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.

Tapped Brew Co

Posted on by Andy Cullen
‘Tapped Brew Co started brewing at The Sheffield Tap in 2013, situated in the old first class waiting room in the restored Edwardian dining room.   The brewery is on display and customers of The Sheffield Tap can watch the beer being brewed.  We are now developing our range of beers which are available throughout the Pivovar pub estate and further afield.   We are also working on Tapped Brew Co branding and have rolled out some new pump clip designs and subsequently we’ve being releasing some new beers to coincide with our new look.   Our current range is:
  • Jericho 4% West Coast Pale
  • Mojo 3.6% Session Pale
  • Sheaf Street Pale 4.5%
  • Station Porter 4.5%
  • Station Yard 4.9% – English Golden Ale
  • Toha 3.6% – NZ hopped pale ale
Ben.

Exit 33 Brewing

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Exit 33 Brewing and the Yorkshire Brew company collaborated to brew a special at The Taphouse adjacent to Hull marina to commemorate the maritime link between the two cities.
The last wooden keel boat to sail between the two cities was commisioned by Furley & Co of Hull and named the Dorothy Pax.  The bar in Victoria Keys is named after her and their bar is built from the actual keel.  The Pax are celebrating their second birthday and the ale will be available both there and at The Harlequin.
Live music continues at The Harlequin and listings can easily be found by visiting https://www.sheffieldlivemusic.co.uk/venue/the-harlequin/

Kelham Island Brewery

Posted on by Andy Cullen

There are a couple of July Specials from Kelham Island Brewery.

Golden Axe, 4.2%, is  a full-bodied golden ale. Its light sweetness is balanced with a pleasant bitterness from the Columbus hops and an aroma of tropical fruits is derived from the late addition of a blend of New Zealand and American Hops.

Kelham Islander, 4.0%, sees the return of a favourite blonde but with the addition of strawberry. This refreshingly smooth session pale is crisp and fruity and will wash over your palate like a force of nature.

Bradfield Brewery

Posted on by Andy Cullen
One of our much loved seasonal ales, Farmers Blueberry Ale will be available again from July, in cask and 5 litre Mini Kegs. This malty session ale is fruity with spicy overtones and at 4.4% abv and is an ideal beer garden or BBQ refreshment. The brewery is once again to be a part of the annual Bradfield Tractor Rally. This event will see over 100 tractors taking part in a road rally around the areas of Bradfield, Loxley & Stannington before parking up at the Nags Head at Loxley for an afternoon of fundraising and entertainment. The chosen charity for this year’s event is Yorkshire Air Ambulance, an amazing charity that relies on charitable donations to enable it to keep saving lives across Yorkshire. Staying with local events and Bradfield Brewery are also providing the bar service for the annual Broomhead Show. This traditional village show takes place on Sunday 14th July and includes stalls from local and family businesses, entertainment from local bands/choirs and musicians, children’s rides, a dog show and food & drink refreshments including Farmers Ales on draught. The team at our other Brewery Tap, the King & Miller at Deepcar have been busy reinstating a kitchen at the pub, with Food now on offer seven days a week. Visitors can now enjoy a menu of homemade traditional pub grub, along with the Farmers Ales still at just £2.50 a pint.

Sheffield’s 45th Steel City Beer & Cider Festival

Posted on by Andy Cullen
We’re pleased to be able to announce details of our 45th annual beer & cider festival which will take place from 16th to 19th October, again at the atmospheric Kelham Island Museum across the Victorian Courtyard, Brearley Room, Millowners Arms, Marquee and Upper Gallery. The festival will feature a range of over 250 beers including real ales on cask and other craft beers in keg, can and bottle (including Vegan and Gluten Free choices) along with around 50 traditional ciders and perries. We will also be hosting an array of street food traders, old fashioned pub games, tombola, book stall and live music. The event is entirely organised, run and staffed by volunteers who do it to share their love of good beer or cider, if you fancy joining the team and helping out, the staffing form is now live at www.steelcitybeerfestival.co.uk where you can also find more information about the festival.

Abbeydale Brewery

Posted on by Andy Cullen

It’s Sunfest month! I’m very excited to be involved in what will be my 5th festival as part of Team Abbeydale, it’s always such a highlight of our year! So (if you’re reading this before 11th-14th July!) please do pop along to the Rising Sun to sample some of the 72 cask and 30 keg beers on offer. It’s sure to be another corker of a weekend! Our charity beer for this year will be launched at the festival and for 2019 we are supporting the James Brownhill Memorial Foundation. We’ve worked with JBMF to create Blue Skies (4.3%), a Mount Hood hopped pale ale. 10p from every pint sold will be donated to the charity, so drink good and do good!

