The winner in the Derbyshire part of our Sheffield & District branch area competition, as voted for by our members and validated by our judges, is the Old Hall Hotel in Hope.
The main pub building is a 16th Century coaching inn sited on the main road through the village opposite the church which is split into three areas – the main lounge containing the bar, a smaller side room and a restaurant. Upstairs there are hotel rooms offering bed & breakfast accommodation with the breakfast served in the tea room, located in a newer building that is connected to the main pub.
The pub is traditionally furnished and in the winter gets quite cosy with the fire lit!
A selection of well kept real ales is available on the pub’s bar, generally leaning towards the more traditional styles. The pub is also proud of its scotch whisky selection with some of the stock arriving following road trips to the highlands and islands of Scotland!
On most bank holiday weekends a marquee appears on the pub car park hosting the Hope Valley Beer & Cider Festival with a large range of cask ales served on a mixture of handpump and gravity and the opportunity is usually taken to showcase breweries from or near to Derbyshire including the two most local brewers Intrepid and Eyam. The festival also features live entertainment and a snack bar.
The Old Hall Hotel is leased from Heineken’s Star Pub Company by Atlantik Inns, a local company run hands on by experienced pub landlord Rick Ellison and his team. There is a quiz night every Tuesday and various other events from time to time and attracts tourists staying in the area, hikers and day trippers as well as locals that live in Hope or other nearby villages.
Join us at the Old Hall’s beer festival on Saturday 25 May when we’ll be presenting them with the District Pub of the Year award at around 3pm.
Buses 173 (Bakewell-Castleton) and 271/272 (Sheffield-Castleton) stop close to the pub or Hope railway station (Sheffield-Manchester line) is a 10-15 minute walk away.
Craftworks describes itself as a micropub, although some may say it is bigger than the typical micro being two shop units knocked together, however at heart that is what it is!
The venue sits on the main road through Mosborough and appeals to many sections of the community, opening from 9am serving decent coffee supplied by Sheffield-based Forge Coffee Roasters with bar staff benefitting from barista training and using a proper espresso machine. They also usually have a selection of cakes and bakes available on the bar in the morning too.
Into the afternoon and evening the focus is more on the beer, wines and spirits (although both coffee and booze is available all day!) with four handpumps on the bar for cask ales, including a house pale ale supplied by Abbeydale Brewery. These are supplemented by a tap wall featuring additional craft beers on keg.
On Mondays, Craftworks offer a cask club promotion from 6pm with 15% off the real ales on handpump.
The bar generally offers a friendly, relaxed atmosphere to enjoy nice drinks, however there are some evening events that take place too including quiz nights (Tuesdays 8pm), live music (Sundays 4pm) and comedy (last Wednesday of the month at 8pm).
They also take part in the annual Eckington Beer & Music Festival which sees a number of pubs and cafes on the road from Mosborough through Eckington and Marsh Lane to Hundall put entertainment on, which this year is held on Saturday 29 June.
We’ll be heading over to Craftworks to present their Pub of the Month award certificate on the evening of Tuesday 9 April. This is their quiz night so you may choose to take part in that, enjoy a beer or two and then see our presentation after.
Stagecoach buses 50/50a (Sheffield Interchange to Chesterfield via Eckington) will get you there and drop you off quite close to their door, alternatively a short walk away are TM Travel buses 30a/55 and Hulleys bus 80/80a.
Thanks to all our members who voted in the Pub of the Year competition and thanks also to those who volunteered to visit all the area winners to objectively judge the overall winner! We’ll be featuring the overall winner next month, here are the area winners!
The Blake is one of Sheffield’s classic pubs, often remembered by University students living nearby that walk there for a pint as its on the top of a very steep hill and next to a park! It is a traditional community pub which was restored and reopened back in 2010 after seven years of closure, always has a good choice of well kept ales, an extensive whisky selection and a friendly atmosphere. Although it has changed ownership in recent years, it is still the same excellent pub!
