Author: Paul Crofts

Paul has been a committee member since 2014, as well as being on the festival committee. ‘I have enjoyed all the various roles I have played in that time, particularly my functions at [the 2017] festival, and I was delighted to be press-ganged into being the Festival Organiser for [the following] year (thanks Louise!). ‘As well as being fond of “lowering a couple for the tonsils”, I'm also a big music fan, particularly live music. Feel free to stop me for a chat anytime you see me in the pub (particularly if you want to sponsor something at the festival).’

Steel City 48 – a look back

Posted on by Paul Crofts

The weather smiled on the Steel City Beer & Cider Festival this year, and brought in the crowds for another successful festival.

Bronte Jones did the honours with the official opening. A local firefighter and a recent finalist on Gladiators, Bronte has been working with our chosen charity, Weston park Cancer charity to raise funds. Shown here with Paul Manning the Chairman of the Sheffield & district branch of CAMRA.

Abbeydale brewery produced a special charity beer “Together at Every Step” to raise even more money for Weston Park. A dry-hopped pale ale which we’re pleased to say sold out!

Abbeydale also hosted a beer tasting event held by Jim & Laura Rangeley, which focused on the history of the brewery and it’s recent move to become an Employee Ownership Trust.

Andy & Philippa Morton with their beer goggles on. A perfect example of the “Finest Quality Merchandise” on offer at the Tombola stall. 

Wednesday evening saw our annual Beer Of The Festival award taking place. Each Sheffield brewery put forward a beer and a series of blind tastings arrived at the winners. This year’s winners were

1st – Tapped Brew Co. American Flyer. An American brown ale

2nd – Triple Point Brewery. Debut. A new-style IPA.

3rd – Little Critters Brewing Co. Vanilla Chinchilla. Vanilla Ice Cream Porter.

Picture courtesy of Pints Of Sheffield

Dan & Martha from St Mars of the Desert brought a Stichfass cask of their traditional old ale ‘Owd Eerie’, which managed to sell out in under 30 minutes!

A variety of street food stalls kept the visitors fed throughout the festival with a number of delicious options.

Thursday saw The Tigermen take to the stage with some rousing rhythm & blues.

Friday night’s entertainment was the excellent Highway Child, back for their third appearance at the festival

Loxley Silver band returned for their ever-popular usual Saturday afternoon slot. A particular highlight was the haunting ‘Gresford’, written in 1936 to commemorate the Gresford Colliery mining disaster in Wrexham where 266 miners lost their lives.

Throughout Saturday, sword dancing mayhem was provided by local favourites Kelham Rapper and Sheffield Steel Rapper. No area of the festival was left untouched by their lively performances (No, we don’t know how they do it without injuring themselves either)

On 3 of the days the mighty Rover Don engine was in operation to the delight of the visitors lucky enough to get in the room before it was full.

The cider team in jolly mood. (We don’t know if this was before or after they tried the 13% mead from local producer Paradise Garage!)

The staff at the Keg Bar had a very busy festival as usual, and obviously all enjoying it. Even Josh from Kelham Island Tavern was smiling! The tall chap at the back wasn’t much help though.

A familiar face! Sean Clarke, former owner of Beer Central working behind the bar in the Upper Hall.

A lively afternoon in the Upper Hall.

Overall, another great festival. Thanks as ever go to all the volunteers who showed up and put in all the hard work to make it happen. And of course to all our visitors who came along to enjoy it.

It’s a couple of well-earned months off now for the planning committee before we start the process again in January. We’re always keen for new people to join the team, so feel free to email us if you’d like more info.

the team of volunteers that stayed behind after closing time Saturday to make a start on takedown then enjoy a few beers and pizza slices after!

Dorothy Pax

Posted on by Paul Crofts

The Dorothy Pax is going back to its Grassroots for their Tramlines Fringe Event, Canal-Lines.  All free, just as it should be!

Richard commented “…we’d love to go big again this year, but it’s been so tough for us all this year that we’ve decided to go back to our roots.  We’ve got a stunning lineup of amazing artists, we’re so excited to be working with our partners Waterbear College of Music, Sammy Fangers and of course The Chalton Country Club.  I can’t stop waving my arms around with glee like Wallace and Gromit when they know there’s a cheddar moment inbound!”

The DPx will have their usual bountiful inside bar, a Triple Point Tap Takeover on the outside bar and the world exclusive of a new TP release.  There’ll be plenty of outside seating and outside speakers so you can hear the performances whilst catching some rays, fingers crossed.

