The perfect pub for a Saturday afternoon – pick up a paper from the bar and a homemade hot roast pork sandwich; a guaranteed tranquil day.
Knowledgeable and friendly staff makes this Grade II listed pub (dating back to 1867) a popular watering hole. Inside you’ll find a remarkable tiled interior bar housing six hand pulled ales and six keg offerings, no wonder it’s listed in CAMRA’s National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors!
Rotating Thornbridge Brewery kegs such as their big bourbon barrel aged Imperial stout Eldon in addition to regular guests from the likes of Tiny Rebel and Cloudwater, sit welcomingly on the bar.
With regular pub quizzes, art exhibitions and music gigs, plus free Wi-Fi so you can check in and update friends on the beers they’re missing out on; this pub is a must visit on any city centre pub trail.
Address: 66-68 Victoria Street, Sheffield S3 7QL
www.beerinthebath.co.uk / @BeerInTheBath
Jules Gray
The Harlequin on Nursery Street used to be known as the Manchester, named after the nearby railway line. It became the Harlequin (with a nod towards a different Harlequin pub demolished to make way for the ring road) after being relaunched as a real ale free house and has since been taken over by the current landlady Liz Aspden and Exit 33 Brewing owner Pete Roberts.
The bar features a range of around 10 real ales with the house beers provided by Exit 33, the pub also showcases all the latest Exit 33 brews as well as quality guest ales, generally from Yorkshire and the North East but sometimes beyond and the guest range is constantly changing.
The Harlequin is also considered the best pub in Sheffield for cider lovers with a range of up to 14 different ciders which get their own section of bar, look for the cider board with the current choice including descriptions. This is our branch Cider Pub of the Year.
There is also a range of craft keg and bottled beers including an international selection. The range of spirits is extensive and quality and the pub is particularly known for its range of gins with tasting events organised from time to time.
Whatever your choice of tipple, the staff are knowledgeable, the quality is always there and the prices reasonable.
A popular quiz is hosted on Wednesdays, a varied programme of events take place on Thursday nights and music features on Friday and Saturdays with rock bands normally dominating the Saturday slot.
Food is served lunchtimes and evenings every day with a menu of freshly prepared meals, snacks and sandwiches. The £3 sandwich meal deal (includes crisps and soft drink) offered on Monday and Tuesday lunchtimes is popular with nearby office workers and the Sunday roasts are popular with all! There is also an upstairs function room available to hire with catering for private events.
The Harlequin is a short walk from the City Centre or Kelham Island, it also has a bus stop right outside the pub served by routes 3, 7 and 8.
The Beer House is Sheffield’s first full time micro pub and is situated at 623 Ecclesall Road, just before Hunter’s Bar. The pub opened in December 2014 by John Harrison, following conversion from a shop unit. The bar counter, tables and chairs came from the closed Bridge pub in Dronfield, the bar having been reconstructed to fit in the small front room.
The six handpumps dispense an ever changing range of beers, sourced from microbreweries around the country, some obscure, and sometimes a beer can sell out in a matter of hours. The two rooms can quickly get full in the evenings and at weekends, and although there are also two tables for outdoors drinking, drinks are not allowed outside after 9pm. The pub is open daily from noon to 11pm and there is a regular quiz Wednesday evening. In addition to the cask beers the local Stancill Pilsner is the lager offering and there is an interesting range of gins.
So congratulations then to John and his team led by manager Lucy on winning the Pub of the Month Award for April. The presentation will be on Tuesday 12 April from 8pm.
Buses 81, 82, 83 and 88 all stop at Hunter’s Bar.
Derek Longford
This months Pub of the Month award see us back in Commonside at the Closed Shop, directly opposite last months winner, Hallamshire House. Beer drinkers in the area have never had it so good!
The Closed Shop was taken on by Sheffield’s Reet Ale Pubs over three years ago and it has since gone from strength to strength. A large scale refurbishment in July 2013 added the kitchen and updated the interior. It’s a traditional style pub with separate areas on different levels, and a large beer garden. The back room has a pool table and large TV screen for showing the occasional sports event.
Manager Andy Stephens, Assistant Manager Christie McIntosh and bar staff Dan, Kirsten and Louise have worked hard to ensure the pub has a very friendly feel. It’s a great pub to just sit and chat to friends and the informal nature of the staff adds to the atmosphere. Evidence of this is the outdoor ‘A’ board with its ever changing humorous comments. (the word ‘humorous’ is being used loosely in this context as you’ll see when you visit!)
