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.

PUBlic Transport

Posted on by Andy Cullen

Those of you planning on using buses, trams or trains to get to pubs and brewery tap rooms in the coming weeks have some discounted ticket offers to take advantage of, with all the adult tickets in the Travelmaster range discounted.

Travelmaster tickets are accepted by all operators and includes CityBus for all buses in Sheffield and CityWide that includes trams too along with SY Connect that includes all buses and trams in South Yorkshire and SY Connect+ that also includes trains.

For more information and to buy tickets online visit sytravelmaster.com. Day tickets can also be bought from bus drivers and tram conductors or on the First and Stagecoach apps. Be aware that railway stations and train conductors cannot sell the discounted tickets, so if you want a train inclusive ticket buy from a bus or tram company or online!

Alongside the Travelmaster summer sale there are a number of ongoing offers from individual operators, for example Stagecoach Yorkshire are running a five travel for a fiver deal every weekend. Check out operator websites for the latest information.

Timetables and maps can be downloaded from travelsouthyorkshire.com.

You can track buses operated by Stagecoach, First, TM Travel and Hulleys of Baslow live on a map at the independently run bustimes.org website.

Indie Beer Feast Trail

Posted on by Andy Cullen

The normal beer festival at Abbeydale Picture House has been unable to happen this year due to Covid, but the Festival trail is here over the weekend of 6 to 8 August. Here is our mini-guide to the venues taking part.

The Indie Beer Feast Festival Trail Facebook event has the latest information.

There are some discount deals on public transport passes at the moment, for example a Citywide pass for all day unlimited travel on any bus or tram in Sheffield costs £3.80 (normally £5.10). More information about this can be found on the Travelmaster ticket website whilst timetables and maps are available from Travel South Yorkshire.

 

THE VENUES

THE BEERS

AT SHAKESPEARE’S

CASK

  • Neptune Enzili Pale Ale 4%
  • Neptune Galene Session IPA 4.3%
  • Neptune Mosaic Pale Ale 4.5%
  • Neptune Nelson Sails Again NZ Pale 4.5%
  • Neptune Camulos Belgian Dubbel 6.9%
  • Torrside If You Build It oak smoked Pale 4%
  • Torrside Slice of Heaven NZ IPA 6.2%
  • Torrside Valour 1917 Imperial Stout 7.7%

KEG

  • Neptune River Runs Free Pale Ale 4.5%
  • Neptune Ostara Currant Bun Saison 5.6%
  • Torrside Franconia Smoked Beer 5.2%
  • Zero Ducks Raspberry IPA 6.2%

AT BAR STEWARDS

  • Abbeydale DRY HOPPED Heathen 4.1% American Pale Ale which has been dry hopped in the cask with extra Mosaic for an extra hoppy kick! ?
  • Abbeydale Double Deception 8.2% Nelson Sauvin DIPA on CASK! An extra special beer to celebrate Abbeydale’s 25th birthday and we’ve only gone and got some on cask ?
  • Abbeydale Celebration 2.8% Mimosa Quarter IPA. To balance out the craziness of that DIPA we’ve got a nice sessionable fruity small IPA, an equally celebratory beer but at a lower ABV.
  • Abbeydale Wanderer 6.0% Outlaws IPA. A lovely Willamette and Nelson Sauvin IPA, a crispier take on the New England IPA.
  • PLUS – beers from Lost Industry and Turning Point.

AT HOP HIDEOUT (INCLUDES CIDER TOO!)

