Author: Dave Pickersgill

Dave has been a CAMRA member since the 1970s and has worked at almost 40 Sheffield CAMRA festivals, plus a fair number of others. He is Brewery Liaison Officer (BLO) for Abbeydale, Blue Bee, Bradfield and Loxley. He was also the Chair of the Local Organising Committee for the 2023 national CAMRA Members’ Weekend, AGM & Conference. A member of the National Pub Heritage Group, he leads on planning and pub heritage issues. He also edited the Sheffield's Real Heritage Pubs book, for which downloads vastly exceeded expectations. The hard copy was available in October 2018 and again in 2021. On both occasions, it was a sell-out. The 5th edition (2023) is available as both a hard copy and a free download.

Little Chicago pub booklet

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

Following the success of the 2023 pub heritage guided walk booklet, CAMRA Sheffield & District have produced a second booklet focused on Little Chicago. Publication will coincide with the forthcoming 48th Sheffield Steel City Beer Festival: Kelham Island Museum, 16-19 October.

This new booklet (A5, 32 pages, full colour throughout, £2.99 RRP) takes you up the hill from West Bar to Scotland Street before heading towards Kelham Island. In addition to information about the three excellent pubs en route (the Crow, the Kelham Island Tavern, and Shakespeares), copious historical detail is included. This includes references to George Orwell, the temperance movement, and the Sheffield gang wars.

Festival events concerned with the booklet include both a guided historical walk and an illustrated talk.

The short walk will explore both the pub heritage aspects of the area and the streets featured in the book, Sheffield 1925: Gang Wars and Wembley Glory, with a narrative explaining how Sheffield briefly became the most turbulent city in Britain due to an escalating gang war involving the Gas Tank Gang, the Mooney Gang, the Park Brigade, and many others. The walk will also explore the beer, social, and industrial heritage of the area, examining the myths and reality of a tumultuous period in Sheffield history.

The talk will concentrate on the area covered in the booklet, taking you from the 19th century up to the current day. Along the way, mention will be made of the 1884 Sheffield Drinks Map, the establishment of a coaching inn, and the Sheffield pub with the most local CAMRA awards. A similar talk will take place at the Crow on Thursday 10 October at 20:00.

The talks and walks will be led by local historian and writer John Stocks and Sheffield’s Real Heritage Pubs editor Dave Pickersgill. This booklet is the second in this growing series. The 2025 edition will focus on Neepsend, with the following year looking at Kelham Island.

Full booking details for both the festival events are available at sheffield.camra.org.uk/sc#events

Sponsored by Abbeydale Brewery and the Crow, the booklet is available from a growing number of local outlets, including: the Biblioteka, Crow, Draughtsman (Doncaster), the Famous Sheffield Shop, Hop Hideout, Kelham Island Books and Records, Kelham Island Tavern, Millennium Galleries and Saint Mars of the Desert tap room. For retail inquiries and postal copies, please contact: pubheritage@sheffield.camra.org.uk.

Pub of the Month September 2024

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

Congratulations to Adam and the team at the Crow Inn, our Pub of the Month for September 2024: Adam Swithenbank, Amber Raven, Charlotte Walker, Chris Bamford, Kate Major, Lizzie Dabner and Michael Deakin.

Originally opened in 1797 as a Thomas Rawson house, 2010 saw the pub becoming a small hotel, the Sleep Inn. In June 2019, with assistance from local entrepreneur, Wendy Woodhouse, it reopened under the same management as the Rutland: this pub chain has recently expanded to include the Harlequin.

The pub logo shows a crow stealing the ‘N,’ from the Crown, the previous name of the pub.

Beer-wise, the Crow features five cask beers and 14 keg lines. The beer range is innovative, including both hard-to-find limited-edition and obscure imports, with gluten-free Abbeydale Heathen (4.3%) the only permanent resident.

