Angel at Spinkhill update

Posted on 16 Mar 201412 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

A local group is hoping to make a bid for the Angel during the ACA (Asset of Community Value) moratorium period. They are in the midst of discussions with a few interested parties regarding working with them to realise a shared vision and are happy to talk to other potential major partners. The ‘Save The Angel’ group is open to offers of help and will undertake to explore all possible opportunities that they believe will best serve the village of Spinkhill and the wider community. Contact: savetheangel.spinkhill@gmail.com

Inn Brief

Posted on 16 Mar 201424 Mar 2014 by Andy Cullen

In early February, the Royal Oak at Deepcar was taken on by Jeana and Simon from the nearby Wharncliffe Arms as a food/real ale outlet to be run by the two of them, in parallel with the Arms. Two new handpumps have been installed, initially providing Bradfield beers. – The Hill Top Sports & Social Club in Dronfield is now admitting CAMRA members, just show your membership card to be signed in as a guest. – Plans to turn the former Vine Inn on Cemetery Road into four three-bedroom properties have been approved by Sheffield Council. The development includes a two-storey rear extension. – Amended plans to knock down The Wheel pub on Plumbley Hall Road in Mosborough and build seven homes were conditionally approved at a council planning meeting on 17th February. – The Timbertops and Rivelin Valley Hotel are the latest two pubs reported to be for sale, freehold. – The Peaks Inn at Castleton has now reopened under new management. – The Wanted Inn at Sparrowpit has reopened as a freehouse. – The Norfolk Arms on Dixon Lane now has real ale. – Brewdog Sheffield is now open on Devonshire Street, as expected no real ale and fairly expensive prices, however there is plenty to keep the craft keg fan happy. – Mick and Denise are leaving the Castle Inn at Bradway at the end of March and celebrated their last month there by offering all beers at £2.50 a pint. They have chosen not to renew the Enterprise Inns lease, with the pub company apparently having no plans to invest anything in the pub. – The Horns in Holmesfield has closed again and is boarded up, Enterprise Inns has had a number of offers to buy this pub that has been put on the market freehold, the majority of which according to the parish council involve plans for residential development. – Chesterfield CAMRA’s Pub of the Season is the Chesterfield Alehouse micropub on West Bars, a few minutes walk from the town’s market place. – Hallowes Golf Club in Dronfield now has real ale on the bar.

Award winners gallery

Posted on 16 Mar 201416 Jun 2014 by Andy Cullen

Possibly unusually for a consumer campaign group, we are at our happiest as a branch when we are celebrating what is good in the world of beer on our patch.

Pub of the Month March 2014

Our March Pub of the Month award was presented to the Dog and Partridge on Trippet Lane, Sheffield City Centre on an evening of good beer, music, buffet (including Connor’s excellent home made hot scotch eggs!) a raffle and a space hopper.

Dronfield Pub of the Year

Our Dronfield sub branch meanwhile has awarded their Pub of the Year to the Travellers Rest in Apperknowle on an enjoyable evening that showed off what the pub does – the pub was busy with both locals and CAMRA members from further afield enjoying a friendly proper pub atmosphere, open fire, massive range of real ales and ciders – plus free samples of their entire cheese range and pork pies. This is the only food offered in the Travellers other than crisps etc and a platter of 2 generous portions of speciality cheese, regular size pork pie, pickles and crackers can be enjoyed for £5.50.

Tramlines Special Award

We also presented a special award to Tramlines Festival. This award winning music festival, dubbed the urban Glastonbury, takes over Sheffield City Centre for a long weekend each July with a main stage on Devonshire Green and a number of other key stages in various venues, supported by a very busy programme of free gigs in pubs and bars in the area. A free ‘busker bus’ service, with live music aboard, links the various parts of the festival which also takes in Endcliffe Park and Kelham Island. The fairly unique thing about Tramlines from our interest though is the beer. Most music festivals aren’t exactly known for good beer, however Tramlines makes an effort in this area too. Each year as part of the publicity in the build up to the festival, they choose a local brewery to produce the official Tramlines real ale and a launch event is held. The beer is available at all the outdoor music and entertainment stages including Devonshire Green, Barkers Pool and the Peace Gardens, the blues venue and various pubs. Additionally the blues venue holds a mini beer festival and of course most of the pubs and bars taking part also have good beer! We are told this is inspired by the fact the festival organisers office is full of beer drinkers and they point to the two venues they are involved with all year round – The Harley Hotel and the Queens Social Club, both of which have beer from local brewers. Past Tramlines beers have been brewed by Sheffield Brewery Company and Bradfield Brewery, last year it was Abbeydale’s turn, who invited Sheffield & District CAMRA along with the Tramlines organisers, including festival director Sarah Nulty.

This years Tramlines Festival is to be held from the 25th to 27th July, wristbands are £12 per day which gets you into all the pay venues, more details can be found on their website.

