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.
CAMRA celebrates real cider twice a year, in October and May, the former as it is when the apples are harvested and cidermakers are busy pressing the fresh apples and starting the juice fermenting into cider. May is generally when the cider is ready to drink!
Sheffield isn’t exactly known for cider or perry (perry being made from pears instead of apples) and the vast majority sold around here is an industrial product made from concentrate but there are a few local heroes flying the flag.
Dick Shepley of Woodthorpe Hall, Holmesfield (near Dronfield) has an annual apple pressing weekend in his garden with friends, family and business contacts all coming round, bringing their own apples and helping out with the work involved and a bit of a social occasion is made of it. The juice is fermented in tanks in a barn with a little help from an addition of champagne yeast. A range of four ciders come out of each pressing of various strengths and sweetness.
Also near Dronfield is Drone Valley Brewery, who of course a better known for their beer but each year their members donate all the windfall apples from their gardens and a pressing takes place to make a small batch of cider.
The Cider Hole at Shalesmoor is Sheffield’s only specialist cider bar and owner Mike Pomranz also makes cider on the premises under the Exemption Ciderhouse name. Some of the ciders are made from locally sourced windfall apples whilst others are single variety ciders made with West Country cider apples. The bar in addition to their own stock a range of bottled ciders both from the UK and the rest of the world, normally accompanied by a soundtrack played on vinyl. The Cider Hole celebrated their first anniversary on the weekend of 16/17 September with special offers, snacks, some rather special ciders to taste and apple pressing demos. Note their opening hours are limited and vary from week to week, check online at istheciderholeopen.com.
Somewhere great to buy bottled ciders to enjoy at home is Hop Hideout located at the rear of Kommune food hall on Angel Street in Sheffield City Centre whilst pubs notable for making an effort with cider include the Harlequin on Nursery Street near Kelham Island and the New Barrack Tavern on Penistone Road near Hillsborough.
Don’t forget our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, which takes place at Kelham Island Museum from 19-22 October, features two bars dedicated to cider and perry.
You may have noticed that there are some “craft” beer brands that are starting to appear in a lot of pubs, bars and restaurants, sometimes at the expense of local beers, sometimes just creating disappointment when you see a new place open advertising “craft beers” only to find the same old beers on the menu.
Possibly the most prolific in this category in our area is Beavertown Brewery with Neck Oil and Gamma Ray quite commonly available. This brewery is now owned by Heineken and has seen huge expansion in their production capacity and benefits from a large scale sales and distribution network as well as a large estate of Heineken owned venues (including pubs leased by independent operators from Star Pubs & Bars or Punch Taverns) to supply.
Another internationally owned “craft” brand is Camden Town Brewery. Whilst the name encourages you to dream of hipsters down Camden Locks in London brewing small batch artisan ales the brewery is actually owned by AV Inbev, the same global company behind Budweiser, Corona, Becks, Leffe and Stella Artois who again have a huge sales, marketing and distribution resource.
Also in this category is Brixton Brewery, owned by Heineken and I’d also conisider Brewdog too now they have grown into a global brand with beers like Punk IPA not what they were and available cheaply in supermarkets.
Some commentators are drawing parallels with the earlier days of CAMRA where the national “Big Six” brewers dominated pubs, making it difficult for smaller regional brewers to access the market and giving consumers less choice as a result.
Of course the likes of Beavertown and Camden Town started out as small independent brewers using quality ingredients and a passion for good beer before selling out to the big boys who saw rising demand for craft and wanted that market for themselves.
People are having conversations on whether any kind of campaigning or lobbying for a modern day version of the guest beer rights should take place, however for now the best way to support small, independent local (and not so local) brewers is to choose their beers where it is on the bar or menu – pubs, bars and restaurants are businesses and will sell what makes them money after all!
Grizzly Grains Brewing celebrate their third birthday with an event at their brewery on 30 September and 1 October involving beer and sausages. Tickets are available in advance from Eventbrite that include your first beer and a sausage. The brewery is on Duchess Road, just off Queens Road (on bus routes 24/25) close to the City Centre.
