beers to keep us intrigued and excited – and others consistently producing house staples to a high standard. On the campaigning front things seem to be going our way too thanks to putting across a clear and intelligent argument with one voice – CAMRA itself, it’s members and other organisations with aligned interests. The government finally started to listen on the subject of beer tax and are beginning to make the right noises on Pub Company reform. From our point of view we want to continue to have nice pubs with real ale at affordable prices to visit in the future – however economically having businesses such as pubs open, trading and employing staff makes sense to the government as it generates tax revenue. Another interesting development in 2015 seems to be that the bubble is beginning to burst for Supermarket chains in the race to open convenience stores, so the rate of pubs being turned into such shops may slow down. The concept of Micro-Pubs along with off-licences featuring sampling bars is growing and really capturing the imagination and whilst we have seen some traditional pubs being turned into shops, we have also seen some shops turned into micro-pubs! Perhaps this reflects a cultural shift as to what is wanted from a community pub – more the atmosphere of a local coffee shop where the family can drop in and relax after shopping with something nice both on the beer and the soft drinks front? So, the local beer scene has seemingly never had it so good and it is exciting times to be part of it. Here in Sheffield & District CAMRA (and also in our Dronfield & District sub-branch) we are looking for new people to get involved and volunteer. We need people to help keep our pub database up to date (which powers whatpub.com), we need people to be official brewery liaison officers, we need a new membership secretary and more. The branch AGM is coming up in April and it would be wonderful to get more than the usual old faces on board, shake things up a bit and get everyone passionate about what we do. Of course it isn’t just about doing voluntary jobs – we want more people enjoying the social side too and enjoying beer together and we intend to have lots going on during 2015 including brewery tours, beer tastings and more. Finally, following the success of our new look Steel City Beer & Cider Festival at Kelham Island Industrial Museum last October, we have started planning this years and have provisional dates – 21st to 24th October with set up commencing from Monday 19th and takedown on Sunday 25th. We intend to build on the success of last year with a few tweaks to improve certain areas based on feedback from staff and customers. If you are a CAMRA member and interested in joining the committee that organises the festival, please do come down to the next planning meeting. You do not need to have any experience in organising festivals, just enthusiasm and a willingness to get things done.

Blue Bee

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Well, we’ve made it into 2015 and new beer keeps rolling out. Firstly, Ella IPA 5.0% is the next in our ever popular single hopped IPA series using the Australian hop Ella, with strong apricot, cedar and peach characteristics. Also new for 2015 is our series of beers named after different groups of numbers. First out and on bars as this month’s Beer Matters goes to press is Natural, a small IPA packed full of American hops. At 3.5% it’s a perfect session beer for the New Year. Second up will be Integer 4%. Using one of our favourite hops, Citra, this is sure to be packed full of intense citrus and fruit hop flavours. If this isn’t enough excitement for some of you then we must not forget to mention to look out for our dry hopped IPA, made especially to celebrate The Three Tuns’ Sausage Fest.  This event takes place Valentines weekend with lots of sausage based fun. After all, what’s more romantic than a plate of bangers and mash with a pint of IPA to wash it down? February 11th sees the Closed Shop celebrate its 2nd Birthday under the ownership of Reet Ale Pubs. So, we have had assistant manager Christie down at the brewery as free labour, allowing us to spend more time sitting and drinking Earl Grey… The resulting beer is Red Rye Centennial 6.0%; it sees us using rye malt for the first time accompanied with copious amounts of Centennial hops. Be sure to try a special dry hopped version at the Closed Shop on the 11th Febuary as well as looking out for it throughout the various other great hostelries of Sheffield.

Toolmakers Brewery

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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

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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.