Richard also said “This year’s Tramlines Fringe is simply epic, so many great gigs over the weekend at so many great boozers and venues.  We should be extremely proud of what we can achieve collectively in our city.  Please support all the venues across the weekend.  This is a world-class event, our own SXSW…get involved.”

All the Pax Crew have worked so hard to deliver a great program, this truly is a family-focused event.  Bring the kids, bring the dawgs and we’ll provide the collective cheer!

Further information on our website here: https://dorothypax.com/canal-lines-2024/

Thornbridge rescue important brewing heritage

Posted on by Paul Crofts

In a recent issue of Beer Matters, we reported that Thornbridge brewery had taken delivery of one set of the Burton Union brewing system. This system had operated in the Marstons brewery for over 100 years, and it was a great relief to know that at least part of it would continue being used. We visited the brewery to see it in action, and to have a chat with joint owner Simon Webster, and head brewer Rob Lovatt.

Rob Lovatt, Thornbridge head brewer,

We should start by explaining what the Union system actually is. The process begins as usual in the brew house. After mashing, boiling and cooling the yeast is pitched. Twenty four hours later the wort is transferred to the unions where the magic happens. The six 750 litre wooden barrels are filled to the brim and each is fitted with an outlet tube at the very top leading to a large stainless steel trough. As the fermentation gets going the yeast head is expelled into this trough, the liquid component settles and is returned, by gravity, to the barrels. The temperature is monitored at the end of the swan necks filling the trough and adjusted as necessary. The speed at which the trough is filled rises and falls as the fermentation progresses and is usually complete in 5 to 6 days. From there the beer is transferred for conditioning and racked into barrels as usual.

Some minor tweaks have had to be made to reflect the different factory conditions. At Marstons the Unions were in a large enclosed warehouse avoiding contamination with the open trough. Due to the position of the set in Thornbridge’s premises, clear plastic covers have been installed over the trough for this purpose. They have also installed thermometers in the pipes to ensure a constant fermentation temperature of 22 degrees. 

One of the original cellarmen from Marstons was invited to Thornbridge to see the Union in place, and was happy to impart some of his experience in looking after the sets. He had first hand knowledge of all the barrels that were in Burton and as they were all numbered he was able to pass on useful tips for maintaining the specific barrels now residing in Bakewell.

The system was originally devised to “clean” the beer, and the first test run on the Thornbridge sets were of their flagship beer, Jaipur. Head brewer Rob Lovatt produced 90 casks of the union version and described it as being more rounded and with more esters than the original.

Simon explained that although they have been pleased with the success of the ‘unionised’ Jaipur, they really want to use the system to produce new beers, with recipes designed to make the best use of its unique brewing method.

First up will be a 6% English IPA, called Union, which was happily fermenting away during our visit, followed by an English pale ale at 7%. Both will feature English hops such as Northdown and Goldings and will be worth looking out for. After that there are some collaborations planned and a version of 90 Shilling Ale from Colorado-based Odell Brewing Company was mentioned.

Credit is due to Thornbridge for taking the time and effort to rescue this important bit of British brewing heritage and we’re sure it will be producing interesting beers for us all to try for some time to come.

Paul Crofts & Tim Stillman

Beer people – Jules Gray

Posted on by Paul Crofts

Sheffield Beer Week celebrated its 10th anniversary this March. Now that the dust has settled on another successful event, we talk to organiser Jules Gray to get her thoughts on how it has developed since its beginning in 2015.

What changes do you think you’ve seen over the last 10 years?

When we started, it’s the first one so I don’t necessarily think people understand what it is, or what you’re trying to achieve, which is understandable. It was great in that first year that we had a few venues like the Rutland and Shakespeare’s that really got on board straight away and it launched in a very short space of time. I think we organised it in two months.

How many venues were involved the first year.

Probably only about twenty venues and maybe about twenty events. But then once it happened, people saw the positivity from it, not only the people attending events but the economic and longer term benefits of it. The year after it basically doubled in size. At its maximum it was something like forty venues with over seventy events.

How do you think that the Sheffield beer scene has changed in the ten years.

Well, it’s changed in lots of different respects. There’s some of the longer standing Sheffield breweries that are still around, such as Abbeydale, and recently of course Kelham Island Brewery is under new ownership, but it’s still around.

So there’s been a changing of the guard as it were. I’ve seen breweries launch and sadly disappear, such as North Union who actually launched in Sheffield Beer Week. St Mars Of The Desert opened up around the end of 2018-2019 and it’s about recognising that a brewery might be in Sheffield but will be importing ingredients from all around the world and also doing collaborations, which is something that I’ve seen develop.