September is that time of year when hops have just been harvested and a number of beers appear that have been brewed with green (i.e. freshly picked) hops. A couple of local breweries have brewed beers with locally grown hops – Grizzly Grains with hops from Sheffield Organic Growers and Drone Valley with Fuggle hops grown by one of their members in the Eckington area.
New beers from brewSocial include Jester Minute, a 3.7% ABV rich bronze coloured ale brewed with pale chocolate malt and Jester hops. As with all their beers this is unfined and suitable for vegans.
Collyfobble have launched a new beer Black Ower Bill’s Mother’s. This is an Irish stout brewed with roasted barley in the grist for sophisticated flavours of coffee and dark chocolate, which sits alongside a sweet creaminess and good body from the addition of malted oats. It is a modern twist on a classic style.
Latest beers from Stancill includes the return of Sophie, a traditional style blonde ale with familiar notes of honey to perfectly temper the malty bitterness for a comforting, well balanced pint. There is also a new special, Endeavour, a ruby special brew which blends three English hop varieties to give a distinctive blackcurrant flavour with warming spicy aromas.
Chantry have released Citra V2, a 4.1% ABV pale, refreshing, light fruity beer with hints of melon, limes and passion fruit. With a grapefruit and gooseberry aroma.
Intrepid Brewing Company are holding their final brewery tap event of the year on 1 October with fresh beers including some new releases on the bar and Sunshine Pizza in attendance serving out in the brewery yard. For more details check the brewery’s Facebook page.
We briefly mentioned the change of management of the Old Queen’s Head next to Sheffield Interchange bus station back in the August issue of Beer Matters and the fact that the new manager, Josh, is actually an old face to the regulars as he already worked behind the bar there!
Briefly after the changeover the beer range was reduced to just the Thwaites range and the food service was also operating a limited menu, however the good news is the two guest ale pumps are now back in action and working their way through an ever changing choice of mainly local beers. On the day the photograph was taken the choice was brewSocial Simply the Zest (an IPA with a citrus kick, 5.5% ABV) and Little Critters Great Danish (a maple and pecan pastry stout at 7.4% ABV).
On the food side a full menu is back in operation, the main menu is very much all about pub grub classics and a cheaper lunchtime menu is also available offering a choice of hot dishes, sandwiches and burgers for £5-6.
The pub itself has seen no change and is spread across three rooms on the ground floor – the historical dining room, the small lounge and the main lounge; there are TV screens in the main lounge showing news or sporting events and there is also an upstairs function room.
Many of you will remember Jack Cater and his dad Andy when they had the Railway on Bramall Lane as a good beer pub, until the Coronavirus pandemic marked the end of that era. They are now back in the pub game at another Railway, this time on Penistone Road North in Wadsley Bridge.
The Wadsley Bridge Railway was sold as the result of the retirement of the long-term landlady there and was potentially under the threat of demolition had it fallen into the wrong hands. It is a classic multi-room pub with a main lounge at the front and games/entertainment room at the back both served by a kiosk style bar, and a separate small room off to the side suitable for private meetings and get togethers. There is also a car park and small outdoor seating area at the rear.
Jack admits they still have quite a bit of work to get done after buying the pub with the decor beginning to look a bit shabby, however at the same time there was a pleasant surprise with the tiled floor in the entrance which had been covered up and will be kept!
This Railway is another pub that is likely to be busy on match days, although of course this time Sheffield Wednesday rather than United, which suits Jack as a season ticket holder at Hillsborough. The pub is a decent size and there is a range of mainstream beers on the bar to cater for football crowds wanting that, however there are also four handpumps serving local cask ales and a range of craft beers on the keg taps from the likes of Verdant, Deya, Pollys. Brewing by Numbers, Burnt Mill and Abbeydale breweries.
Like at their previous pub, there are signs of the longer established family business Amusement Caterers with a juke box, pool table, table football and table-top retro arcade games present in the back room. This room also has a stage and there is an intention to host live music in the future.
The Railway is easily reached by bus with routes 7, 8 and 86 from the City Centre and route 97 from Hillsborough Interchange passing the front door.
Initially the pub only opened at weekends, however they have now extended to full hours and are open Wednesday and Thursday 4pm to 11pm, Friday 2pm to 11pm, Saturday midday to midnight and Sunday 2pm to 10pm.