This is a traditional multi roomed community pub with low beamed ceilings located in St Mary’s Church yard – it is one of only four pubs in the UK with claims to be built on holy ground. It was originally a house for chaplains from mid-13th century becoming a public house in 1804. In 2019 the pub, previously known as the Cross Keys, was bought and carefully refurbished by Chantry Brewery of Rotherham, with a range of their beers on the bar.
The Sheaf View was originally a 19th Century pub that had been closed and abandoned by Marstons Brewery. It was bought, restored, extended and reopened as a freehouse in the year 2000. The pub has two rooms – the main original room where you enter through a corridor which opens out into the bar area and a conservatory style extension. There is also a decking area as part of the outdoor drinking provision along with a grass embankment that leads up to the car park.
There is a quiz night and occasional acoustic live music events. They also host beer festivals a few times a year with a pop up bar in the conservatory and outside bar in a kiosk situated in the decking area. These events usually also involve music and a street food trader.
The walls and shelves are adorned with assorted breweriana and provide an ideal background for good drinking and conversation. A wide range of international beers, together with malt whiskies and a real cider complement the eight reasonably priced real ales. The pub gets very busy on Sheffield United match days with some of the more discerning fans popping in for a pint on the way to Bramall Lane!
A fantastic micropub offering a good traditional community local in miniature. The name reflects an original back to basics vision of ale and pork scratchings, these days the bar continues to offer a great selection of real ales on handpump and other craft beers on tap and an atmosphere where you have both students and older locals sat with a nice drink either engaged in conversation or watching rugby on the TV!
A careful restoration of the 1930s interior gave this two roomed pub a conservation award 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 owner, Brian, is someone who has been on the Sheffield pub scene for many years – although not necessarily high profile – and after a few years of the pub being leased to Thornbridge Brewery is back running the pub himself 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 the smaller of the two rooms available to hire for meetings etc.
This is a serial award winning beer drinkers pub that ticks all the boxes. It was reopened in 2002 when it was bought as a closed near derelict pub, well before the regeneration of the Kelham Island district had kicked off and later had the back room added as an extension. The pub has two rooms and a beer garden, all usually spotlessly clean. The bar features an extensive range of cask ales on handpump always including some dark beers and a gluten free option – all served by friendly and knowledgeable staff. There is a weekly quiz and folk music sessions. The only food served is pork pies and bhajis.
The Old Hall is a Peak District village pub that manages the rare achievement of being different things to different people and still get it right! The building (the main part of which dates back to 1729) contains a real ale pub, restaurant, tea room and hotel accommodation and attracts locals, walkers and tourists. A quiz night is held on Tuesdays and a beer & cider festival is hosted in a marquee over most bank holiday weekends.
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.
Voting is now underway for the Cider Pub of the Year 2024 and all CAMRA Sheffield & District members are able to vote for their favourites from the shortlist of eligible pubs in Sheffield and surrounding parts of Derbyshire.
The eligible clubs serve real cider and/or perry and have been nominated by local CAMRA members.
The voting process is the same as for our Pub of the Year award, with members either selecting pubs in order of preference or selecting pubs and then ranking them in the list below. The winning pubs will be announced during our AGM in April.
Please vote using the form below before the deadline of 20 February 2024.
You must be a CAMRA member to vote. Not a member? Join now!
Voting is now underway for the Club of the Year 2024 and all CAMRA Sheffield & District members are able to vote for their favourites from the shortlist of eligible pubs in Sheffield and surrounding parts of Derbyshire.
The eligible pubs have been deemed to have fantastic atmosphere, welcoming surroundings and most importantly, top quality real ale served in great condition and have been nominated by local CAMRA members.
The voting process is the same as for our Pub of the Year award, with members either selecting pubs in order of preference or selecting pubs and then ranking them in the list below. The winning pubs will be announced during our AGM in April.
Please vote using the form below before the deadline of 20 February 2024.