However don’t let this light-hearted touch fool you when it comes to the serious business of food and Drink. 8 handpulls serve an array of fine beer, always including Blue Bee’s excellent Reet Pale, which is hardly a surprise as the company also owns the brewery. One or two Blue Bee specials usually feature on the other pumps as well as a range of local and national beers featuring a variety of styles.
A good wine and spirits list caters for the non-beer drinkers. Worth a mention is Christie’s ‘Ginfusions’ – gin from Locksleys of Sheffield infused with an array of flavourings. Home cooked food is also a feature of the pub with a good mix of traditional dishes such as steak and ale pie, classic burgers, and old-favourite butties. Chef Dean Long and assistants Simon and James produce an ever-changing specials board to add to the choice and vegetarian options are always available. Sundays see the menu expanded to include traditional roast meats which are extremely popular.
Wednesday and Sunday quizzes are a big attraction at the pub. Free to enter, often themed, and with a range of prizes.
Sheffield CAMRA will be presenting the award on Tuesday 8th March. The evening starts at 8 pm, with a free buffet after the presentation.
The Closed Shop opens at 4 weekdays, food till 9.30, and opens midday at weekends, with food till 9. Full details are on the pub’s website www.theclosedshopsheffield.co.uk or their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheClosedShop. You can also follow them on twitter – @theclosedshop. Get there on bus 95 or car parking is available at the rear of the pub.
Commonside is one of those classic Sheffield locations that stick in the mind as somewhere unique, especially as a beer drinker. You alight the number 95 bus on the crest of the Barber Road hill, outside the Dram Shop off-licence and New Cod on the Block fish & chip shop. If you are my age you nod at PA Jewellery (Old Bank, Commonside, Walkley) remembering how often their adverts and sponsorship were on Radio Hallam and walk up Commonside where two good pubs are opposite one another. You wonder why you don’t make the effort a little more often.
The Hallamshire House is one of those pubs. It is a Sheffield classic multi-room pub and when the long serving licencee retired the lease was taken over by Thornbridge Brewery. A refurbishment took place that gave the pub a more clean, smart and modern look without losing the classic character that people loved about the pub. The two snug like rooms at the front of the pub are still present and correct, as is the big back room with the full size snooker table – one of the few still left in Sheffield pubs – along with the lounge.
There is also now a fairly unique smokers room downstairs – an undercroft area with sofas and tables, which extends out into a small beer garden area at the rear.
Whatever type of pub you love, there is probably a room for you!
Meanwhile at the bar, managers Tom & Becky Ashfield and their team present a selection of craft beers across all the formats – cask real ales, keg, bottle and can; mainly from Thornbridge but complimented by interesting guests – always kept to a high standard. You can be alerted to exciting new beers appearing on the bar by following the pub on Twitter – @HallamshireHaus.
Bar snacks are available in the form of pork pies, sausage rolls and scotch eggs.
On the entertainment front, there is a monthly blues club, regular quiz nights and other special events. Otherwise it is just great beer served in a nice chilled out pub.
Join us for the award presentation evening, we’ll be there from about 8pm on Tuesday 9th February.
The Hallamshire House is open Monday to Wednesday 4pm to 11:30pm, Thursday noon to 11:30pm, Friday & Saturday noon to 12:30am and Sunday noon to 11:30pm. Website: www.myhallamshire.co.uk.
The Three Tuns on Silver Street Head is one of Sheffield’s classic traditional pubs, thanks to it’s triangular shape and the feeling of being on the bow of a ship for those occupying the seats in the window where the point of the triangle is!
Despite being a classic Sheffield pub, its location tucked away off Paradise Square has also led some to describe it as a ‘hidden gem’, which in the past has relied on an after work crowd from the nearby HSBC bank building and the various local solicitors offices, however it is now getting better known and much more popular.
Although refurbished to feel modern and comfortable, it also retains an old fashioned feel to the design and is simply somewhere you can sit in a relaxed and civilised atmosphere.
The atmosphere of the pub is helped by the staff – Manager Kate Major is a younger version of what some old timers would describe as ‘a proper pub landlady’ and her team offers friendly and efficient service at the bar.
Being part of the Reet Ale Pubs business, the beer range features a selection of cask ales from Blue Bee Brewery plus guests, these are spread across 6 handpumps. A real cider from the Westons range is also available.
Food is available at meal times on weekdays and all day on Saturdays, the pub only has a very small kitchen so the offering has been restricted to a selection of hot and cold sandwiches along with some hot meal options on the specials board, usually a curry or casserole dish.
This is the second time the Three Tuns has won a Pub of the Month award – voted for by our members – since Reet Ale Pubs took the lease from Punch Taverns, this one reflects the hard work by Kate and her team to not only maintain standards but grow the popularity of this iconic little pub of Sheffield.
