Author: Andy Cullen

The dates have been announced for the 2024 edition of Sheffield Beer Week, which will be taking place from 4 to 10 March. This will be the 10th anniversary of this initiative that celebrates the Sheffield beer scene including the people in it with themes of beer, food, community and heritage.

The event started its life when SIBA’s annual conference and BeerX was held in Sheffield in order to show off what we have in Sheffield to all those trade people visiting the city and has evolved over the last decade into what it is today.

You can look forward to many different events independently organised across the city in pubs, bars, restaurants and breweries – possibly even shops and galleries too based on past experience! It is all coordinated by Jules Gray of Hop Hideout who also organises the annual Indie Beer Feast – a festival showcasing independent brewers with most of the bars hosted by the brewers themselves – which usually takes place the weekend prior to beer week.

For the latest news on the beer week, keep an eye on the website – sheffieldbeerweek.co.uk – or their socials.

Richard Ryan, or Ricko to friends, passed away in hospital on the morning of 20 September.

For many years Ricko was actively involved in the Sheffield & District CAMRA branch holding various committee roles including chairman, however I think most people remember him as social secretary, organising some excellent minibus trips to various pubs and breweries, Christmas dinner parties and an annual day out at the Thornbridge Hall charity garden party – which was one of our branch’s few family orientated events.

Ricko was involved in brewery related socials well before my drinking career began and Chris Pearce, who now volunteers as cellar manager at our beer festival, recalls first meeting him on a coach trip from the Cocked Hat Attercliffe to Marstons Brewery in the late 1980s. “The coach stopped on the way back for more beer (as if we needed more!) and then on joining the M1 for one junction, we hit a jam. An eternity later we left at junction 29 and stopped at the first lay-by for us to empty aching bladders. The whole coach was lined up against the hedge and we all roared with laughter. We next met when I did my first festival circa 2002 and amazingly he remembered me. Since then we’ve always had a good chat at festivals. And that coach trip was remembered in our last conversation in the Northern General”.

Ricko was also clubs officer, championing the traditional working mens clubs and keen to find ones with real ale, an interest that was down to growing up in a family that had been involved with running clubs.

He was also involved in our beer festival organising committee and for a number of years was responsible for booking the bands. This was generally a huge success although one year a rock covers band was asked to turn the volume down due to the venue having a wedding party booked in next door to the festival with the result being the band stormed off stage and left! Ricko had to be consoled on the night as he felt he had let everyone down, however since has laughed about it with the rest of us!

For a number of years Ricko also organised an awards night for the beers that had been judged the best of the festival. He was keen to make it a special – but affordable – occasion and managed to persuade Thornbridge to provide us with a high class venue free of charge and the winning brewers to provide free beer – so we were able to sell affordable tickets that just had to cover the cost of a coach to Thornbridge Hall and a buffet! Whilst the support of those businesses was something we were most grateful for, it was really Ricko’s warm and easy going character and personality that helped make the organisation of such events possible.

Ricko loved his real ale – and also stronger Belgian beers (I wonder thinking back now if that is why bottles often appeared at our beer festival!) He was also a fan of Laurel & Hardy and was a member of Sons of the Desert, an appreciation society, which did see some cross over with his CAMRA membership with film screenings in pubs and joint brewery trips organised!

In more recent years Ricko’s health and mobility wasn’t so great, however he did still make the effort to come and help at the beer festival doing a desk job in the cashiers office (aka “counting house”), a volunteer role he’d held for quite a few years. Dr Tim Stillman recalls them working together in some strange places – An artiste’s dressing room with lights around the mirrors, behind a curtain at the back of a stage and even a dingy broom cupboard with no ventilation. At an outdoor festival in Cemetery Park, the counting house was our friends caravan parked behind the marquee. It rained constantly and as the festival went on the mud got deeper and deeper in and out of the caravan. As we were counting one afternoon I noticed Richard’s neat piles of ten pence’s were taking on the appearance of the leaning tower of Pisa. Also our pens seemed to be rolling across the table towards us. He looked at me and said “I think we best sit on the other side of the table” 

Meanwhile in Handsworth, where he lived most of his life, he did continue to make the occasional appearance at the Chantry Inn, which is where a get-together was held following his well attended funeral.

For those that couldn’t make the funeral or wake another chance to raise a toast to Ricko was provided at this years beer festival with a special beer on the bar brewed in tribute by Bradfield Brewery called Counting House Stout.

First bus made some changes to their timetables on 3 September, much of this was adjustments to journey times to reflect traffic congestion and there have also been some changes to evening services. This does include some bits of good news including a later last bus to Totley on weekdays.

Coming up on 29 October is much more significant change. This will see reductions in evening and Sunday services on routes that are operated with subsidy under contract to the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, additionally there will be some changes for buses run under contract to Derbyshire County Council. At the time of writing the majority of the planned changes hadn’t been announced so keep an eye on travelsouthyorkshire.com for Sheffield buses and derbysbus.info for Derbyshire buses.

From CAMRA’s point of view having buses available to get you to and from pubs, particularly at the most popular times for socialising and leisure activities which is evenings and weekends, is important and we are concerned at the prospect of more cuts to services in South Yorkshire. There are already parts of the city with no buses at these times and not being able to get to the pub and enjoy socialising is bad for mental health as well as potentially leading to pubs going out of business from lack of custom if they are relying on customers travelling from further afield than their local neighbourhood – not everyone can afford regular use of taxis!

There are some further positive developments included in the 29 October changes we are aware of however, including the introduction of a later evening service on the X17 between Sheffield and Chesterfield and also the extension of evening and Sunday services on route 44 through to Chesterfield. The recently introduced improvements to evening services on the 218 and 257 to Bakewell and 272 to Castleton are also to continue. Many of these improvements are being supported by Derbyshire County Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) package funded by the government.

The previously reported Peak Sightseer open top bus tour between Chatsworth, Baslow, Calver and Bakewell ends its daily summer service at the end of September but will continue running at weekends until Christmas eve if you still want to give it a go!

The 1 November sees some changes to fares with the government subsidised bus fare cap increasing from £2 to £2.50 and the end of the South Yorkshire Mayor’s Zoom Beyond card trial, which offered 18-21 year olds travel at 80p per ride. It may also sees the £2 fare on trams funded by the South Yorkshire Mayor end – details here are not yet announced. If you are taking more than one ride a day or travelling regularly check if one of the unlimited travel passes will save you money.