Drone Valley Brewery, based in Unstone near Dronfield, are taking their pop up bar to the Bradway Fun Day on Saturday 10 September. This is a community event organised by the Bradway Action Group (BAG) and runs from 1:30pm to 4:30pm and includes stalls, games, dog show, bouncy castle and refreshments. The venue is the Old School Field/Village Green behind the Old School Annexe on the junction of Bradway Road and Twentywell Lane. Buses 25 and M17 stop close by outside the shops.
Intrepid Brewery in Brough (near Bradwell) held another open day on 13 August with a bar open in the brewery with a street food trader and music in the yard outside.
You probably never noticed that Grizzly Grains Brewing had never produced a traditional bitter, this has been rectified with a new beer in cask that contains crystal malt and English hops. Also new out on cask is their new single hop pale ale brewed with UK grown Chinook hops which should produce a floral aroma and hints of honey and pine in the flavour.
Steel City Brewing’s latest collaboration is one in the loosest possible sense, Remote Chiller saw Dale at Imperial Brewery of Mexborough do the work whilst Dave from Steel City was lounging abroad on holiday! It is however a proper old skool Steel City style beer from the days when it was all about hops and bitterness – this is a transatlantic pale ale, 4.8% ABV and 102.9 IBU (international bitterness units).
Heist Brew Co have launched a collaboration beer with the Leadmill to support the campaign to keep the current management there (the national company that currently leases it to them are not renewing the lease so they can run it themselves as part of a chain). The beer is Who did you Queue for? and is a 6% New England IPA available in can and KeyKeg with cans sporting a QR code that takes you to the petition to save the Leadmill in its current internationally respected guise as an independent local venue.
BrewSocial’s latest beers (at the time of writing!) are Simply the Zest, a 5.3% IPA single hopped with Lemon Drop, and Mind the Gap, a 4% session pale. All their beers are unfined therefore suitable for vegans and often served naturally hazy.
After having a couple of beers on the bar at the Great British Beer Festival, someone in London asked why Chantry Brewery‘s New York Pale was called as such, given that it is brewed in Rotherham! The beer was launched after Rotherham United’s New York Stadium opened and is named after the stadium, which got its name as it was built in the area that was home to Guest & Chrimes, the Rotherham company that was involved in the manufacture of New York’s famous red fire hydrants!
Stancill‘s latest new brew is a session IPA at 4.7% brewed with Citra hops. It is simply named IPA.
Magic Rock Brewing of Huddersfield has been sold by Lion to a UK based company, Odyssey Inns Ltd, set up by Stephen Cox who originally founded the Craft Beer Company that has a chain of pubs in London. When Magic Rock sold out to Lion many in the craft beer community decided to boycott their beer due to the reputation of Lion and hopefully this change of ownership will restore the image of Magic Rock and the range of beers they offer in cask, keg and can.
One of the recent new beers from Blue Bee has been Cascade Vista, a sessionable 3.7% ABV pale ale named after the hop varieties used.
The Ball at Crookes has had a refurbishment and reopened on the 16 July with live entertainment to celebrate.
The people behind the Indie-go bar at Steel Yard Kelham in Neepsend have announced they are opening a second bar, Indie-go Resurrection in the City Centre premises that was previously the Devonshire Cat. It is expected to open until 3am and feature live music at the weekend. They are hoping to have opened at the end of July in time for Tramlines fringe.
Neepsend Social Club & Canteen is now open on Burton Road, next to the Parrot Club and Peddlers Market. This venue is themed on a traditional working mans club and membership is available offering various perks, however it is open to all Wednesday to Sunday. They serve food until 9pm with a limited seasonal modern British food menu, with dishes like sausage and mash, scampi and chips and chicken in a basket. They also have games including a table football and darts and have quiz nights and bingo! There is no cask ale currently, however local breweries including Abbeydale and Thornbridge are represented on the keg taps.
The Boston Arms at Woodseats have been running a Monday Cask Ale Club with beer reduced to a very affordable £2.80 a pint. Also offering discounts on a Monday to keep the ale flowing on a typically quiet day is the Clubhouse on London Road offering bargain £2.50 pints.
The opening of the Tunnel Tap at Totley Rise gets closer, at the time of writing the flooring was in and the bar was under construction!