Regular beer events are held: these have included hosting Cantillon Zwanze Day, a Tilquin
takeover, a Yonder meet-the-brewer and a talk about Victorian drinks maps. There is also a selection of cans and bottles, an extensive range of malt whiskies and bourbons, a selection of ports and wines and plenty of rums and gins.

Kev’s Pies are sold and there are seven comfortable en-suite hotel rooms. 

Apart from the opening-out of the room on the right, the basic layout of the interior is relatively unchanged. Unusually, the off-sales was approached via the entrance to the rear yard, purchasers entering through a small door. This entrance was removed in 1972. The décor in the room on the left includes fourteen framed pieces of artwork by Lewis (Lewy) Ryan. These images were originally produced as labels for canned beers, mostly Abbeydale.
 
Historically, the pub was a key player in the 1840s Chartist protests. Two decades later, the Sheffield Outrages saw the murder, in the Crown, of James Linley and in the 1920s, the pub was at the heart of the Sheffield Gang Wars. In the Victorian era the area was home to many pubs: a pub on every corner, open from dawn to well beyond dusk. The 1884 Sheffield Drink Map indicates 14 licensed premises and one off-licence on Scotland Street, a concentration repeated across the city. A framed black and white copy is on display in the Crow. These maps were originally produced by temperance societies in order to guide users regarding premises it was felt they should avoid. They were also extensively used at annual meetings of local magistrates as they made decisions regarding the renewal of drinks licences.

The Crow fully deserves its place in the CAMRA national Good Beer Guide and also features in the new Sheffield Pub Heritage Walk booklet which focuses on the Little Chicago area. Congratulations to all at the Crow on achieving Pub of the Month: join us for the presentation on Tuesday 10 September and/or the heritage walk which is one of the events at the forthcoming Steel City 48 Beer & Cider Fest. 

Steel City beer festival opening

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

The 2024 Steel City Beer and Cider Festival will be opened by local legend, and South Yorkshire firefighter, Bronte Jones, runner-up in the 2024 series of the BBC hit TV programme, Gladiators.

The BBC reboot was a huge success, reeling in 8.7 million viewers across its first seven days on air. Filmed in the Utility Arena, the show began in January and showed 16 competitors complete various challenges for the chance to be crowned Gladiators Champion.

Bronte recently ran the Sheffield Half Marathon in memory of her boyfriend’s cousin Molly Midgley, who tragically died aged just 27 of a rare cancer, adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC). She and the rest of ‘Team Molly’ were raising money for our festival charity, Weston Park Cancer Charity.

The Steel City Beer & Cider Festival is held at Kelham Island Museum from 16 to 19 October featuring a range of around 200 cask ales along with other craft beers, traditional cider & perry, street food, live music and more. See sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival for more details.

An afternoon in Castleford

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

We recently visited Castleford: an interesting mix of new bars and long-established outlets. The Ninth opened the day before our visit and provided, among others, Horsforth House Trousers (4.4%). Other recently established outlets, Doghouse and Yorkshire Craft Beers, have a range of cask/craft beers. Among others, Doghouse provided Amber (4.5%) from Selby-based, Jolly Sailor and Theakston Peculiar IPA (5.1%). The latter is hopped with UK-grown Harlequin, Jester and Olicana. 

Yorkshire Craft is located in an old riverside mill, close to the 2008 Millennium Bridge with its striking curved design. This compliments the nearby railway underpass, Tickle Cock Bridge.

Wetherspoons outlet, the Glass Blower, the ex-main post and sorting office, provided an excellent 6% pale, Hoptropolis, brewed at Hook Norton, with assistance from Mitch Steele (New Realm Brewing, Atlanta). Voted the Champion Beer in the Autumn 2023 Wetherspoons Beer Festival, this IPA utilises American Azacca, Citra and Mosaic hops. Locally, glass-making began in the 17th century. 200 years later, it was Castleford’s main industry, disappearing with the 1983 closure of United Glass. 

Our last beer was in the Junction, a GBG pub which, for several years, has prided itself on providing ‘beer from the wood,’ the Old Mill Styrian Wolf (4.2%) hitting the spot before the train home. 