We’ll be presenting the certificate at the Three Tuns on the evening of Tuesday 12th January, why not join us from 8pm and enjoy a few beers, it could be a bit of a party!
The Porter Cottage is on Sharrow Vale Road, just behind Ecclesall Road. Tim and Mandy Price have been in charge for 25 years. It is believed the pub was an old coaching inn established 150 years ago, subsequently acquired by Duncan Gilmour and then Tetley. It is now part of Wear Inns based in Castle Eden, Co Durham.
The handpumps dispense Bradfield Farmers Blond and Bitter (and Belgian Blue when available) together with Abbeydale Deception and Sharps Doombar, as well as a guest beer usually from Saltaire or Kelham Island. For cider lovers there’s Weston’s Wildwood.
Quiz nights are Tuesday and Sunday, and from 4 to 6pm on the second Sunday each month is an acoustic session with various artists, and at the same time on the 4th Sunday there’s live blues in conjunction with the Honey Bee Blues Club and Martin Bedford.
The Porter Cottage is open from 5pm Mon – Thurs, and from 12 noon Fri – Sun. The Cottage is a well run friendly pub with a good local following, and there’s a nationally acclaimed alternative jukebox.
So it’s well done to Mandy, Tim and their team.
Derek LongfordThe Pub of the Month award will be presented on Tuesday 8th December from 8pm. Nearest bus stop is Hunters Bar on routes 81,82,83,83a,88,272.
The Devonshire Cat has been a well known Sheffield ale house for as long as I’ve been drinking in Sheffield, however in January last year it was taken over by Abbeydale Brewery and had a new lease of life breathed into it. Its 12 handpumps always include Moonshine, Deception, Absolution, Dev Cat Bitter and Dev Cat Stout as house beers, served as you would expect in impeccable condition. The range of guests from near and far has improved greatly too under Abbeydales excellent stewardship, and any patron should look out for the ‘Jazz Marque’ awarded to to the guest beer on the bar he deemed best by Assistant Manager Jon ‘Jazzy’ Stevens.
Like most successful pubs these days the Devonshire Cat also serves up some fine food, alongside its ales, with a menu with something for everyone. If you’ve not eaten here before definitely give it a go. The Dev Cat also boasts 14 keg lines, an excellent bottle selection and a wonderful spirit list thats well worth perusing and sampling. The pub has an events list to cater to all, weekly Monday pub quizzes, regular tasting nights are held with Starmore Boss, the recent “CatFest”, and regular promotions on different beer and bottle styles.
As ever though a list of attributes like great beer, great food, quizzes etc does not necessarily make a great pub. The atmosphere, the staff, the belief in quality and the over riding sense that the pub is a haven for people to visit, to enjoy , to try something new, to meet friends and socialise is all encapsulated here, right in the centre of Sheffield. Abbeydale and their dedicated enthusiastic team have reinvigorated this pub and made it a must visit destination in Sheffield.
Andy StephensThe Devonshire Cat is on Wellington Street in Sheffield City Centre, a short walk from public transport at West Street or Moorfoot. We’ll be presenting the certificate on the evening of Tuesday 10th November, all are welcome to join us for a pint!
The Mount Pleasant is almost 200 years old, having been built in 1828. The Beer House Act was passed in 1830, but it was not until 1840 that the then owner, A Reuben Rogers, paid 2 Guineas for a licence, having been caught selling ale illegally. Since then there has been a further eight licencees, the present incumbent being Stuart Burrows, who took over in 1993.
The pub is an excellent old fashioned one, with a friendly atmosphere and very efficient bar staff. You can enjoy good conversation without the distraction of music.
Six handpumps are in use and apart from the Tetley Bitter and Gold, the remaining ones are a variety of guest beers. These usually include Blonde Witch and one from the Welbeck Abbey Brewery. Adnams Ghost Ship has also been a recent regular.
There is a quiz on Thursdays which Stuart writes himself and to quote one customer ‘never was there a landlord who knew so much useless information!’ The darts team compete in the Woodseats league and there is also an active fishing club. Stuart also runs a Whisky club where members meet to taste rare whiskies from around the world.
He describes the Mount Pleasant as a public house unspoilt by progress and has written a history of the pub, complete with pictures, which is well worth reading. It will also be included in the 2016 National Good Beer Guide.
Opening hours are 5pm-12pm Mondays to Wednesdays, 5pm-1am Thursdays and Fridays, 3pm-1am Saturdays and 12 noon to 12:30am on Sundays. Bus 20A passes the front door of the pub and bus 20 stops nearby. (Note the 20A is replaced by a new route 18 from 1st November).