1st July saw a beer launch at Heist Brew Co.‘s tap room involving a collaboration with Emperors. The beer involved was “Something Something Dark Side”, an 11% salted caramel imperial stout with three versions available – the base beer, a version aged in a rum barrel and a version aged in a bourbon barrel, the latter being on cask.
The first beer out of Brew Social hit the bar at the Social on Snig Hill on Friday 15 July with brewer Richard Hough and the team there to make it a bit of a launch event. The beer was “Out to Launch” a 4.5% pale ale with Cascade hops. All the BrewSocial beers are to be unfined therefore suitable for vegans and naturally slightly hazy. The first few beers to be brewed will be pale and hoppy at various strengths and with various hop varieties, once they are established a dark beer will follow in time for winter!
The Little John Inn at Hathersage continues to offer a changing selection of beers on both cask and keg and have recently been featuring the relatively local Eyam Brewery with their premium bitter on handpump and strong stouts on keg such as the Bubonic Orange (6%) and Imperial Black Death (11%). A Jam night has been launched on Tuesdays from 8pm and they continue to have a pool table and table football.
The Dog & Partridge on Trippet Lane in Sheffield City Centre have announced they are now free of tie from the pub company they lease the pub from, meaning they can now go to any brewer or wholesale for all their beer lines rather than just the pub company. We can look forward to seeing what interesting different beers start appearing on their bar!
There has been a change of management at the Old Queen’s Head by Sheffield bus Interchange, which is leased from Thwaites Brewery, with Mike and Zuzana calling it a day. The new manager is Josh Tomlinson and there a new chef there, initially serving from a limited menu of pub classics plus lunchtime sandwiches and burgers. We wish every success to Josh and also look forward to seeing Mike and Zuzana on the right side of the bar!
Stancill Brewery‘s classic American pale ale American Beauty is back! All-American hops – Cascade & Citra – provide soft floral aromas and citrus flavours with a punchy, peppery finish. It is also a fairly sensible strength at 4.8% ABV.
Recent beers from Neepsend Brewery available in cask include Dema, a 3.8% session pale hopped with Azacca & Sabro; Pitthea, a 4.2% hazy pale; Cybele a 4.7% Amercian Pale hopped with Ekuanote and HBC431 (which promises to be a fruity, tropical little number).
Bradfield Brewery have a new beer out, Elderflower Ale. This is a one off small batch brew produced with fresh elderflowers giving it a subtle summery floral aroma, balanced by zesty citrus and grapefruit notes from the hops, finishing with a slight bitterness. It should be a perfect refreshing beer for a hot summer evening! Once all that has gone the next seasonal beer to look forward to is the return of Farmers Blueberry Ale, which some may describe as summer’s answer to Belgian Blue!
Little Critters continue with their series of single batch cask specials, the latest is the third in the series and is a 4.5% session IPA hopped with Galaxy and Sabro.
New from St Mars of the Desert is a Victorian inspired Golden Mild using bramling cross and whitbread goldings hops with British malt and historical invert sugars, brewed by Scarlet the brewery’s apprentice brewer.
Grizzly Grain have been busy brewing interesting new beers including Pine Martin, an English Pale Ale; NZ Pale brewed with Rakau and Wai-iti hops; Get Down, a pale ale brewed with Citra and Amarillo hops. They’ve also been making a mixed fermentation braggot using fresh organic UK cherries.
In Sheffield & District branch we get to enter two of our Pub of the Year award winners into the national competition – one in Yorkshire and one in North Derbyshire. Our Derbyshire entry is the Anglers Rest in Bamford and we’ll be presenting them with our District Pub of the Year award on 30 July at 3pm (all welcome to join us there for a beer!)
Part of the deal of entering a pub in the North Derbyshire competition is you have to help out judging all the other branch’s entries and this made for an enjoyable day out!
Judging is to a set criteria, this includes factors such as beer quality, clientele mix, cleanliness, service, promotion of real ale, value for money, community and sympathy with CAMRA’s aims.
We started with a ride on the Stagecoach X17 bus from Sheffield to Matlock, this is a limited stop service routed via the Dronfield by-pass and Chesterfield and takes just over an hour to get there, where we planned to visit the Matlock & Dales entry to the competition.