Dave & Simon Pickersgill

Castleford can easily be reached from Sheffield by train – the Sheffield to Leeds all stations stopping service operated by Northern calls there.

Talks, tours & tastings

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

A number of special events are being hosted at the Steel City Beer and Cider Festival. These can be booked in advance online at https://sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival/#ib-toc-anchor-22

  1.  Guided walk: Little Chicago – Thursday

A guided walk with a difference – you will explore Sheffield’s Little Chicago Quarter before your fast-track entry to our Beer Festival. Led by local author, John Stocks and editor of ‘Sheffield’s Real Heritage pubs,’ Dave Pickersgill, you will explore the beer, social and Industrial heritage of the area. The walk will explore streets that feature in John’s book ‘Sheffield 1925: Gang Wars and Wembley Glory,’ and also explore the beer, social and Industrial heritage of the area.

The comfortable walk, with one minor ascent, is just over a mile. It will last for approximately 90 minutes before concluding at Kelham Island Museum for a post-walk drink and discussion.

Tutored tasting – Abbeydale Brewery – Thursday

A tutored beer tasting and discussion led by experts from the oldest brewery in Sheffield. Established in 1996, last year Abbeydale produced over 200 Bbl./week of which over 75% was cask. They produce at least one new beer each week, including both the Funk Dungeon and Dr.Morton’s brands.

You will be introduced to five beers:

  • three cask, one key-keg and one bottled beer from the Abbeydale Funk Dungeon collection: Blood Orange Sour (abv 6.0%).
  • the latter is from a limited release of only 100 bottles: a collaboration made with Sicilian Moro blood oranges left over from the production of Locksley Distilling citrus liqueur. Abbeydale have added the flesh of the fruit (around 150g/l) directly into the barrel with a simple sour base beer, hopped with UK grown Opus hops. Sour, light and refreshing.
  • the cask beers will include the one-off dry-hopped cask which is available in support of the festival’s chosen charity: Weston Park Cancer Charity.

Pub Heritage Talk: Little Chicago – Friday

A short pub heritage talk which will concentrate on the Little Chicago area of Sheffield, taking you back from the C19th and up to the current day. Along the way, mention will be made of the 1884 ‘Sheffield Drinks Map,’ the establishment of a coaching inn and the Sheffield pub with the most CAMRA awards.

The talk will also act as a launch event for a new Sheffield Pub Heritage walk booklet.

More information on the Steel City Beer & Cider Festival is available here

Big Gun update

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

The Big Gun (13-17 Wicker, S3 8HS), a pub with interior features of Special Heritage Interest, closed in September 2023. In May, several months after building work commenced, a retrospective planning application (24/01523/FUL) was submitted to Sheffield City Council (SCC). Work completed includes the creation of a new shop front, the replacement of windows and the fitting of roller shutters.

In July, SCC produced their verdict: ‘Grant Conditionally’ – hence, the current owners have retrospective planning permission for the building work they have done (and stated that they intend to do). Some Victorian fittings are lost forever. 

In the SCC documentation, the Planning Officer Report mentions, that change of use from a pub has not been applied for and refers to the building as a pub throughout. In addition, the decision states: ‘Planning permission will be required for the change of use of the pub (Sui Generis) and ancillary residential accommodation and storage use to commercial use (Class E) and residential accommodation (C3/C4).’

To summarise, there is no planning permission for ‘change of use:’ the Big Gun has been a pub for over 200 years, and will remain so. We await developments, with interest. 

Marston’s sell-up

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

In early 2020, Carlsberg and Marston’s announced a joint venture: the Danish corporation taking 60% of the new Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) with Marston’s holding 40% and receiving a cash payment of over £270m. At the time, we commented that we had concerns regarding the future of both the brewery and the internationally unique Burton Union System as used in Marston’s Albion Brewery. http://tinyurl.com/498ss642

So far this year:

  1. the historic Union System has been retired
  2. Marston’s pubs have sold non-cask beer via handpumps, the internationally recognised indicator of cask beer, an action described by CAMRA as the ‘handpump hijack’
  3. CMBC have recently purchased the remaining 40% of the brewing company, leaving Marstons, famous for both Old Roger and Pedigree, as yet another, large pub company.