You must be a CAMRA member to vote. Not a member? Join now!
I’m getting a sense of déjà vu writing about Shakespeares for Pub of the Month… There have been a few changes since my last piece, not least manager Lucienne moving on to a career on the brewery side of the trade, and Tom stepping into her place. The pub has also just won another accolade in the form of the annual Pints of Sheffield Battle of the Boozers on the Instagrams.
One of the things I love about the local beer scene is that while other cities have some great craft bars and some great traditional pubs selling trad beer, Sheffield is almost unique in having proper pubs selling top tier craft beers (as well as superb cask of course). Shakespeares is a perfect example of this, being a proper old school pub with cask beers from across the country rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in craft from around the world (and some more obscure of course!).
Only a few of the more senior members of the branch will remember the pub’s opening in 1821, since when it has passed through various breweries’ (notably Wards) and pubcos’ ownership, and closure, before opening as a fully independent free house in 2011. In its current guise over 7,500 different cask beers have been sold plus about 2,000 keg. Permanent fixtures on cask are Red Willow Feckless and Abbeydale Deception while the rest of the handpumps host the ever-changing guests. The keg taps feature beers from within a mile to the other side of the planet, almost always including an imperial stout, a sour or two, various IPAs and usually some crazy ****. If that really isn’t enough there’s a large list of cans and bottles available from the cellar. There is also an impressive selection of whiskies and a smaller selection of whiskeys and rums (the latter needs to expand, hint hint…).
The pub itself retains a multi-room layout with rooms on all four sides of the central bar area, including a bustling front bar area, a (usually) quieter ‘clock room’ to the side, and the ‘long room’ with bench seating and a dartboard. Upstairs are two function rooms, a larger one regularly featuring live bands and a smaller one sometimes used for pub games and a couple of times a year for the festival cask bar, often including beers not seen anywhere else on cask (or in some cases at all!). Outside is a large paved beer garden which catches the evening sunlight, with a small covered area for more typical British weather…
Oh, and the sofa is still my Spot, so anyone who isn’t me should keep out!
Our Club of the Year competition is now underway. Any club within the Sheffield & District CAMRA branch area that serves real ale is eligible for entry.
CAMRA campaigns to protect and promote clubs, which are important community assets that promote the social well being of their local area. The Club of the Year competition is run with the simple aim of finding the best clubs with the greatest commitment to quality real ale – those which offer a fantastic atmosphere, welcoming surroundings and most importantly, top quality real ale served in great condition.
We are running a two part process
Sheffield & District CAMRA members can nominate clubs they think deserve recognition from 5 December until 8 January
Sheffield & District CAMRA members are then asked to vote for the club on the nominations list they think is the best club in the area for real ale. Voting will open from the branch meeting on 9 January where members can collect a paper voting form, alternatively online voting will be available.
The winning club will be presented with a certificate and entered into the regional round of the national competition.
TO NOMINATE A CLUB…
Please email the details of the club you wish to nominate along with your name and membership number to vicechair@sheffield.camra.org.uk.
Our Cider Pub of the Year competition is now underway. Any pub within the Sheffield & District CAMRA branch area that serves real cider and/or perry is eligible for entry.
The award is designed to celebrate pubs that make the effort to serve and promote the proper product and encourage drinkers to visit them and try the real thing.
We are running a two part process
Sheffield & District CAMRA members can nominate pubs they think deserve recognition for their cider/perry offering from 5 December until 8 January
Sheffield & District CAMRA members are then asked to vote for the pub on the nominations list they think is the best pub in the area for Cider & Perry. Voting will open from the branch meeting on 9 January where members can collect a paper voting form, alternatively online voting will be available.
The winning pub will be presented with a certificate and entered into the regional round of the national competition.
TO NOMINATE A PUB…
Please email the details of the pub/bar you wish to nominate along with your name and membership number to vicechair@sheffield.camra.org.uk.
