Author: Paul Manning

Paul has been on the branch committee for a few years taking on Vice Chair, Good Beer Guide and Pub of the Month/Year Coordinator roles before becoming our new Chair. Paul had a long career in IT and business project/programme management roles for a major financial institution before retiring in 2021. He now undertakes some part time exam invigilation work at Westfield School as well as helping his wife, Bev, look after their four young grandchildren on a regular basis.  Paul and Bev are often in their local, the Chantry Inn at Handsworth. They love foreign and UK travel which often involves beer! Paul is passionate about supporting great beer, Sheffield’s fantastic pubs and also our superb annual beer festival. He is always willing to chat with members and punters over a pint or two.

Real Ale amongst the dreaming spires

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Our chairman, Paul Manning, his wife Bev along with Sheffield branch members John Wright and John Turner with their wives Eve and Andrea enjoyed a fantastic 4 day break in Oxford sampling many real ales and the tourist sights.

We arrived mid afternoon on a Tuesday and checked into our bed and breakfast hotel on St Clement’s Rd, a 15 minute walk south of the city centre. Keen to explore the ales on offer we first found the Cape of Good Hope pub which had a very pleasant pale called Anthem from St Austell Brewery. We then walked past Magdalen and University colleges along the High Street and sampled Abingdon Bridge bitter from Loose Cannon brewery in the Wheatsheaf a rock/dive bar with an interesting clientele. Next was a GBG entry, The Bear Inn, a recently refurbished Fullers pub reputed to be the oldest pub in Oxford. The London Pride was excellent but pricey at £6.50 – ouch!

We then had our evening meal at a local Indian tapas bar followed by a few excellent pints of Beechwood bitter from Chiltern brewery in the Port Mahon pub which was its Tuesday £3.50 ‘drink the cask dry’ offering – nice!

On the Wednesday we had a spot of ‘culture’ with a 2 hour walking tour round Oxford with a Morse, Endeavour and Lewis theme exploring many filming locations and a few drinking holes including the famous Turf Tavern where we tried its house Education ale – a Greene King brew.

Bev and I then did a short river cruise down the Thames past numerous University colleges boat houses whilst enjoying a can of Time Better Spent a juicy IPA from Tap Social Oxford brewery who employ guests of His Majesty’s Prisons in both the brewing and can design!

A further pint of London Pride in the Head of the River Fullers pub followed by an excellent Italian meal closed out our second day.

Thursday dawned a little cloudier but dry and this time it was the very touristy hop on/hop off bus which included a live commentary by Andy the Hat a local travel guide with loads of interesting facts about the many famous graduates in the various colleges including American presidents, Australian and British prime ministers and inventors and explorers. We also visited the Morse bar in the very grand Randolph hotel where it was an Irish coffee and cocktail for us.

We then all headed out of Oxford in a six seater Uber to the splendid Oxford brewery in the nearby village of Horspath. We were welcomed as old friends in their taproom where we enjoyed splendid pints of their cask offerings of Trinity, Prospect and Matilda’s Tears named brews. One purchased T shirt and cracked head on a door beam with ‘a mind your head’ sign on it later we returned to Oxford for our evening meal this time in a lovely Thai restaurant next to another grade ll listed GBG pub, the Chequers, where we enjoyed a lovely pint of Adnams brewery favourite Broadside. 

Our final day saw more visits to the Ashmolean museum, a look round the splendid New College with its Harry Potter themed dining hall and famous courtyard and tree featured in the film franchise.

The afternoon started with a visit to the fantastic Grapes pub which is Oxford CAMRA branch’s pub of the year for 2025 to deliver some of our festival beermats. It wasn’t hard to see why they won the award and we enjoyed several beers including SUP Golden Ale from Northern Monk brewery, 1950’s Burton Ruby Mild by Heritage brewing, a peach Melba bitter from Thornbridge and my personal favourite, a limited edition brew from Vale brewery named Our Shark to celebrate the 50 years anniversary of the Jaws film. They also served superb reasonably priced food with 3 tapas style plates duly consumed.