At Hop Hideout we’ll be pouring @rockleopardbrewing@pomonaislandbrew @wildernessbrew @rosscider @hoganscider (bottle only)Each day Jules will be hosting a short mini-tasting, limited samples, once they’re gone they’re gone! Head to the counter:Fri 6th 1pm Rock Leopard Sat 7th 1pm Hogans / Pomona Island 4pmSun 8th 1pm Wilderness / 4pm Ross

AT KELHAM ISLAND TAVERN

AT RUTLAND ARMS

AT THE CROW INN

KEG:

  • Duration: Shifting Bassline – 5.0% Mosaic pale
  • Duration/ Beak: Sail – 4.2% Cellared saision
  • Duration/ DEYA: Crocs in the Coolship – 5.7% Coolship wit
  • Mobberley: Summer IPA – 6.0% IPA with Citra and Mosaic
  • Mobberley: Circuit Breaker – 10.5% Imperial Stout

CASK:

  • Mobberley: Elysium – 4.7% Session IPA.
  • Black Iris: Divine Elements – 6.0% IPA.
  • Black Iris: Stab in the Dark – 5.0% New Zealand stout

We’re back!

Posted on by Andy Cullen

Ok, technically we never went away as we’ve been doing a lot of campaign work behind the scenes online over the last year or so, however now the government has announced that the Covid risk is now low enough to lift restrictions on groups meeting and pubs are able to operate in a more normal fashion we are resuming our socials, meetings and other activities that you as a member can get involved with in person from next week. You can find all the details in the diary.

Socials

For summer/autumn 2021 we are running two types of monthly event, mostly on Saturdays:

  • Beery day out to pubs (normally visiting pubs and brewery tap rooms by public transport) including a bus trip to Glossop on 14 August and a tour by tram on 25 September.
  • RambAle – a nice walk in the countryside with a few real ale pubs along the way. These include Bents Green to Totley via Ringinglow on 31 July and the Hope Valley on 28 August

Additionally our Pub Heritage Officer Dave Pickersgill will be leading walking tours this September for the national Heritage Open Days with a choice of two heritage pub routes, one in the City Centre and one in Kelham Island/Neepsend. These need to be booked in advance.

Meetings

If you are interested in getting involved with how the branch operates, the campaigning side of things or simply catching up with us over a pint, the formal branch members meetings take place on the first Tuesday of each month. The venues change each month. The August meeting is at the soon to open Heist Brew Co and September is at the Chantry Inn (Handsworth), providing a great contrast between modern craft beer tap room and more traditional real ale pub between the two!

We are also looking for new committee members to get involved and take on specific roles that will help us operate more effectively as a branch.

Pub of the Month award scheme

Now pubs are open we have resumed the award scheme. Quite simply you can nominate and vote for pubs you think deserve recognition for serving well kept ale in a comfortable pub day in day out. All the pubs nominated before lockdown remain available to vote for and new nominations welcome too. Don’t forget this isn’t a competition between pubs, it is simply a way of celebrating good pubs. Voting forms are on our website and at branch meetings.

Beer Matters magazine

We are hoping to relaunch the printed edition from the September issue, with the magazines arriving from the printers for volunteers to distribute on 24 August (ahead of the bank holiday weekend). Articles and news from members to be included are most welcome, advertising space is now on sale and we are also looking for volunteers to deliver the magazines to pubs and other good beer venues.

Surveys

With the majority of pubs now open again we have the big challenge of getting CAMRA’s national online pub guide WhatPub up to date reflecting new openings, changes to opening hours etc and those pubs that have sadly closed. We’d appreciate it if you know of any changes to pubs you go in please let us know by visiting their page on WhatPub and use the submit updates link.

Beer & Cider Festival

We were hoping to resume our annual Steel City Beer & Cider Festival at Kelham Island Museum this year, to be open from 6 to 9 October, however CAMRA HQ is currently reviewing the new government guidance for events and due to the uncertainty of the financial implications it would mean promoting and organising the festival too last minute so we have reluctantly cancelled for this year. We’ll hopefully be back with a great event for 2022, however for 2021 we are looking at co-ordinating a replacement event across a number of pubs and breweries – watch this space!

Formal beer tastings

We are looking at getting together an official branch tasting panel. Volunteers will be trained then we will have a rolling programme of tasting the regularly brewed beers from local breweries to record tasting notes which will be used in the national Good Beer Guide. If you are interested, keep an eye out later in the year when we make a call for members to volunteer!