The Twenty Ten in Matlock was of a relatively modern design with a mixture of sofa areas and dining type table areas and a pool table at the back. The bar boasted a good selection of cask ales along with some interesting craft beers on keg plus some quality sausage rolls and other bar snacks as well as a more substantial food menu, all served by a friendly manager and staff. Standards were high with everything kept clean and tidy and this is the pub that went on to win the competition.
Whilst in Matlock we took the opportunity to visit Bod, newly opened just a few doors down, the latest branch of a cafe-bar chain owned by Titanic Brewery. This was a laid back kind of place with two counters – a traditional pub bar serving beers from Titanic plus guests and a coffee shop counter serving hot drinks and some rather nice cakes!
A half hour or so back on the X17 bus took us to Chesterfield to judge their entry, the Chesterfield Arms, which is now also home to Twisted Devil brewery, located in what used to be the barn function room. A visit here is of course an opportunity to try their beers, however there is a wide range of ales from various breweries both modern and traditional, including the classic bitter that is Bass! Bar snacks from the fridge include pork pies and cheese platters whilst the hot food menu features pizzas, wings and loaded fries.
Again, whilst in the area, we succumbed to the temptation to pop in another close by pub that we had to walk past to reach the bus stop – the Neptune Beer Emporium is on a residential street just down the hill and is of an interesting design – you walk in and are immediately faced with the bar, which features a great range of reasonably priced beers on both cask and keg and there are rooms to both the left and right plus a decent sized outdoor drinking area at the rear. This pub also regularly features live music.
Our next hop was on TM Travel’s number 15 bus to judge the Dronfield & District branch entry. The bus was faster than expected (well I suppose the timetable might have gave us a clue I suppose) as it jumped on the Dronfield by-pass for a quick whizz up to Unstone then just nipped up the country lane to drop us outside the Miners Arms in Hundall, which sits on the edge of a hill in a rural spot with a great view over the valley. The Miners is a traditional local village boozer with a range of reasonably priced ales and ciders, pool table, sport on TV, occasional live music and beer garden. You can usually find beer from Pictish along with the local Drone Valley brewery plus changing guests, a great atmosphere and lots of dogs wandering around looking for attention!
To get back to Sheffield we had to join the next number 15 bus down to Dronfield town centre and connect with the Stagecoach 43 or 44 to Sheffield, this of course offers the chance for a beer between buses around the Dronfield High Street area (pubs here include the Victoria, Blue Stoops, Manor House Hotel and Green Dragon) or Dronfield Bottom (options include the Dronfield Arms, Underdog and White Swan). As it turned out the TM Travel bus didn’t turn up to pick us up in Hundall so a taxi was summonsed which quickly took us down to Dronfield, giving us time to visit 2 pubs with beer gardens before the bus to Sheffield was due!
More information about the pubs – visit whatpub.com, CAMRA’s national pub database maintained by volunteers (we are looking for some assistance with this if you are interested by the way!)
Bus tickets:
Stagecoach: a Gold DayRider offers unlimited travel on all their buses in Derbyshire plus South & West Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire along with Supertram. Adult £7.80, group of up to 5 people £20.
Bus 43/44 provides up to 3 buses an hour between Sheffield and Dronfield whilst the X17 runs hourly through to Matlock (half hourly as far as Chesterfield).
TM Travel: Their Daysaver costs £4.50. The rural bus 15 runs once every 2 hours.
Derbyshire Wayfarer: Includes almost all buses and trains in Derbyshire plus direct services between Sheffield and Derbyshire, adult £13.40, family (2 adults and 3 children) £24.
The long awaited opening of Chantry Brewery‘s on site tap room takes place on Thursday 23 June at 6pm. It is located upstairs on a mezzanine level overlooking the brewing areas and has a bar showcasing the range of Chantry beers.
The bar is open to the public on Thursday evenings 6-11pm and Saturdays 1-11pm whilst on Fridays they will be hosting ticketed live music gigs with the doors open 7pm and bands on from 8pm. On those Fridays without a gig the bar will open to the public 5pm-11pm.
The brewery is in Parkgate, a short walk from the tram train terminus.