After enjoying a pint of Oxford Pale Ale from Chadlington brewery in The Kings Arms, a Youngs pub with more Sheffield beer festival beermats donated we spent the final afternoon doing a ‘Mystery Guide’ book tour round Oxford solving various clues on historic buildings and plaques etc to solve a ‘crime’ where the answer was revealed in a local pub. In our case it was the Bear Inn again which had numerous cricket club ties on display which revealed the culprit. Very enjoyable but tiring 3 hours which at least got our step counts way up. Our final evening was a visit to the city’s number 1 Tripadvisor rated restaurant called the Antep kitchen where we enjoyed splendid Turkish cuisine and Turkish Efee bottled beer.

A final couple of beers again at the Port Mahon pub closed out our stay. A lovely city with some great beers that is well worth a visit.

Branch AGM report

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Firstly many thanks to our members who attended our AGM at the Lescar pub on 10 May. We enjoyed a good meeting and social helped by a CAMRA discount on their cask ales.

We heard our chairperson’s annual report, passed a couple of motions aimed at improving our ability to change internal process and our Pub of the Month awards policy and received our branch accounts (which are in a good state). The existing committee were all re-elected with Paul Manning as chair, Phil Ellett secretary and Paul Crofts as treasurer along with all our other members. We welcomed Dan Rowe onto the committee as our new Pub of the Month coordinator. My thanks go to all our committee who work hard all year to support the branch.

We had good input from Kevin Kearney, our Yorkshire regional director who also handed over two awards to Dave Pickersgill our heritage secretary who was a runner up in the national CAMRA campaigner of the year competition and to Andy Cullen & Robin Lunnon as our website editor and designer which won a bronze award in the national CAMRA website of the year competition. Both were very well deserved. 

Finally thank you again to all our members for your support this year and please continue to join us at our branch socials and events, contribute to and enjoy our excellent BEER MATTERS magazine and most importantly support our fantastic local pubs and breweries.

Paul Manning

Chair, CAMRA Sheffield & District

Pub of the Year 2025 (Central Sheffield)

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A careful restoration of the original Ind Coope 1930s interior gave this two roomed pub a conservation award in 2002 and acknowledgement by CAMRA as one of Britain’s pubs with a three star pub interior of exceptional national historic importance. The bar lies between the tiled lounge, a small corridor drinking area and the cosy well-upholstered snug. The owners, Brian and Ruth Johnson, have been on the Sheffield pub scene for many years – although not necessarily high profile – and after about 10 years of the pub being leased to Thornbridge Brewery, Brian is back running the pub with a team of staff. The Bath is a simple drinkers pub with friendly service and is somewhere to sit with a nice pint of local ale and enjoy conversation or perhaps a game of darts. It also has some community focus with occasional music events and the smaller of the two rooms being available to hire for meetings etc. 

The Bath is one of the more atmospheric of Sheffield’s pubs. They always offer a wide range of excellent well-kept real ales from both local and further afield breweries as well as several keg beers.

Join us from 8pm on Thursday 29th May as we present the well earned certificate.

Pub of the Year 2025 (East Sheffield)

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The Oxbow Micropub opened its doors in January 2020, taking over what was once a kitchen showroom. It was founded by a group of friends who had long dreamed of running their own pub. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, they successfully navigated those early years and are now open every day – thanks in no small part to a brilliant team who help make the Oxbow such a welcoming place to enjoy a drink.

The Oxbow offers a relaxed and friendly environment where everyone is welcome. It features three cask lines and seven keg lines (often including a cider), along with a varied selection of bottled and canned beers and ciders. The beer is sourced from both local breweries and further afield, ensuring there’s something to suit every taste.

The interior is cosy, and there’s also an outdoor seating area. The canopy roof was damaged during the storm in early 2025 but is due to be repaired soon. Please note the pub is a cashless venue.

There are regular tap takeovers and specialist beer events, alongside visiting food vans and a pub quiz every other Wednesday.