Learn & Discover

Don’t forget that as well as all the in person activity, your membership also gets you access to a lot of interesting content on the national CAMRA website including news from What’s Brewing and educational articles and videos from the Learn & Discover platform. Additionally the national Beer Magazine is published quarterly, printed editions are posted out to all members that have requested one (check your contact preferences online to see if you are down for one and change if necessary).

A note about pub going from 19 July

Whilst most legal Coronavirus restrictions are lifted from 19 July, government guidance is to continue with some caution and individual pubs have made their own decisions on how they will operate in a way that both brings back some normality and also maintains a safe environment for both staff and customers, particularly for the first month or so whilst the younger staff are not yet fully vaccinated. The industry is also being hard hit by staff shortages caused by staff being asked to self isolate after coming into contact with people that have tested positive.

A good number of pubs will not be offering bar stools and will be asking customers to move away from the bar area once served and also keeping doors and windows open for ventilation. Some pubs will be asking customers and staff to continue wearing face coverings when not seated.

We’ve not spotted any pubs planning on asking people to sign in to NHS Test & Trace after 19 July, however most will continue to display the QR code for those that still wish to.

We ask that you go out and support pubs but also respect any safety measures they feel they need to still have in place.

Real ale at Tramlines fringe

Posted on by Andy Cullen

If you haven’t got tickets to Tramlines music festival, which takes place in Hillsborough Park 23-25 July, but still want a weekend of live music, DJs and good beer, then there are many venues around Sheffield independently putting their own events on as part of the Tramlines Fringe, some of which are in real ale pubs!

To help you with some ideas of where to go over the weekend, we’re compiling a list of all the real ale pubs putting events on that we are aware of. If you know of any we’ve missed please send us the details and we’ll look at adding it to the list.

Each pub on the list has a link to its entry on whatpub.com where you can find details of their social media for more information along with a location map and public transport details such as the nearest tram stop!

We’ve only included those venues that normally serve real ale, if you need a more comprehensive guide to fringe festival venues check out our friends at This is Sheffield, Exposed Magazine or Sheffield Outdoor City.

Information on getting there by bus, train or tram can be found at travelsouthyorkshire.com.

 

Indie Beer Feast cancelled

Posted on by Andy Cullen

The Indie Beer Feast normally takes place at Abbeydale Picture House each March ahead of Sheffield Beer Week and is organised by Jules Gray of Hop Hideout, who also organises the beer week. The format involves a number of craft breweries hosting their own bars at the event alongside a Hop Hideout bar and street food area.

The 2020 festival was one of the last beer festivals that took place before Coronavirus lockdown happened. This year the dates were moved from March to August with a hope that Coronavirus restrictions would be gone come 21 June. This has now been moved to 19 July but of course there are no guarantees that will happen and the August festival date gets ever closer, so the difficult decision has been made to cancel the event with tickets valid at the next one in March 2022.

All is not lost though, a replacement event is taking place on the same weekend: 6-8 August. The Indie Beer Feast Festival Trail will see beer and cider related goings on spread across 6 venues – Hop Hideout (in Kommune), Crow Inn, Bar Stewards, Shakespeares, Kelham Island Tavern and the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert taproom.

For the latest news follow Indie Beer Feast on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Inn Brief

Posted on by Andy Cullen

The new micropub in Mosborough has a name and is now open! Craftworks can be found at 38C-D High Street (the main road through Mosborough, bus route 50/50a) and features a range of beers including four on cask and six craft kegs along with a lager. A double shop unit has been converted into a modern and stylish bar. Whilst Coronavirus restrictions are in place table bookings are being taken and advisable at the more popular times.

Also newly opened is the Beer Dog shop at 108 Charlotte Rd, near Bramall Lane stadium. This is owned by the same people as the Ranmoor Castle off licence and Berlin Calling bar and as well as a range of craft beer in bottle and can there is a range of draught beer to go, including one on cask and is a good place to obtain beer from the Crosspool Ale Makers.