We’ve got a couple of tasty collaborations out this month. Raisins to be Fearful (7.0%) is a smoked fruited Dubbel with apricots and raisins brewed with our pals at Torrside Brewery. We plan to release the main batch this month with Sunfest being one of the first places to showcase it, with a small amount being held back to barrel age and launch at Torrside’s festival Smokefest in November. The second of our releases from our collaborations with breweries from the USA is due to be released too – Greetings from Charlotte N.C has been created with our friends from NoDa Brewing who are based in North Carolina. Expect a smooth and silky well hopped IPA brewed with oats and corn in the grist.

We’ve got two returning favourites coming soon too, both making the most of our incredible hop store – the ever popular Dr Morton’s Duck Baffler (4.1%) hopped with Citra, and Double Deception (4.5%), an amped up version of our beloved core beer with absolute oodles of Nelson Sauvin hops.

And in the Brewers Emporium range we are releasing a new version of our Indulgence dessert inspired pale ale, this time a blueberry and maple pancake beer!

Finally, once Sunfest is over (sad face) we start to look ahead to our next beer festival… Funk Fest! This year our mixed fermentation and sour beer celebration is taking place at the brewery on 7th-8th September. At the time of writing early bird tickets for both sessions on Saturday have sold out (still some left for Sunday) but general release tickets are still available for all sessions. Budding homebrewers don’t forget to enter our competition which takes place during the Sunday session too! Head to bit.ly/funkfest19 for more information and to get your mitts on a ticket!

Cheers,

Laura

Get involved! Volunteers needed

Posted on by Andy Cullen
As with all branches of CAMRA, Sheffield & District is volunteer run and we need more people to help out to be effective. If you fancy getting involved, here are some things you can do that require varying levels of time/commitment/effort: Brewery Liaison Officer (BLO): This is a role that is all about building a friendly relationship between CAMRA and local brewers and keeping up to speed with what the brewery is doing. You maintain the brewery’s entry in the CAMRA Brewery Information System (B.I.S.) which ensures that information we use for the Good Beer Guide, Champion Beer of Britain and beer festivals are correct. You are also asked to provide a quarterly news report to the regional co-ordinator and encourage the brewery to submit news to our Beer Matters magazine. We currently have BLO vacancies for Intrepid, Mitchells Hop House, On the Edge, Regather, Triple Point, True North, Fuggle Bunny and Toolmakers. Whatpub.com surveyer: Whatpub.com is the public website that fronts CAMRA’s national pub and club database. We aim to have every single venue in the UK in the system with up to date details including opening hours, contact details, idea of beer range, food service times etc. This relies on members submitting updates and also intelligence of new places opening and also closures. We ask that you check what is displayed for pubs and clubs you visit and if it is wrong please ask the manager/staff/landlord/landlady for the correct details and use the link to submit them to us. Beer scoring: Another function members can use on whatpub.com is to rate the quality of the real ale they try in pubs and submit that data to the local CAMRA branch. This information may help with the choosing of Good Beer Guide entries and the winners of pub awards. Beer Matters magazine editor, website and Social Media These roles are currently being covered on a temporary basis, we are looking for enthusiastic people to join the committee and help shout about what Sheffield CAMRA is doing along with sharing our passion for good beer and pubs. Beer Matters magazine distribution Each month we print 3,500 copies of our magazine which volunteers then take out to as many real ale venues across our area as possible. We still have a few areas uncovered, if you could help with that please let us know! Public Affairs Officer As a campaigning organisation, this is an incredibly important role on our committee, building relationships with key people such as MPs, councillors and journalists and ensuring they are aware of our views on issues affecting beer drinkers and pubs, influencing them to our way of thinking and publicising our campaigns. Social Secretary We want as many members actively involved as possible and reflecting that people do things in CAMRA as a hobby in their spare time, it is important to have a good programme of enjoyable social events and someone to organise them. Guided pub crawls, minibus trips, brewery tours, beer tasting sessions, dinners in real ale serving venues are all proven ideas and may be you are the person to not only organise such events but also introduce some new ideas! Beer & Cider Festival Staff Our festivals are 100% volunteer organised, managed and staffed. It involves work but has its rewards and can be quite enjoyable. We’re involved with organising Dronfield beer festival in May and organise Sheffield’s Steel City Beer & Cider Festival in October and always need volunteers to help, staffing forms can be found online. You may also wish to help at other CAMRA branch events or the big national one in London – Great British Beer Festival (where accommodation is provided for full time volunteers), check out camra.org.uk for dates etc. Vote for pub awards! We run a pub of the month award programme as well as a Pub of the year competition. If you drink in a pub in our area that you think deserves recognition, nominate it for an award! If you see a pub already nominated that you think is good, vote for it! Each year as a branch we also pick the best Sheffield & District pubs to feature in the national Good Beer Guide.