The pub is easy to reach via Stagecoach bus 52 or First bus X5, both of which stop nearby. If you’re travelling on the 52, do allow a bit of extra time as the pub is at the very end of the route.

We’re looking forward to presenting the award on Tuesday 10th June at around 8.15pm – please do come along and join the celebration!

On the night the Oxbow will be offering 15% off their normal drinks prices (excluding cans) and Smith’s fish & chip van will be coming along and serving outside. Note the bar shuts at 9pm due to its residential location so get down early!

The team at the Oxbow receiving a Pub of the Month award in March 2024 during Sheffield Beer Week

Pub of the Year 2025 (Kelham and Overall)

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Our overall 2025 Pub of the Year – and also Kelham Island & Neepsend Area Pub of the Year – is the outstanding Kelham Island Tavern. The Kelham Island area has become a Sheffield beer destination in its own right, easily accessible from the city centre by bus and tram.

Constructed in the 1830s as part of a terrace, the building originally operated as The Sawmaker, later becoming The White Hart, and in 1995, The Kelham Island Tavern. It closed in 1999, and the derelict building was purchased and reopened in March 2002, with a focus on real ale.

Over the last 22 years, the pub has gone from strength to strength. Since 2019, under the management of Josh and Louise, it has continued to offer a wide range of both cask and craft beers – always including a stout, porter, and a selection of IPAs and bitters. The beer range is consistently excellent, always featuring at least one from local brewery Blue Bee. The pub also boasts an excellent rear beer garden and maintains the standards to which many others aspire. A simple snack menu is available, including pork pies.

Kelham Island Tavern was the first pub to be named CAMRA National Pub of the Year two years running (2008 & 2009), and has been CAMRA Yorkshire Pub of the Year five times. It has also taken the title of Sheffield Pub of the Year on 18 occasions – a record that’s unlikely ever to be overtaken.

Please join us on Tuesday 8th July as we present these well-deserved awards to Josh, Louise and the team.

Pub of the Year 2023!

Pub of the Year

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Following your member votes and the judging panel visits we are pleased to announce the following awards for 2025:

Overall Pub of the Year & Kelham Island/Neepsend area pub of year winner: Kelham Island Tavern (presentation to be made 8 July)

City centre pub of the year: Bath Hotel (presentation to be made 29 May, 8:30pm).

East Sheffield pub of the year: Oxbow micro pub, Woodhouse Mill (presentation to be made 10 June)

West Sheffield pub of the year: Rising Sun, Nethergreen (presentation to be made Wednesday 16 April, 7pm).

South Sheffield pub of the year: Brothers Arms, Heeley (presentation to be made Tuesday 13 May)

North Sheffield pub of the year: Commercial, Chapeltown (presentation to be made during the branch meeting there on Tuesday 3 June)

District pub of the year: Old Hall Hotel, Hope

Congratulations to all our winners. We will be arranging award presentations at all the venues where you can join us to celebrate with them. Please keep an eye on the branch diary on-line and in future Beer Matters for further details

Both the Kelham Island Tavern and the Old Hall at Hope now go forwards to represent the branch in the Yorkshire and North Derbyshire regional pub of the year judging respectively.

Finally thank you to all our members who voted and to our judging panel.

We will also be presenting the Old Shoe with Cider Pub of the Year and Crookes Social Club with Club of the Year following the members vote.

Oktoberblest

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Our chair Paul Manning, his wife Bev and long standing Sheffield camra stalwart Alan Gibbons recently visited the Oktoberblest beer and gin festival at St Matthew’s on Carver street.

The church was built in 1855 amongst the slums of the city, is now grade 2 listed and has long been regarded as a sanctuary in the heart of the city. The church has an ambitious target to raise nearly £800,000 for interior restorations and money raised at the festival will go towards increasing the £450,000 raised to date.

The festival opened with Rt Revd Stephen Race, the bishop of Beverley blessing the beers accompanied by Fr Grant Naylor, the current vicar.

Nick Law the founder of Emmanuales gave a very illuminating talk on the brief history of beer and belief and we also enjoyed some great music whilst sampling the beers.

