Beer Matters 500 – From Roger Protz
My earliest beery memories of Sheffield are sad ones. I recall going past Whitbread’s enormous Exchange Brewery which the group upgraded at a cost of £12 million then closed a couple of years later, such was the profligacy of the beer giants at the time.
There were two Bass breweries in the city and I visited one on the outskirts with views of the moors. It had open Yorkshire Square fermenters and – if memory serves me – was producing Worthington White Shield, the legendary Burton IPA that had become a beer on wheels when Bass got tired of brewing it in its native town.
Bass owned Stones, a fine beer that rivalled Boddingtons in its pallor and equally refreshing character. It was brewed elsewhere in the Bass group when the brewery closed but is never seen these days.
Closer to the centre, Wards was a Sheffield icon, producing soft, malt-driven, creamy but refreshing beers for legions of thirsty steel workers. I visited shortly before it closed, a victim of the shocking asset stripping that destroyed the Vaux group.
And then came Dave Wickett, who started the beer revival in the city, first with the Fat Cat and then Kelham Island Brewery. I got to know Dave well as we shared a love of both beer and football – I think we spent more time discussing the mixed fortunes of Sheffield United and West Ham United than we did brewing!
Dave told me a wonderful story of how he bought the Fat Cat, refurbished it and was ready to open but he didn’t have any beer. He phoned Wards, who were still brewing, and none other than the head brewer came round and asked to see the cellar.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he told Dave. “I’ll put a cellar tank in with pressure points on the bar and away you go.”
“I don’t want that,” Dave said. “I want casks and handpumps.”
“Nobody wants to drinks that anymore,” the man from Wards said and stormed off in a huff. In desperation Dave phoned Timothy Taylor in Keighley and asked if he could buy an 18-gallon cask of Landlord and was told Sheffield was outside the brewery’s delivery area.
So Dave drove to Keighley, put the cask in the boot of his car and took it back to the pub. Two days later he phoned Taylors who said they expected he’d been unable to sell the beer.
“No,” Dave told them. “It went in two days and I want two more casks.”
“In that case, we’ll deliver,” Taylors said and with just three cask of ale Dave Wickett helped the brewery turn Landlord into a national brand.
From small acorns…today there are 20 breweries in the city. The choice is amazing, with superb beers in some equally superb pubs. And what better way to greet visitors to Sheffield than to offer them a pint or two in the Tap at the station. Behind the downbeat address of Platform 1B stands an architectural gem serving fine pints.
Beer Matters has been recording the ups and downs of Sheffield beer and pubs for 500 editions. It’s a remarkable achievement and underscores all that is best about CAMRA – volunteers devoting many hours of their time to support good beer and good pubs on their local patch.
Many congratulations – and here’s to the next 500!
Roger Protz
Blue Bee Brewery have celebrated their 600th brew by producing a 7.3% mosaic single hopped Brut IPA. 
Serving real ales now for over 7 years, this former 1960s estate pub has reinvented itself as a real ale haven. The Ale House is a hidden gem. A true free house serving 6 ever-changing cask ales from a wide variety of breweries both local and from further afield, including Drone Valley, Saltaire, Hambletons, Dancing Duck and Dark Star. These are complemented by keg beers, ciders and Sam Smith’s lagers.
With practical support from local volunteers, this dog and child friendly pub has become a firm favourite with all who use it; a proper community pub. Regular events include home-made food every Friday evening and a pub quiz on Thursdays. There are also occasional tasting evenings of gin, vodka, whisky and beers.
A function room is available for hire for a variety of events, weddings, wakes, parties and all kinds of celebrations. Occasional live music nights are advertised on the pub’s Facebook site. Current beers and Friday menus can also be found there.
Al
We’ll be down at the Ale House to present their pub of the month winners certificate on the evening of Tuesday 13th August, from 8pm, all are welcome to join us for a beer or two! The pub is at the bottom end of Fraser Road, just off Archer Road in Millhouses, where bus 86 will get you to. 