Wetherspoons Spring Beer Festival

Posted on 16 Mar 201412 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

The JD Wetherspoons pubs across our area are joining in the chain’s latest International beer festival, which runs from 28th March to 13th April. This sees a selection of 50 real ales offered on rotation from breweries across the UK, 10 of which have been brewed by guest brewers from around the world. Wetherspoons have produced a 36 page booklet for their beer festival which can be picked up in the pubs or downloaded from their website, this gives you all the background to the guest brewers and lists of all the featured beer with tasting notes, numbered 1-50 so you can tick off the beers you have tried and play beer bingo! The beers from the international guest brewers always create a talking point at the bar, not only because their beers are not often seen in a cask conditioned format but they are generally doing something a bit interesting, different and extreme, often at a host brewer that can be quite traditional and conservative!

Dronfield Arms food latest

Posted on 13 Mar 201412 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

The Dronfield Arms has had a change of direction on the food front. The Vault restaurant is no more, this room is now available for private hire, and the kitchen has been fitted with a pizza oven. The new chef’s food offering is primarily gourmet pizzas and pies and served 7 days a week from pub opening time until 9pm (6pm on Sundays). There is a special offer of 2 pizzas for £10 on Mondays. To view the new bar menu visit their website.

Sheffield Brewery Co.

Posted on 13 Mar 201411 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

Our latest special is a 3.8% golden bitter brewed in collaboration with the Sheffield Eagles. Champions Ale is hopped with Bobek and Amarillo and is a light, hoppy session ale perfect for enjoying whilst watching a game of rugby.

We’re proud to announce that we picked up two awards at the Rotherham Real Ale and Music Festival – a bronze medal in the Bitter category for Crucible Best and another bronze in Best Bitters for Forgemasters. We’re also delighted to be one of the five nominees in the Exposed Magazine awards Best Sheffield Brewery category.

Shakespeares

Posted on 13 Mar 201412 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

On Sunday 9th March Shakespeares hit 2000 different beers on cask in only 964 days since opening. The milestone beer was Revolutions Dare, a Human League inspired cask dark lager. Roll on the next 1000! They’re also looking forward to hosting the AGM on April 1st.

Acorn Brewery

Posted on 13 Mar 201411 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

March saw the completion and celebration of our 2000th brew since the brewery opened with its’ first brew of Barnsley Bitter in July 2003. The actual bi-millennial brew was fittingly enough Gorlovka, our famous 6% award winning Russian Imperial Stout named after Barnsley’s twin town. Things have been pretty hectic down at Acorn with beer listings on a couple of national festivals resulting in a record 300+ barrels (1200 firkins or 86,000 pints) leaving the brewery in just one week in March. A few of our bottled beers may well be heading to foreign shores with initial request to deliver Yorkshire Pride, Barnsley Bitter, Old Moor Porter and Gorlovka to a distributor in Rome. The brewery has also teamed up with the Local RSPB nature reserve at Old Moor to produce a new brew that will help Bittern conservation across the North of England. The RSBP have launched a competition through their membership to come up with a suitable name for the beer, with the lucky winning entry getting a guided tour of the reserve and more importantly the brewery! With all the additional beer production, we’ve had to bolster the brewing team and Bruce Woodcock who joined Acorn as an apprentice in 2009 has been working for quite a while under the tutelage of Dave Hughes and Steve Bunting but has now stepped up to brew ‘solo’ and we’re getting great feedback on his beers. So on to the beers. The latest single hopped IPA and the 2nd in our new antipodean range will feature Pride of Ringwood hops . It will be a rich golden ale with strong delectable aromas that has a spicy kick with essence of citrus & fruit-like tones.

The annual favourite St Georges (a 4.6% rich golden coloured beer with sweet roast malts, good bitterness levels and a delicate citrus aroma) will be out in plenty of time for any April dragon slaying activity.

Finally we would like to take the opportunity to thank Sheffield CAMRA for the invitation to the Sheffield Steel City Beer Festival awards evening at Thornbridge Hall. It was an excellent evening and a big thanks for the recognition of Old Moor Porter as winner of the Porter’s Category.

Dove & Rainbow

Posted on 13 Mar 201412 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

The Dove & Rainbow in Sheffield City Center continues to offer their unique style of a friendly and welcoming cask ale local pub, with the addition of a Rock Jukebox, Rock DJs on Friday and Saturday nights, quality bands on various days of the week, and live music provided by their talented customers on their now well-established Open Mic Nights, which are every other Tuesday (1st, 15th and 29th April). Bands have started to come out of the woodwork after their winter hibernation, and the events calendar is well populated with a mix of local, national and international talent. And never mind the mass-marketed St Patricks Day – the Dove will be celebrating St George’s Day (on Wed 23rd of course!) in true style with a very English selection of cask ales. To stay up to date with the planned events and gigs down at the Dove, and see photographic evidence of the latest happenings, just add “DoveAndRainbow Page” as a friend on Facebook.

Three Tuns (Sheffield)

Posted on 13 Mar 201412 Apr 2014 by Andy Cullen

The Three Tuns on Silver St Head in Sheffield (@Real3TunsSheff on that there Twitter or 3TunsSheffield on Facebook to get the latest news) has extended it’s opening hours. Now open all day Saturday, with food served 12-9 Monday to Saturday and still available for private hire on a Sunday. Nectar Pale and Doom Bar are now permanent fixtures, along with 4 other real ales, including a permanent line for stouts and porters.