Nick had brought two beers – Noah’s Dark a 5.4% dark Belgian ale and Solomon’s gold a 4.5% Belgian golden ale. Both tasted great and we also tasted (mainly half’s!) of Reunion Witbier a 5% cloudy white ale from Mount St Bernard Trappist brewer in rural Leicestershire. This was followed by Juiceinator a 4.7% pale and Days of Thunder a 5% hazy pale both from Bang the Elephant brewery in Langley Mill, Derbyshire.

We ended with Santa’s Little Belter a 4.9% ginger and cinnamon dark ale from the recently closed Halton Turner brewery in Digbeth, Birmingham together with Jolly YPA a 4.8% pale from Jolly Boys brewery in Barnsley.

We enjoyed the evening and look forward to next years event as it becomes a regular on the Sheffield festival calendar.

Beery adventure in…

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The land of the rising sun.

Our vice chair Paul Manning and his wife Bev recently visited Japan and South Korea trying the local beer scene on their travels.

Our 18-day adventure started with a brief flight stopover in the UAE at the ultra-modern sand dune shaped Abu Dhabi airport where we had time to sample a pint of 1758 Belgium IPA but at £13 each, they were easily the most expensive of the trip.

After 16 hours total flying time we arrived in Narita airport and, after a 40-mile taxi transfer, reached the excellent Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo which was to be our base for the first three nights. Fighting off the dreaded jetlag we headed out on a prearranged night-time beer and food tour round Shinjuku. Our tour group consisted off ourselves, three Americans, an Australian and our Japanese guide.

A great camaraderie ensued during the four-hour tour which consisted of stops at some great
street food and beer stalls where the delights of fried chicken, dumplings and even raw
horse meat were tried, washed down with copious amounts of the local beers – mainly Kirin
and Asahi super dry lagers together with the local favourite, highball cocktail.

Shinjuku at night was like New York Times Square with neon lights, the famous 3D digital cat, a towering Godzilla and was crowded with people which wasn’t a surprise for the world’s most populated city where 34 million people live in the greater Tokyo conurbation. After a detour to a local Shinto shrine where we paid our respects, the tour finished in what could only be described as a dive bar and after more Kirin I tasted some snake infused liquor. It was basically a local Japanese whisky with a decapitated snake head occupying the bottle!

Having survived the horse meat and snake liquor our next two days were again on pre-booked tours of wider Tokyo and further afield. The city is an amazing metropolis but so safe and clean – no graffiti or litter in sight which contrasted wildly with home. We explored Tokyo far and wide on the first day visiting the emperor’s imperial palace, the royal Shinto shrine with hundreds of saki beer barrels, a trip to the top of the Skytree tower for amazing views and a trip round Tokyo bay.

Beer opportunities were a little limited, with some green matcha flavoured ale at lunch, followed by a dark Asahi pale at the tower summit and more Kirin on the boat. The 45th floor lounge bar in our hotel more than sufficed for a few more lagers and cocktails accompanying dinner with jaw dropping night-time city views.

The second day was bright and clear with the main highlight a visit to the snow-covered foothills of Mount Fuji which was out in her full glory (we were lucky as she is only seen out of cloud around 60 days a year). A cable car ride over a sulphur emitting dormant volcano and a pirate ship lake ride followed before another highlight being a super-fast return trip by bullet train to Tokyo. The ship had an excellent Gora Brewery Rising Sun IPA but our beer highlight was a visit to a Hitachino Brewing’s Nest Beer outlet just outside one of Tokyo train station’s numerous exits.

The craft beers were excellent at approximately £5 a pint, and we spent a good two hours sampling their Dai Dai Ale 6% IPA, Amber Ale 6%, Mikan Session IPA 4.5%, Nipponia 6% IPA, History 1602 Pale Ale 5% and Espresso Stout 8%. I’d recommend seeking them out if ever in Tokyo.

The second part of our trip was a 12-night cruise down the east side of Japan onboard the cruise liner Celebrity Millennium. A great ship with attentive staff, great entertainment and food.