This new £206m deal means that Carlsberg now own the Marstons Albion Brewery (Shobnall Road, Burton), and the brands brewed on that site (including Jennings, Marstons and Wychwood). After almost 200 years of brewing, Marstons now have around 1370 pubs and a long-term brand distribution agreement with CMBC.  

Carlsberg have also acquired soft drinks company, Britvic, for £3.3b. They now have a UK business, covering beer and soft drinks, from which they expect to make some £100m of annual savings from combined distribution costs etc. In volume, they are 4th in UK brewing. The UK is now the companies’ biggest market. As I wrote a few short months ago: Carlsberg seem to have no care for the brewing heritage they have acquired in the UK. In Denmark, they have a reputation as a patron of the arts and a respecter of heritage and tradition. However, not in the UK, where a race to the lowest common destination continues to be the plan

Pub heritage walks

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

As part of Heritage Open Days 2024, we are leading a pub heritage walk. On Sunday 15 September at 2pm, we’ll be in Kelham Island. The walk will include Victorian tilework, terrazzo flooring, art deco glasswork, a mention of long-gone Sheffield breweries and much more…..

Full details and booking information are available: https://tinyurl.com/5dxhknep

If you can’t wait until September, you could try the latest edition of the Sheffield’s Real Heritage Pub book: sheffield.camra.org.uk/rhp.

Big Gun update

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

The Big Gun (13-17 Wicker, S3 8HS), a pub with interior features of Special Heritage Interest, closed in September 2023. Recently, several months after building work commenced, a retrospective planning application was submitted to Sheffield City Council (SCC). Work completed includes the creation of a new shop front, the replacement of windows and the fitting of roller shutters.

The closing date for comments was 13th June. We commented, noting that the planning application has several errors and omissions. For example, the submitted ‘existing plans (ground floor)’ do not show (i) the internal wall which is perpendicular to the front external wall in the ‘Commercial Space’ and (ii) the possibly unique Victorian draught screen which is inside, to the right of the corner door. Both these features are on plans of the pub included in the Licensing File (Sheffield Archives) and were in place when the public house was last open to the public. As they are not included on the documents submitted as part of this planning application, we can hope that there is no intention to remove these, and other, heritage features.

The planning application also has no mention of potential ‘change of use.’ Hence, the assumption which has to be made is that the current owners intend to reopen as a public house. However, it seems that this is not the case.

Due to these errors, we have suggested that the application is withdrawn until all errors and omissions are rectified. We await decisions from SCC Planning.

Irresponsible drinking?

Posted on by Dave Pickersgill

Many of you will have noted the recent advertising for a ‘craft Brew Festival’ to be held in Neepsend in September. The ticket price is £35 upwards, depending on the session attended. Included in this fee is ‘five hours of unlimited craft beer.’ 

I believe that offering unlimited alcohol over a five hour period is irresponsible and will lead to attendees over indulging. It does not encourage responsible drinking.

It is also divisive: many of us, for many reasons, are restricted in our alcohol intake. For example, while recovering from radiotherapy, I recently attended Indie Beer Feast in Sheffield: almost five hours attendance saw me drink seven beers, a total of 2 and one third pints. I had an excellent time, meeting many friends, aiding my recovery. However, such a price tag would have meant non-attendance. 

Why not have a pricing policy similar to the forthcoming Sheffield Steel City Beer and Cider Festival? Thursday 17 October will cost non-CAMRA members £17. This includes £10 beer tokens which are refundable if not used plus a glass (£3) which is also refundable on exit. If you don’t drink, up to eleven hours on site, including the entertainment and the river Don Steam Engine will cost you the princely sum of £4 (CAMRA members, £2). If you do sample some of the over 200 beers available, you will pay for exactly what you imbibe.