Join us on Tuesday 13th October from 8pm for the award presentation evening where all can expect a warm welcome and a cracking pint!
Carole Ware
Shakespeare’s, Gibralter Street.
I’m sure I’m not the first CAMRA member to have moved home to make a favoured pub my “local” but this was the case almost two years ago when I decided to move from Doncaster to Sheffield as proximity to Shakespeare’s on Gibraltar Street was a very important factor my in flat-hunting.
The pub was opened as The Shakespeare in 1821 as a Georgian coaching inn on the site of an earlier establishment dating back to the 18th Century. After experiencing mixed fortunes under a succession of licensees in the late 90s and early ‘noughties’ it closed its doors in January 2010. Subsequently purchased and restored by real ale and music fan William Wagstaff it reopened as Shakespeare’s just in time for Tramlines in July 2011.
The small front bar to the right on entering is the heart of the pub – containing the bar itself and the regularly updated “Shakesbeers” board. This is a lovely place to enjoy the fine beers on offer when the pub is quiet but can become quite congested at weekends. To the left is a side room dominated by a superb grandfather clock. Two distinct drinking areas with barrel tables and bar stool seating are located to the rear of the bar and through here to the right is a long back room which was originally a passageway for coaching horses (and subsequently brewery drays). Now known as The Archway this is furnished with long ‘picnic tables’ & benches, a darts board and a classic jukebox (recently returned to working order). The walls here are decorated with a huge array of pump clips, beer mats and posters. The large garden to the rear of the pub is very popular on warmer days, with the enclosed area to the left having been the stable back in coaching inn days.
Upstairs is the renowned “Bard’s Bar” which hosts a varied programme of gigs and the very popular monthly King Bee night, as well as meetings, private parties and even book launches. It’s been a great pleasure to see my favourite band (Sheffield’s own High Hazels) play here three times – and two of the band’s videos were partially filmed in the pub! Also upstairs is a small games room with darts, bar billiards, table football and a selection of board games.
Moving on to the all important beer there’s always 9 cask ales on sale (over 3,250 in the four years since the pub reopened) and it’s the range and quality of these that quite rightly wins plaudit upon plaudit from discerning drinkers looking for something a little different to/over and above the norm. Beers from highly regarded UK breweries such as Hopcraft, Siren Craft, Buxton & Mallinson’s regularly feature alongside fine local breweries including Steel City and Blue Bee. Abbeydale Deception is the one regular beer – always popular and at a very reasonable £2.30 per pint. The guest beers are also competitively priced given their calibre and (in many cases) rarity. When the pub is quiet the helpful and knowledgeable staff are happy to serve any beer from the cellar that’s tapped and ready to drink.
The ‘less traditionally minded’ beer connoisseur can now enjoy at least three quality keg beers from pioneering breweries in the US, UK and Europe. There’s also three cask ciders and a superb selection of over 100 single malts.
Food (very commendably in the author’s opinion) is limited to good value (70p) filled bread rolls, Stobart’s pork pies and a range of bar snacks in the shape of crisps, pork scratchings and nuts.
Although the main criterion for any CAMRA award has to be the availability of a range of high-quality cask beers (clearly achieved with flying colours in this case!) a pub can only be as good as its staff – and here Shakespeare’s excels yet again. Manager Chris Bamford has been there from the start and what he doesn’t know about sourcing and caring for quality beer really isn’t worth knowing. Chris is very ably supported by Assistant Managers Chris Wadsworth and Keisha Wright, together with the wonderful bar team of Wendy, Louis, Lizzie & James. All, and many of the lovely “regulars”, have become friends.
Downstairs the strong musical links continue – with ‘Sheffield Rapper’ early Monday evenings, Ceilidh sessions in the back room on Tuesdays and ‘sing-arounds’ in the front side room on Wednesdays. The pub also plays a major role in the “Sheffield Sessions” annual Folk Festival. Chris hosts an excellent quiz every Thursday at 9:30pm (fans of the Bard will no doubt appreciate the eloquent rendition of an extract from one of his works which forms the basis of Question 25).
The ‘Shakey’ appeals to a wide cross-section of people including musicians, artists, writers, theatre and studio staff and students as well as CAMRA members and other beer connoisseurs from all over the UK (and often even further afield).
The presentation of this richly deserved Pub Of the Month award will take place on Tuesday 15th September at approximately 8pm. All are welcome to attend – it’s bound to be a fine evening
Martin Clark
