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.

Acorn Brewery

Posted on 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.

Acorn Ringwood

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.

Acorn St George

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.

Acorn Old Moor Porter

Dove & Rainbow

Posted on 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)

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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.

Abbeydale Brewery Now Then

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Abbeydale are producing (for the 3rd year running) the Now Then beer in April, celebrating the local Sheffield magazine’s 6th birthday. We get our heads together every year to come up with a slightly different concept. This year we have included a QR code on the pump clip which, once scanned with one’s smartphone will offer a wealth of knowledge about the hop farmers who grew the hops and malts. Also the brewery, the beer and the magazine. Kind of showing insight into all the hard work that goes into every pint! The beer will be available throughout Sheffield and parts of Manchester. Now Then beer 6

Steel City Brewing

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Steel City are having a month of collaborations! First up, Grim Overlords is a ‘home’ collab with Sebastian Jarno from Great Heck, and is a pale beer with 109IBU of Columbus for bittering, and a 50/50 mix of Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin for flavour, followed by Mosaic in the fermenter.

TMB05 Grim Overlords

Next, on the dark side, So Craft It Hurts is an ‘away’ collab, brewed at Bridestones, a 6%+ stout brewed with oat, then most is being aged in 18-year-old Highland Park whisky barrels. One barrel has vanilla pods, and the other has half a tree’s worth of cherries. Hopefully both the barrel-aged versions will be available side by side at the Shakespeare. Finally another home collab, with Stuart from North Riding. Protz’s Pleasure is the main brew, a Black IPA, as Roger Protz likes to make his feelings on Black IPAs very clear in What’s Brewing at every opportunity (as well as having a rant about it on his blog recently!) and will feature at the CAMRA AGM in Scarborough. A dry-hopped version is entitled Worse Than Hitler as it will only be available in keg – one keg will go to North Riding for the AGM weekend, others will go to the Craven Arms in Brum and the Rutland. TMB06Z Worse Than Hitler From the minikit comes a stronger Black IPA for Doncaster Beer Festival, and in line with the theme being some bike race or other is named Bonjourrrrrrrr Ya Cheese-Eating Surrender-Monkeys. No brew was planned for April due to Dave being on holiday, however as his holiday was booked to Ukraine that may change!

Kelham Island Brewery

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Beer number three in our light versus dark series arrives in April. Gentleman Death 6% is a devilishly delicious Baltic Porter 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. gentleman_death_pump For the Bolan fans 20th Century Boy 4.8% makes a return. A strong pale well hopped with a revolutionary selection of the best new world hops imported from Australia and skilfully blended for a stupendous aroma of lychee, passion fruit and melon. A glam rocker of a straw coloured ale so invigorating it will take you to T-Rextacy. 20thcenturyboy We still have a few spaces for our Whisky and Chocolate evening on Friday 21 March. Former Savoy Group somellier, Barry Starmore, will present and interesting selection of whisky paired with a chocolate selection from ‘Cocoa Wonderland’ on Ecclesall Road. For details of this and all upcoming events check our website.

Blue Bee Brewery

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At the end of April the World Snooker Championship returns and we will see four beers from Blue Bee Brewery to celebrate the event. Brown Ball, Blue Ball and Pink Ball are welcome returns however we present something rather special for 2014. Print Inhov the Black weighs in at 7% abv and is Blue Bee’s take on an Imperial Russian Stout. Richard describes this new creations as a vigorously hopped black stout with an enticing medley of five assorted malts and a carefully selected trio of hops. And so to the pUnK zone, and the latest in the pUnK-tuation series of beers. Back in ’77, amid a storm of Filth and Fury, one of the most important, influential LPs ever was unleashed onto the world. The Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind The Bollocks” was an unrelenting, uncompromising assault on the senses. Blue Bee Section is a pale ale, hugely hoppy, and, by chance, an unrelenting, uncompromising assault on the senses. Hop Save The Queen. Bitter to the end. Finally as the sun has appeared and winter feel like it is well and truly over, Light Blue (3.6%) can be seen on bars in and around Sheffield. 3.6% and very quaffable this pale ale is full of Summit Hops and bursting with flavour!