Over in Crookes, the Old Grindstone has now reopened as a True North Brewery pub with a range of their beers plus guests on both cask and keg. The pub will feature sport on tv and live music, food is expected to launch early 2022 when the kitchen has been developed, until then customers are welcome to order takeaway meals to be delivered to the pub!

Jabbarwocky bar on London Road is hosting a tap takeover with Full Circle beers on 5 August.

Many of you will know of Guzzle micropub at Woodseats, a little neighbourhood bar with five real ales, well they are now opening a second one in Killamarsh this summer. It can be found at 193 Sheffield Road in the middle of a row of shops, this road is the main road down the valley and on bus routes 26/26a, 80/80a.

Another micropub planning to add a second location is Itchy Pig, the award winning bar in Broomhill, with plans to convert a shop in Banner Cross into a micropub. Meanwhile also at Banner Cross there are plans to convert an old bank into a pub called the Dark Horse!

The Wagon & Horses in Millhouses has opened their new beer garden located between the pub building and the park. This area of decking has plenty of tables and an ice cream kiosk!

A new bottle shop and bar called the Bear (Beer Emporium Abbeydale Road) is planning to open on Abbeydale Road in the premises that were previously the Rude Shipyard Café & Bookshop. As well as numerous fridges and shelves full of bottles and cans that appeal to most tastes and budgets there will be six keg lines. The shop is planning to open from 23 June with the drink in option likely to be introduced once Coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

Talking of new bottle shops, Maison du Biere, who run a popular beer shop and tap room in Elsecar are opening a new shop in Stocksbridge at 492 Manchester Rd, this was previously a butchers shop!

More pubs can reopen on 17 May

Posted on by Andy Cullen

The government have announced that step 3 of the roadmap out of lockdown will be going ahead as hoped on Monday 17 May, which allows indoor hospitality including pubs for the first time this year.

Until 17 May, pubs may only open for outdoor table service – see our list of venues currently open.

Covid safety restrictions are still a requirement from 17th May with table service, reduced capacity for social distancing, checking in to the NHS Test & Trace system, wearing masks when not seated, enhanced cleaning regimes etc and maximum group size indoors is six. From the same date the limit of the group size outdoors increases although table service will still be a requirement.

We suggest checking pubs opening hours and whether they are taking table reservations before setting out, you can find links to social media accounts and websites from WhatPub. Public transport information for getting to the pubs can be found at Travel South Yorkshire.

News and more online for members

Posted on by Andy Cullen

This month sees changes that end the printed edition of the national CAMRA members’ monthly newspaper What’s Brewing and the launch of a digital service to replace it. The new website will contain more content and be updated more regularly as well as containing archives of old editions of the newspaper and also Beer magazine. To access the full content you need to log in with your membership number and password.

This isn’t the only online content provided as part of CAMRA membership – the Learn & Discover platform is already live, featuring interesting articles and videos about beer, cider, perry and pubs.

The changes don’t mean an end to printed publications – Beer magazine will still be published quarterly and posted out to members who have set their preferences to do so. If you are a member wishing to receive a printed copy we advise logging into the membership self service portal at camra.org.uk and ensure your preferences for CAMRA contacting you is set to receive Beer.

At a local level we are also aiming to restart the printed edition of our Beer Matters magazine this summer once Covid restrictions are lifted.

Brewery Bits

Posted on by Andy Cullen

Thunder Bunny, a 4.0% ABV Belgian pale ale is Fuggle Bunny‘s second craft keg beer. This cheeky little number is a session quenching pale with uplifting floral aromas bursting with fruit, raisins & citrus. This along with a range of their cask beers is expected to be available at their upcoming Friday tap sessions outside the brewery.