There’s been a move for traditional breweries to try experimental styles, such as mixed fermentation brewing, and also put in their beers not only in a firkin or keg, but putting it in cans and bottles. When I started Hop Hideout in 2013 I think I only had Bradfield and Kelham Island I could sell in bottles from local breweries.

Are there any standout breweries or beers over the 10 years?

Ohh, that’s difficult. And my memory is terrible these days. I mean, the Abbeydale & Thornbridge collab, ‘Stepping Stones’, was a big thing. I really like the Edward Carpenter beer that we did with Lost Industry. It was a beetroot sour, which was bright purple and had this earthy sourness. He was a Sheffield character from the late 1800’s who lived openly as a gay man in Sheffield and fought for gay rights and women’s suffrage, things like that.

There was the ‘Right To Roam’ IPA we did with St Mars Of The Desert, that was a good one as well. It was a collaboration with Nick Hayes, who’s a best-selling author and campaigner for the countryside, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Kinder Trespass.

I’m really proud of the beer ‘Ethel’ that we did with Triple Point this year to celebrate Ethel Haythornthwaite. She was a passionate environmentalist who helped establish the Peak District.

To be honest, when I look back and I talk to people about it, there’s loads of amazing things that have been part of Beer Week.

Indie Beer Feast is now an important part of Sheffield Beer Week. When was that introduced?

I think the first indie beer feast was in 2018, it was just one day at the Abbeydale Picture House. I’ve always wanted to do a beer festival. It attracts people to the city. What typically happens when you put beer festival on is people visit places whilst they’re here, so it benefits the local economy and local beer businesses.

And have you had any breweries that have been at Indie Beer Feast every year?

I don’t know to be honest. Abbeydale have been quite a lot, but I’m not sure they’ve been at every one. In general, it’s chopped and changed. I generally have some Sheffield breweries represented and then a nice pick from across the country. People like to see a bit of variety.

I like to champion under-represented, minority groups and stuff as well, lots of women-owned businesses and things. So Neptune Brewery have poured quite a lot at Indie Beer Feast.

When you first started it did you think from the outset it would run for years.

I didn’t think that at all. I knew that I really wanted to do it, and I thought it would be really beneficial for a lot of people and I had a feeling that people would support it and be positive about it. I’ve never said this will go on for x number of years, it’s quite organic in that respect.

I noticed that there was four or five cask lines at Indy Beer Feast. Is that something that’s increased, because traditionally it always was mainly keg.

Yeah, it wasn’t ever set in stone you know. It was always down to the breweries, and it can be quite challenging with cask because of the venting and tapping and letting it settle. Obviously some of the newer breweries have typically focused on keg. For example, Kernel Brewery started in 2009 and its only recently they’ve started doing cask beer. But I I’ve always left it down to the brewery, it’s their choice.

You know, I think a lot of people are falling in love with cask beer again as it’s a traditional British way of brewing and packaging beer and I think it’s come full circle in a way. So some of those modern craft breweries are now producing more of it. I mean, some of those that were pouring were Sheffield breweries so it was easier for them but we had Torrside offering cask as well.

I do think that there will always be a place for cask ale.

Hop Hideout are moving to the new development at Leah’s Yard on Cambridge Street in Sheffield City Centre. Their Crowdfunder successfully raised nearly £10,000! Visit www.hophideout.co.uk  to keep up to date with their new move and opening this summer. We’ll talk again to Jules to get the lowdown on how the move has gone once they’re settled in the new premises.

Pub of the Year 2024 (City Centre)

Posted on by Paul Crofts

The Bath Hotel on Victoria Street, just off West Street has been crowned Sheffield City Centre Pub of the Year.

After a 10 year period of it being leased to Thornbridge Brewery, owners Brian and Ruth Johnson took the pub back in 2022 and successfully re-established it as a favourite on the real ale circuit.

Featuring 2 rooms largely unchanged from the refit by Ind Coope in 1931, the Bath is one of the more atmospheric of Sheffield’s pubs. They always offer a wide range of excellent well-kept real ales as well as a numbers of keg beers.

The award presentation will be taking place at 9pm on Thursday 14 May.  All welcome to come and join us for a beer or two!

Getting there – University of Sheffield tram stop or bus stops on Glossop Road/West Street are close by.

Pub of the Year 2024 (West Sheffield)

Posted on by Paul Crofts

The winner of this year’s Sheffield West Pub of the Year award is the Itchy Pig in Broomhill.