Award winning beers

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At our Steel City beer festival held last October at Ponds Forge, the opening night saw several panels of judges – a mixture of CAMRA members, publicans, brewers, writers and random drinkers – tasting most of the beers in the festival to decide which were the best examples of their styles. The winning brewers are presented with their certificate in front of an appreciative crowd at the Steel City Beer Awards night held at Thornbridge Hall on Friday 28th February. We’d like to thank all those involved with the awards night including the winning brewers for providing beer, Thornbridge for providing the venue and Richard Ryan for organising the night, all played their part in making it happen and at a very affordable ticket price. SO, the winning beers…. Mild Category – Brampton Brewery : Brampton Mild brampton mild Dark, roasted and jam packed full of flavour. Actually it’s very difficult to describe as the characteristics change so much the longer it is allowed to condition for. Brampton Mild is not so much a meal in a glass as a 5-course banquet. Coffee, toffee and caramel tones tease your taste buds and warm your cockles. Bitter Category – Sportsman Brewing Company of Huddersfield : Darker Shade of Ale Darker-Shade-of-Ale-141x200 A session strength Bitter at just 3.9% and darker than most, punches above its weight in the flavour stakes. Best Bitter Category – Ashover Brewery : Littlemore Citra Pale and a little fruity, this single hopped Best Bitter is mighty refreshing! Strong Bitter Category – Tigertops : Black Hop Porter Category – Acorn Brewery : Old Moor Porter old-moor-porter_lge A full bodied victorian style porter with hints of liquorice. The initial bitterness gives way to a smooth, mellow finish. Stout Category – Wentworth Brewery : Sloe Stout Champion Beer of Sheffield A separate competition, each brewery located in Sheffield selected one of their beers for a taste off against each other, the results… Gold – The Brew Company, Crazy Horse IPA Silver – Sheffield Brewery Company, Sheffield Porter Bronze (joint) – Abbeydale Brewery, Black Mass Bronze (joint) – Bradfield Brewery, Farmers Blonde black_massBlonde500-copy-2Sheffield_Porter_t

Inn Brief

Posted on by Andy Cullen
The Freemasons at the bottom of Walkley Lane is under new management and is now called The Riverside. There is a range of real ales starting at £2.35 a pint. – The Sportsman at Crosspool, an Ember Inn has six real ales with the guest beers being voted for by the customers. There is an illustrated Ale Guide with descriptions of the beers to choose from. The manager Michael Cashmore and his team offer all real ales at £2.49 after 5pm on Monday and to CAMRA members there is 20p off all the time. – The Coach & Horses in Dronfield is offering 20p off a pint for CAMRA members on all the Thornbridge cask ales. – A planning application has been submitted to Sheffield Council seeking permission to demolish The Wheel, Plumbley Lane, Mosborough, and replace it with housing. Documents supporting the application say there are other pubs nearby and The Wheel is no longer financially viable. A decision is expected from the council by the end of March. – Bamford Post Office has relocated to the Angler’s Rest. Liz Marshall, of pub owners Bamford Community Society, said: “We are delighted to be able to save this amenity.” Continue reading “Inn Brief”

Dronfield pub awards

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Our Dronfield & District sub-branch have named their award winning pubs to celebrate what is good and being done well in the pub world locally.

Most Improved Pub of the Year

Victoria Dronfield Presentation (3)The Most Improved Pub in Dronfield award has gone to the Victoria on Stubley Lane. This pub used to be part of the Punch Taverns estate but the building was sold off by Punch and thankfully, rather than being converted to housing, was bought by Chris Snell who has refurbished the pub, improved the beer range and created a great lively atmosphere. You can enjoy special offers on the beer on a Monday, free food at half time when football is on the telly and live entertainment at the weekend. Chris has been rewarded by all this effort with a pub that is much busier than before he bought it! The Vic have also put on their first beer festival, last August, as part of the Three Valleys Ridge festival.

Cider and Overall Pub of the Year

Cider Pub of the Year was awarded to the Travellers Rest at Apperknowle, which has since gone on to be voted the overall Dronfield & District Pub of the Year. The Travellers is a proper rural drinkers pub with friendly staff, cosy corners and a warm fire. A choice of up to 9 real ales are available with the guest ales generally sourced via local breweries and a blackboard shows the current range of traditional ciders, served direct from the cellar. They don’t do meals at the Travs, however if you are hungry £5 will get you a fantastic platter of quality cheeses, pork pie and pickles. Live music is hosted regularly and from time to time beer festivals are held, with the pub being one of the newer additions to the Three Valleys festival. All are invited to attend the Pub of the Year presentation night and celebrate this award with Sarah, Lauren and the regular and not-so-regular customers on Saturday March 8th and enjoy the great range of beers and ciders along with samples of their cheese platters. To get to the Travellers during the daytime buses 15, 16 and 16A run there from Dronfield Civic Centre and railway station, unfortunately there is no public transport to Apperknowle in the evening but taxis are available to/from the nearest bus route in Coal Aston (44) or Eckington (50).

Winter Pub of the Season

Cross-Daggers-Coal-Aston-POTSAlso in Dronfield, the sub branch have presented their Winter Pub of the Season award to the Cross Daggers in Coal Aston.