Bradfield Brewery have once again produced a vanilla edition of their Farmers Stout, a beer which proved popular at our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival a few years ago. It is available in mini-keg for those still drinking at home and the brewery are continuing to offer home delivery for bigger orders from their brewery shop.

Crosspool Ale Makers Society also have good news for those ordering their beers for home delivery with some online prices reduced and a mixed case option introduced. Also in addition to their weekly delivery run they are also now offering click and collect at the Itchy Pig in Broomhill.

Loxley Brewery‘s home, the Wisewood Inn, reopened this week with a range of their cask beers brewed on site, something the brewery has been regearing up to after spending lockdown selling bottled beers online and via independent shops!

Recent brews at Neepsend Brew Co have included Summanus, a 6.2% Black IPA hopped with Citra, Nelson Sauvin, Sabro and Sorachi Ace along with the return of Azeban, a 5% New England Pale made with Mosaic, Azacca & Ekuanot.

Sheffield Brewery Company are recruiting – they are looking for an experienced commercial brewer to manage all aspects of the brewhouse production, packaging, distribution and develop the business. There will be an expectation to help with promotion through social media, events, bar work and run brewery tours and be customer facing when required. Enquiries to sales@sheffieldbrewery.com.

Happy days!

Posted on by Andy Cullen

From Monday 12th April, a number of pubs reopened for the first time in six months for outdoor table service, as permitted in the latest stage of the government’s road map out of lockdown.

Many of us have been looking forward to this day, not just to drink fresh cask beer but to get together with friends who we haven’t been able to see in a while.

We’d like to celebrate this week by sharing photographs of folk enjoying a drink with friends at pubs, please feel free to tag your pics on Twitter @shfCAMRA or post them on our Facebook page, alternatively email and we’ll consider it for a piece on this website!

Not all pubs are able to open this week – either they don’t have a suitable outdoor space or it simply isn’t financially viable for them, these are expected to open when indoor service is allowed, provisionally 17th May.

The beer gardens are expected to be popular but only have limited capacity, some of those venues that are taking table reservations are fully booked for the first week of opening (so if you can’t make it to a pub you’ve booked don’t forget to call and cancel so someone else can have that table!) whilst others are offering walk ins

What you need to know:

First of all, you can check out our map of pubs that are opening for outdoor table service. Links are provided via whatpub.com to each venue’s social media to check their opening hours and any booking requirements.

Government Covid safety rules are in force (please be nice to the staff having to make them work!):

  • you must wear a face covering when you arrive and whenever you are stood up / moving around the premises. You do not need to wear it when sat at a table.
  • every individual customer must sign in to the NHS Test & Trace system. The easiest and quickest way of doing this is using the app to scan the QR code poster but the alternative of filling in a paper form will generally be available. Staff are required to check you have signed in correctly (minimum £1000 fine to pubs that serve someone not checked in correctly!). They will then direct you to a specific table that has been cleaned ready for you.
  • Measures are in place to facilitate social distancing. This includes one way walking routes and tables & chairs spaced carefully apart.
  • Rule of 6 in force as by law the most we are allowed to meet is 6 people or 2 households, therefore the maximum table size available is 6 people.
  • Table service is in operation – you must be sat at a table to eat/drink, place your order with staff at the table and your order will be delivered to your table. In some venues an app or website will be available to order from your table using your smart phone. Payment at table is also encouraged although where venues cannot facilitate that (for example the signal for the card machine doesn’t reach that far) they are allowed to invite you inside to pay.
  • Pubs are only allowed to serve customers outside for now, however you may still use facilities like toilets inside (but must wear a face covering when indoors).
  • Raised voices can project any germs further so conversation at normal level is encouraged by the government guidelines. For this reason any music, TV etc has to be kept strictly at background volume.

Travel to the pub

Buses, trains, trams and taxis are all operating and you are required to wear a face covering on board unless exempt. On public transport you are also asked to observe social distancing guidelines (one person per double seat unless same household and to sit with rows zig-zagged).