Onboard, craft beers were either bottled or canned and mostly American. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Goose Island IPA, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Lagunitas A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale wheat IPA, Guiness (on St Patrick’s Day) were all sampled together with some more interesting brews including 90 Minute IPA 9% imperial IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery, a Unibroue Brewery (Canada) La Fin du Monde 9% wheat beer and a Terrapin Beer (Georgia, US) Luau Krunkles IPA 6.5% passion fruit, orange and guava IPA.

While the East China Sea was at times rather rough, the weather was mostly dry if a little chilly. Our ports of call were varied with trips to more Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, castles, spectacular underground caves, and exquisite Japanese gardens mixed in with spectacular views over the cities of Okinawa, Kagoshima, Osaka, Kyoto in Japan, Jeju Island in South Korea and paddling in the Pacific Ocean in Shizuoka.

Of course, the alcohol side was satisfied by trips to a saki brewery factory and museum with an 18% saki beer purchased, Nanto brewery in Okinawa and a sweet potato shōchū 25% proof beer purchase in Kagoshima.

All in all, a spectacular trip with plenty of opportunities to sample Japanese culture, cities and
the beer scene in Tokyo which is highly recommended.

Pub of the Year 2024 (Kelham Island and Overall)

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Our overall 2024 pub of the year and also Sheffield Kelham Island & Neepsend area pub of the year is the outstanding Kelham Island Tavern. The Kelham Island area is now a Sheffield beer tourist attraction, with excellent bus and tram connections from the City Centre.

Constructed in the 1830s as part of a terrace, and originally operating as the Sawmaker, the pub was later renamed the White Hart, and in 1995 became the Kelham Island Tavern, before closing in 1999. In March 2002, the derelict building was purchased and reopened, specialising in real ale.

Over the last 22 years, the pub has continued to thrive and since  2019, under the management of Josh and Louise, it has continued to offer a wide range of both cask (13) and craft keg beers always including a porter and stout along with many IPA’s and bitters. It has an excellent rear beer garden and the pub maintains the standards to which many others aspire.

The beer range is consistently excellent, always including at least one from Blue Bee. A simple snack menu is available including pork pies.

KIT is the only pub to be CAMRA National Pub of the Year two years running (in 2008 & 2009). It has been CAMRA Yorkshire Pub of the Year five times and Sheffield Pub of the Year on 17 occasions: a record which is highly unlikely to be overtaken.

Please join us on Wednesday 3rd July as we present the well deserved awards to Josh, Louise and the team.

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Full list of award winning pubs & clubs

  • North Sheffield – Blake, Walkley
  • East Sheffield – Chantry Inn, Handsworth
  • South Sheffield – Sheaf View, Heeley
  • West Sheffield – Itchy Pig, Broomhill
  • Central Sheffield – Bath Hotel
  • Kelham Island & Neepsend – Kelham Island Tavern
  • District – Old Hall Hotel, Hope
  • Cider – New Barrack Tavern, Hillsborough
  • Club – Crookes Social Club

Pub of the Month March 2024

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The Oxbow micropub at Woodhouse Mill has been voted by our members as Pub of the Month for March 2024.

The Oxbow Micropub opened its doors in January 2020 in what used to be a kitchen showroom. It was started by a group of friends who had always dreamed of running their own pub. They managed to navigate their way through the challenges of 2020 and are now open every day, with the help of a brilliant team who do an amazing job in making the place such a friendly place to enjoy a drink. 

They aim to offer a relaxed environment where everyone is welcome. Due to having three cask lines and seven keg lines (often including a cider), as well as a range of bottled and canned beer and cider, hopefully there is something to suit everyone’s tastes.

They do regular tap takeovers and specialist beer events, as well as hosting food vans and also host a quiz night every other Wednesday. 

Please join us from 6pm on Wednesday 6th March when we will enjoy their quiz and then present the well deserved Pub of the Month award.

The pub is served by both 52 and X5 bus services.