A Grand Good Friday Day Out

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Today’s day out again made use of the Derbyshire Wayfarer ticket.
A leisurely train ride to Derby, bus into the bus station and then the Trent Barton 6.2 service deposited me in Belper in time for the 11am opening of the George & Dragon on the main road through Belper for their St. Georges Beer Festival. Seven hand pumps were on the bar but only 3 were in use today as another 20 had been separately stillaged for the weekend.  This is a well-positioned friendly road side ale house with a garden out back, parking and letting rooms. From the list I had halves from Falstaff, Froth Blowers, Rufford Abbey and Leatherbritches. From Belper it was another Trent Barton 6.2 to Ripley and then the 1A to Waingroves for the festival at the Thorn Tree on Church Street.  Although the pub is advertised as not opening until 4pm in the week I was optimistic that common sense would have prevailed during their Easter Bank Holiday Beer Festival as it had plenty of beer to sell, but alas, it had not. The pub was shut and the sign at the side said “Beer Festival open at 4pm”.  This in my view was very short-sighted given that it was Easter Weekend and the weather was set fair. Anyway, I was now ahead of schedule and a short(ish) walk took me to a bus stop to catch the Rainbow One Service towards Langley Mill rail station. I had about 15 minutes before my train to Chesterfield. Walking into the centre then catching the 82 service to Sutton-cum-Duckmanton took about 30 mins and I arrived at the Arkwright Arms (CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2019 listed), which had also opened at 11am (as normal) for their Easter Beer Festival. This large imposing pub stands at a crossroads and offers plenty of outdoor seating, a play area, food and parking as well as a vast array of handpulled ale and traditional cider.  Sampled here were beers from Ashover, Great Heck and a couple from Intrepid. Back on the bus in to Chesterfield and a walk through the marketplace to catch the Stagecoach service 90 to Brampton. The 9th St. George’s Festival at the Rose & Crown (GBG 2019 entry) was very busy with a full garden in front. The main bar selection was supplemented by a separate stillage.  From the festival list I sampled beers from Nomadic, Bad Seed and Neepsend before another Service 90 took me back into Chesterfield for the short walk to the Chesterfield Arms for their North v South Beer Festival.  The numerous beers on the main bars were enhanced by a further selection in the rear festival bar. Beers from Bristol Beer Factory, London Beer Lab, Pig & Porter, Pentrich and another from Bad Seed were enjoyed.  I decided against any further imbibing in Chesterfield and instead had a pleasant Thwaites Nutty Black back in the Old Queens Head in Sheffield Interchange. It was good to see a number of pubs having festivals over the weekend. It’s just a shame that I couldn’t have visited all 5! Andy Morton

Crow Inn

Posted on by Andy Cullen
Keep an eye out on Scotland Street over the next few weeks for the reincarnation of one of Sheffield’s long lost historic watering holes. After over ten years as the budget Sleep Hotel, the much missed Old Crown Inn/R&B’s/The Crown has been given a new lease of life as The Crow Inn. Purchased last year by Wendy Woodhouse, known to many from her time as landlady at The Harlequin, and run by Kate Major & Chris Bamford who are also at the helm at The Rutland Arms, an extensive refurbishment has been carried out to restore the bar area and transform the hotel accommodation. The comfortable two roomed bar features an eclectic range of beer across five hand pulls and 14 keg lines, from classic German lager and wheat beer, our house cask bitter and pale ale from Abbeydale Brewery, to an ever changing selection of the latest hazy IPA, American Stouts of massive proportions and cask beers from around the country. A wide selection of quality wine, gin, rum & whisky (the pub is on Scotland Street, after all) will be available too. Our friendly and knowledgeable management team, Adam and Lizzie, provide a warm welcome. The hotel features seven en suite guest rooms, furnished to a high standard, with prices ranging from £45-£60 a night. If you have any questions, or are interested in booking a room, drop us an email at thecrowinn@gmail.com – or when we are open, pop in and see us! And lastly… why the Crow Inn? Once it’s up, have a look at our pub sign and there’s a clue! Chris Bamford