Opened in 2016 by joiner and real ale enthusiast Ted Finlay, the Itchy Pig rapidly established itself as a must visit in the area.

Featuring 5 cask lines and 6 keg lines, as well as a range of wines, spirits and soft drinks, there is always something to suit every palate.

There is also a choice of different flavoured pork scratchings which were the inspiration behind the pub’s unusual name. Real Ale fans in Sheffield have taken the Pig to their hearts, as evidenced by the fact it has won this award twice previously.

Join us on Thursday 23rd May for the presentation at 9pm. It’s sure to be a good evening and Ted has promised to put on a “spread”! See you there.

Getting there: Buses 6 and 120 stop outside, buses 10, 10a, 51, 52, 52a and 257 stop a couple of minutes walk away.

Steel City 47 review

Posted on by Paul Crofts

After last year’s successful post-covid return, we were looking forward to welcoming everyone to another great festival this year. Little did we know the weather would have other ideas. Here’s how it eventually worked out.

Setup

Set up went particularly well this year, thanks to a good number of enthusiastic and willing volunteers. Starting on Sunday morning, we rattled through setting up the racks and cooling system and by the end of Monday all the beers were in place and chilling ready for opening. Tuesday saw us finishing all the bars and signage, and by Wednesday at 5, with all the food stalls in place, we were open.

Wednesday

The Beer of The Festival, contested by all our local breweries, was again sponsored by our friends at Beer Central and judging began straight away. By 6.30 we were ready to announce the winners. Heist Brew Co. took Gold with their “The Bad Part Of Gnome Town”, a hazy session IPA, and one of their first attempts at a cask beer! Silver was a porter named Brook from Tapped Brew, (also the best pun of the evening) and Bronze was Little Critters’ Pecan and Maple Stout, Great Danish. Purity Brewing hosted a drop-in Q&A session and things were well underway, with everyone enjoying themselves and it seemed like we might top last year.

Thursday

A slight change in the opening hours for this year meant we opened at 11.30 and we had a steady stream of visitors from the off. As usual Thursday afternoon saw a lot of beer tickers arrive to sample the best of what we had on the bars, and a number of works events also boosted numbers early evening. Mike from the Old Shoe ran a talk on cider and an excellent set from folk-rock band Kingfisher Blue rounded off the evening nicely. However, by this point we had already had the flood alert warning and were expecting the worst on Friday.

Friday

Rain! And more rain! When we arrived at 9 o clock the river was already quite high, and the management at Kelham Island Museum were planning hourly assessments to track the water levels. Unfortunately, late morning saw a directive from the Museum that we had to close. Everything that might get water damaged was either taken upstairs, or simply placed on top of the bars. The Museum even had to drive their two Sheffield-built early 20th century Simplex motor cars up to the upper Hall and park them in front of our stage. A disappointed festival committee trooped off home (after a quick pint in a local establishment of course) to follow the weather forecast and hope for the best for the following morning.

Saturday

Fortunately water levels peaked early evening on Friday without there being any flooding at the Museum and after discussion with the Museum staff on Friday night we got the green light to open, albeit at a slightly later time to allow to put everything back in its correct place.

The weather then decided to improve steadily and, in the end, it was a great day. The River Don engine drew it’s usual admiring crowd; the Loxley Silver Band entertained everyone upstairs; the boys from Kelham Rapper did their sword dances anywhere there was space (however tight that might be!); St Mars of the Desert hosted a well-attended talk on their beers; and live music from Galloping Dick rocked the Upper Hall to finish. The volunteers did their best to reduce the beer surplus at the afterparty, aided by pizzas from Sunshine Pizza Co, and the festival drew to a close.

Sunday

As always at the festival there is an amount of beer left which sadly has to be poured down the drain. As a result of Friday’s closure there was a lot more to dispose of this year, with an obvious effect on the festival’s finances. We’d like to say a thank you to Bradfield brewery, who kindly took back the unopened casks of their beer, and the Rutland Arms and Kelham Island Tavern, who bought the unopened kegs and cider boxes. And thanks to the volunteers who came and dismantled it all on Sunday. They did an incredible job and by 3 o clock we had everything cleared and back in storage.

Final verdict

Overall the festival was a great success on the days we were open, and had we been open on Friday we would no doubt have exceeded last year’s visitor numbers. We raised £1750 for the festival charity, Yorkshire Air Ambulance, thanks to generous donations of unused portions of beer cards, cash, and sales of a special beer from Abbeydale and MKM Building Supplies. Feedback was excellent, and we had several encouraging comments from new visitors, and also new volunteers, who are already looking forward to next year. Here’s to 2024 (and hopefully better weather!).