Welcome to August! Summer feels like its properly arrived now and we’ve got some good offerings for you this month!
We’ll kick it off with 43° South. This sessionable pale ale uses Wakatu and Wai-iti hops grown in New Zealand. The combinations of these New World hops give this pale ale the subtle flavour of peaches and apricots, lifted with a delicate floral aroma.
Ayrshire is our next special this month and is a timeless British auburn ale. English Bramling Cross hops give this ale subtle hints of hedgerow berry fruits and it sits nicely at 4.6%.
Lastly from our Foraged & Found range we’ve got a unique offering called When Life Gives You Lemons. We’ve teamed up with our friends at Little Town Pantry to bring you our first ever table beer at 2.8%. They craft delicious cakes just a few miles from Welbeck and use a huge number of lemons each week, making the most of the rind and juice, but leaving the main body of the lemon. So we’ve used these zingy by-products to create a clean tasting low-ABV table beer.
Our first IPA in our new craft keg range was released last month and is selling incredibly well! Check out our social media channels to see when & where its pouring.
Jess 
Sheffield Brewery will this month launch a Crowdfunding campaign to help pay for important renovations to make its premises more accessible. This is part of a bigger project to build a community tap room and kitchen based in Neepsend in the heart of the Kelham Island area.
The brewery, which is based on the junction of Percy Street and Burton Road, currently opens as a tap room during the weekends of Peddlers Market. The building is in a Conservation Area and has lots of heritage with all entrances originally built up to five feet off the ground.
Access to the bar from the courtyard is difficult for people with limited mobility due to a large ramp. The owners of the brewery have drawn up plans to improve the ramp access and then to add a lift, with completion of the first stage planned for October.
Sheffield Brewery is asking beer lovers far and wide plus businesses and residents of Sheffield to help support its developments through a Crowdfunding campaign, by which supporters can donate online. In return, they can receive rewards of beer, access to events, brewery tours, ‘brewer for the day’ experiences and discounts when booking the brewery for an event.
Sheffield Brewery owner, Pete Rawlinson, says: “Our planned building works mean that once we have access we will be able to open as a fully licensed venue, and can develop our real ale bar with a keg wall to showcase craft ales. We can then focus on some ambitious plans to develop a sustainable, ethically sourced kitchen, where we will employ and train disadvantaged members of the community.
“Folk have been coming to our temporary bar for over seven years and we want to open every week so members and visitors can come to the brewery and experience what we’re all about – which is to enjoy great beer, live music and good company. Whilst we can only tackle this is in stages, the more we can raise, the quicker the project will move forward.
“Initially we need to raise a total of £15,000 to complete all of the access works and balustrades. We are asking our supporters to get behind us and help us to crowdfund – and we promise that our customers and the community will reap the rewards!”
The Crowdfunding campaign will launch later this month and you can find details of how to donate on Sheffield Brewery’s website: 
On Saturday 6th July a number of Sheffield & District CAMRA members took a minibus trip out into the Derbyshire Peak District area of our branch to visit a number of pubs that are harder to get to and included a visit to the Three Stags Head at Wardlow Mires to present their certificate for winning our Pub of the Year award for the Derbyshire area.
This is a classic, unspoilt rural pub that serves good ale and is listed in CAMRA’s National Inventory of unspoilt pub interiors.
Photos: Patrick Johnson presenting the certificate to managers Kath and Andy. Taken by John Beardshaw and Dave Pickersgill. 
To the Brewers’ Emporium range, we have a new addition! Splendour (4.4%) sits alongside the seasonal releases which also include Pilgrim, Hibernation and Reverie. It’s a beautiful hazy pale ale with literally hundreds of lovingly hand sliced fresh oranges added, the first recipe created by our new sales team members Mick and Sam. We’ve also got our next Serenity session IPA (3.8%) which is the tenth in the series, this time with an All-C combination of Centennial, Cardinal and Citra hops. And we have a new Wanderer in the pipeline, which is to be a kaffir lime leaf and lemon grass saison at 5.0%.