Festival feedback

Posted on by Paul Crofts

By the time you’re reading this, our annual Beer Festival will be over and hopefully it’s been another great success.

The Festival Committee will be meeting in November to review how things went, and where we can make improvements for next year, and as part of that review we would love to receive feedback from visitors on anything related to the festival.

Opinions on the range of drinks; the food stalls; the live music; layout of the festival; the range of activities and events; the volunteers – we want to know what you think.

Please send any feedback to festival@sheffield.camra.org.uk and I promise we’ll discuss it at our meeting.

If anyone wants to be more involved, either by attending the November meeting, or even becoming part of the committee for next year, please mention it in your email and we’ll contact you personally for an informal discussion, and probably buy you a pint while we’re at it!

Festival beer mats!

Posted on by Paul Crofts

By the time this issue of Beer Matters hits the pubs, we will have started sending out our festival Beermats. As usual we have 12 different sponsors for the mats, each with their own design on one side, and a different festival design on the back. Collecting all 12 mats and fitting them together will form this year’s Festival poster, another excellent design from Robin Lunnon at Durb Design.

Our Beer Matters distributors will be taking the mats far and wide across the city, and beyond, so you might have to visit several pubs to collect them all. (I know. It’s a tough ask, but I’m sure you’ll cope.)

We’ll also be putting a few sets up on Ebay to auction off for the festival charity, which this year is the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Don’t worry if you don’t manage to complete your collection, as we’ll be holding back a hundred or so of each design to put out on the bars at the festival itself. Yet another reason to come and see us at Steel City Beer & Cider Festival 47, 18-21 October 2023, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield

P.S. Our staffing form is now open on our website for anyone wishing to volunteer to help at this year’s festival. If you’ve never volunteered before but are considering it, simply email festival@sheffield.camra.org.uk and we’ll let you know all about it. Trust us, you’ll enjoy it.

Our beer festival is back!

Posted on by Paul Crofts

It’s coming up to that time of year again. After last year’s successful post-covid return, we’re back once again at the Kelham Island Museum to celebrate all the best in beer and cider.

We’ve chosen to keep a very similar layout to the festival to let everyone get used to the changes we introduced last time. The Millowners Arms is still independent and offering a wide variety of drinks; The keg bar will stay in its new position in the rear courtyard, accessed through the engine room; and the Bradfield bar will be in the Brearley room, on your right as soon as you enter the festival.

No change in the range of beer and cider on offer though! Over 200 beers including around 50 keg beers, over 40 real ciders and 2 bottle bars featuring continental beers. The Sheffield Beer of The Festival award will take place again on Wednesday evening.

One noticeable change this year will be our decision to switch from beer tokens to beer cards. These will be A6 cards featuring a set of 20p boxes which will be crossed off as you spend. A common sight at other festivals we have decided to move to these to speed up service at the bar.

We have our usual array of live acts, and a great variety of food stalls, with extended vegetarian and vegan offerings this year. In addition to this we have our ever-popular Tombola stall, traditional pub games and CAMRA merchandise desk selling books and t-shirts.

Our overall festival charity is Yorkshire Air Ambulance, who will be grateful for any of your unused beer tokens, or festival glass deposit.

Although we’re not sure you’ll want to hand your glass back! We are delighted to announce that Henderson’s Relish are again one of our glass sponsors. This year they are sponsoring the pint glasses, with Bradfield brewery sponsoring the half pint ones.

No article on the beer festival would be complete without a word of thanks to our dedicated and hard-working volunteers. Each year they arrive to set everything up, man the bars, run the various desks, do whatever needs doing to ensure the festival is the success it is, and then dismantle everything and put it back in to storage for next year. We cannot thank them enough for the time and effort they give. The festival simply would not happen without them. As a thank you, this year we are running a free staff trip to Lincoln, and as an extra reward for the Sunday take down volunteers we have a free buffet at the Gardeners Rest. If you fancy joining our happy band please visit our website Sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival to get more details on volunteering. We can guarantee that you’ll enjoy it more than you expected.

Don’t forget to look out for our festival beermats around the locals pubs. As we have done for the last few years, the festival side of the mats are all different and once you collect all 12 they fit together to form an image of the festival poster.

We can’t wait to welcome you all back once more.

Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, 18-21 October 2023, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield.