Beer Week is a City-wide beer celebration hosted across multiple venues. Now in it’s sixth year, look out for brewery open days, tap takeovers, food and beer pairing menus, guided walks and more.
The week itself runs from
9th to 15th March, however things kick off the previous weekend with the
Indie Beer Feast, taking place at Abbeydale Picture House on the
6th and 7th March (advance tickets are advisable for this event). This is a celebration of great independent craft beer with brewery bars (15+), street food, gin, a Hogan’s cider bar, a Hop Hideout bottle bar and a new natural wine bar hosted by award-winning Sheffield bar
Public. The beer festival champions and supports
The Everyone Welcome initiative. British Guild of Beer Writers’ members and leading UK beer writers
Adrian Tierney-Jones and
Pete Brown will be heading up to host pop-up tastings and to judge the Indie Beer Feast ‘Beer of the Festival’. Breweries pouring include local outfits Thornbridge, Lost Industry, Abbeydale and Saint Mars of the Desert. Plus a London contingency of Orbit, Wild Card and Brick breweries, and from the North East – Anarchy Brew Co and Donzoko. In addition to Manchester’s Cloudwater, Liverpool’s Neptune, Reading’s Double-Barrelled, Cheshire’s Mobberley Brewhouse, Nottingham’s Black Iris, Cambridge’s Pastore Brewing and North Yorkshire’s Turning Point Brew Co. They’ll also be an international presence from Denmark’s Mikkeller, Germany’s Frau Gruber and Netherlands’ Kees.
This year sees beer week themed around three strands – Beer & food, community and heritage – with Sheffield known globally for its brewing and nationally for its superb range of pubs serving cask ale with the care and attention it deserves, the city’s outstanding beer reputation precedes itself.
As usual, Sheffield & District CAMRA’s Dave Pickersgill will be contributing to the heritage strand leading guided walks taking in a few real ale venues featured in our pub heritage guide he authored.
Sheffield Beer Week has a number of local breweries involved this year including
Abbeydale, Sheffield Brewery Company, Lost Industry,
Thornbridge, True North Brew Co and
Saint Mars Of the Desert. National and international breweries announced so far include Arbor, Duration, Marble, Adnams (with a specific cask showcase), Torrside, Alvinne, Siren, Salt Beer Factory, Pressure Drop and
Mikkeller‘s wild beer arm Baghaven. Plus up and coming new UK breweries Vault City and Pastore Brewing and Blending. With pubs, bars and beer shops from around the city getting involved to showcase these breweries. Shakespeares pub will be going all out on a collaboration festival dedicated to cask ale which will be launching over the last weekend of the beer week.
Look out for beer collaborations specially brewed for the beer week to be released through the celebrations. Not only will there be an official Sheffield Beer Week beer brewed for 2020’s charity partnership supporting
The Friends of Edward Carpenter in collaboration with Sheffield based LGBTQ+ beer group
Out and About and
Lost Industry Brewing. But Out and About have been busy and will also be working with Abbeydale Brewery and
The Queer Brewing Project. Both collaborations share a unified sentiment which champion welcoming everyone from across the spectrum of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. A sentiment which Sheffield Beer Week fully shares and supports. Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was a significant cultural and political activist around Sheffield in his life. Advocating the simplification of life through his market garden and grow your own approach to campaigning for many issues of social concern. These ranged from women’s suffrage to the protection of the environment, from sexual emancipation to the formation of trade unions. The Friends of Edward Carpenter group formed to celebrate this important figure and to endeavour to establish a fitting memorial as a public work of art. The official Sheffield Beer Week beer will be raising funds for this cause.
In the group’s words, Edward Carpenter’s life:
“…was one of quiet celebration while his writings and example laid the foundation for the gay liberation movement of the twentieth century. Through his many friendships, Edward Carpenter traversed the divisions of class, gender, sexuality, race and creed. Men and women from across the world and from all walks of life came into connection with each other through him and his connections with Sheffield.“
Sheffield Beer Week is proud to be a part of the wider ‘Festival of the Outdoors’ initiative from
The Outdoor City. With walking tours and running events including local historian, Sheffield CAMRA’s Pub Heritage Officer and British Guild of Beer Writers’ 2018 awards shortlisted author Dave Pickersgill’s popular
Sheffield Pub and Industrial Heritage Walk. In addition to a collaboration with Sheffield’s
SheFest (which takes place during the same week and celebrates and promotes gender equality across South Yorkshire), Sheffield Beer Week and
Hop Hideout on March 12th. With a Women in Beer and Brewing Walking Tour. As
International Women’s Day on March 8
th precedes the beer week, it’s a timely collaborative event. There will be beer and food dinners and week long paired menus to enjoy, highlighting the wonderful pairing of beer with food. In addition to a first time collaboration with Sheffield’s annual award-winning
Doc/Fest, Visit Sheffield, Sheffield Beer Week and the
Showroom Cinema – news on this exciting UK film premier to be announced!
For more information including the full events listings head to
http://sheffieldbeerweek.co.uk
Photographs: Mark Newton and Nicci Peet.
Jules Gray.
We are pleased to be able to announce our festival will be returning to Kelham Island Museum again this year from the 21st to 24th October.
As ever we will have lots of real ale and other craft beers, cider & perry, street food, games, live music and more spread across various areas of the museum site.
There will be some changes to the layout this year, we’ll no longer have the Millowners Arms as a festival brewery bar as this is now an independent pub open full time all year round – however we expect their bar to be open during the festival in addition to our own relocated brewery bars, meaning an even bigger choice of beers and rooms to explore!
The festival is entirely organised, managed and staffed by volunteers, if you fancy joining the team the volunteering form will go online soon and watch this space for more news as things start to get organised.
One Valley, Dronfield – Saturday 6th June
There is no CAMRA real ale festival taking place in Dronfield this year and of course 3 Valleys is no more, however there is quite a list of pubs, clubs, breweries and shops putting on their own independent events on the traditional date, offering a day out in the area featuring beer, food and music.
There are two collectives putting on events:
One Valley (Dronfield town centre and Dronfield Woodhouse):
Hill Top Sports and Social Club, Blue Stoops, Coach & Horses, Hyde Park Inn, Manor House Hotel, The Underdog bar, Jolly Farmer, Dronfield Wine World, White Swan, Victoria, Dronfield Arms and The Beer Stop. These are all either within walking distance of Dronfield railway station or served by Stagecoach bus 43.
One Valley EXTRA (surrounding villages and beyond)
The Pioneer Club in Dronfield, Miners Arms in Hundall, Drone Valley Brewery in Unstone and Jacey’s micropub on Whittington Moor. Stagecoach bus 43/44 and TM Travel bus 14/15 link these venues with Dronfield town centre, additionally a taxi minibus service will be shuttling regularly between these venues throughout the afternoon.
For the latest information check out their Facebook event pages.
Barnsley CAMRA , Elsecar – 7th to 9th May
The beer festival organised by Barnsley CAMRA in Elsecar this year has moved from its previous home at the railway, although not very far – the 2020 event will be at Elsecar Heritage Centre, which beer lovers in the area will know as the home of Maison de Bier craft beer shop.
As ever, volunteer staff are needed!
I’m Polly, I’m 23, and I’ve been a member of CAMRA for three years. This October’s 45th Steel City Beer Festival was the sixth I’ve attended, but the first I’ve volunteered at. As luck would have it, a week off work coincided with the setup of the festival, so I thought I’d give it a go.
Over the course of a week I helped with everything from glass washing to stillage assembly, pulling pints to putting up bars. I even helped taste test the beer to make sure it was ready to be served!
Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Over the course of the festival I met dozens of new people, learned plenty about what it takes to set up a festival, and most importantly had a tremendous amount of fun.
If you have the time and the interest, helping out at a CAMRA event is a great way to spend a few hours, days, or even a week! 
Kelham Island Museum was the setting once again for the annual Steel City Beer & Cider Festival which took place over 4 days in October. Over 6,000 visitors attended, drinking almost 20,000 pints of beer and 3,000 pints of cider. Thanks to help from our friends at Abbeydale Brewery we managed to keep the Keykeg bar open for the whole festival this year, which certainly proved popular. In fact additional supplies had to be brought in on Saturday morning to ensure we kept the taps flowing.
The usual excellent range of food stalls provided a wide range of hot and cold food, and moving one of the stalls round by the Engine Room, and adding more seating made the marquee area a lot more inclusive, giving a better overall feel to the courtyard. Saturday also saw a charity cake stall run by the Seven Hills WI, featuring cakes baked using beer and cider.
Drinkers were entertained by another top quality choice of live music, featuring rock bands each night, plus the usual Saturday afternoon spot by the Loxley Silver Band, and a return appearance by the ever-lively Kelham Rapper, who could be seen performing their sword dances several times on Saturday at various places around the festival.
Wednesday night sees a lot of the local trade visit, and is the night we run the Champion Beer of Sheffield Award, this year sponsored by Beer Central. Each local brewery is invited to submit one of their beers for the competition which is blind judged by teams of selected tasters.
The results, which announced during the evening were as follows.
3rd place – Vanilla Stout by Bradfield Brewery
We also ran a special event featuring a talk by renowned beer writer Roger Protz. This covered the history of India Pale Ale and included 6 tasters of IPA’s from the festival selection. 22 people attended the talk and feedback was excellent. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it and we will be looking to add additional talks and tasting sessions to the festival in future.
This year’s charity was Burton Street Foundation, who provide various support services for people with learning disabilities and their families. Through collections of cash, unused tokens and donated glass refunds, we are pleased to say that over £2000 was raised for this excellent local charity. Thanks to everyone who donated.
And of course a final mention to our volunteers, all 200 of them! We can’t thank them enough for giving up their free time to come and help make the festival the success it is. It’s a lot of hard work, but everyone enjoys being part of it and it’s nice to see so many faces back again each year. Extra thanks are also due to the volunteers who helped on the last Sunday. What takes four days to build is dismantled and put back into storage in just 10 hours. It’s a herculean effort and the team were rightly treated to a free buffet and free drinks at the Rutland Arms 2 weeks later. This is an area where we could definitely use more help next year, so if you’re feeling up to it, get in touch.
Planning for next year’s festival begins in January, and if you fancy being part of our team, please contact one of the committee, either via the emails listed in the front of Beer Matters, or in person if you see one of us out and about at any point. We’ll be only too happy to let you know what we do, and to find a way you can get involved.
See you all again next year. Cheers.
Paul Crofts 
Respected veteran beer writer Roger Protz is coming to Sheffield’s Steel City Beer & Cider Festival this year on the opening night to celebrate his new book “IPA – A Legend in our time”.
His book will be available to buy on our CAMRA book stall at the festival and there will be meet the author book signing events on Wednesday and Thursday.
Roger will also be leading a tutored tasting session where he will talk you through samples of 5 different IPAs from the festival list. This will be in a private room for a limited number of ticket holders only.
Tickets combining the standard entry package with the tutored tasting event are available to buy online in advance and include
As we near the 2019 Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, it seems like the 500th edition of Beer Matters is a good opportunity to look back over the festival’s history.
1975 – 2018
The first festival was a single day affair, held in September 1975 at Sheffield University’s Tapton Hall of Residence and featured around 25 beers. The following year saw a move to the University Lower Refectory and by 1981 had become a 2 day festival featuring 60 beers from 40 breweries including Hartleys, Mitchells, Oldham, Paines and West Riding. Cider and bottled beer had also been introduced, and the admission price of £1.00 included the glass and the first drink!
The 15th Festival in 1989 saw a move to the Students Union of Sheffield Polytechnic. Admission was now £2.00 and an extra day had been added. In 1993 the Festival returned to Sheffield University, but this was for one year only as the Lower Refectory was then closed for redevelopment. So 1994 saw us back at what was now the Nelson Mandela Building of Sheffield Hallam University.
There we remained until 2001 which saw the move to St Phillips Social Club, Netherthorpe. No longer tied to University vacations in 2003 we moved to October enabling us to attract the student audience.
After 6 years at St Phillips in 2007 we were again looking for new premises due to the impending closure of the Club. We eventually settled on Darnall Liberal Club, but this proved to be too far out of town. The festival’s success was also hampered by the discovery of an unexploded WW2 bomb that delayed staff and visitors from attending! Initial plans for moving under canvas in Endcliffe Park fell through, so the first tented festival was held at Cemetery Park in 2008. After 3 successful years we were finally defeated by the weather. Whilst the punters cheerfully coped with the mud in 2010 after torrential rain the day before opening, the conditions for take down proved too much for the volunteers.
In 2011, we moved to the International Sports Hall, Ponds Forge after managing to get approval for an ambitious budget, as a substantial increase in attendance and turnover were required in order to cover the venue hire. It turned out be unseasonably warm for the beginning of October, we struggled to keep the beer cool and the punters stayed away. Despite a substantial loss, with a modified budget we managed to obtain approval for two further years before we had to call it a day.
So 2014 saw yet another new venue for the 40th Festival. The move to Kelham Island Museum proved a huge success and continues to this day.
2019
So what does this year have in store? An excellent choice of beer of course. Over 300 beers including around 50 keg beers, over 40 real ciders and 2 bottle bars featuring continental beers. Last year we introduced the Sheffield Beer Of The Festival award and will be repeating this again on Wednesday evening.
We are particularly excited that world-famous beer writer Roger Protz will be joining us at the festival and hosting a tasting session based around his new book on IPAs.
Another improvement for this year is the introduction of rinsing points where visitors can clean their glass between drinks. No more heavy stout foam remaining in your glass when you fancy a pale ale for your next beer!
We have our usual array of live acts, booked by the irrepressible Saxbob, and a great variety of food stalls, with extended vegetarian and vegan offerings this year. There is also a welcome return of the Sheffield WI who will be hosting a charity cake stall on the Saturday. In addition to this we have our ever-popular Tombola stall, traditional pub games and CAMRA merchandise desk selling books and t-shirts.
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 Harrogate, and as an extra reward for the Sunday take down volunteers we have a free buffet at the Rutland Arms. 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.
Finally, don’t forget to look out for our festival beermats around the locals pubs. As we have done for the last 3 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.
See you there.
Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, 16-19 October 2019, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield.
Paul Crofts & Alan Gibbons 
A number of Sheffield members helped out at the inaugral Dronfield CAMRA beer & cider festival alongside Dronfield and Chesterfield folk.
The festival featured around 40 real ales and a dozen ciders on the CAMRA bars plus craft keg, food and entertainment.
The venue was the Pioneer Club, spread across the concert hall, back room, yard and gardens. It ran from 30th May to 1st June.
The CAMRA membership stand volunteers signed up around 40 new members, if you are one of them you will be most welcome to come along to a branch meeting or social! If you are a Sheffield member you will find the diary at the back of Beer Matters whilst if you are a Dronfield member look out for Peel Ale magazine or visit www.dronfield.camra.org.uk.
We are now looking forward to the longer established Sheffield Steel City beer & Cider festival which we are organising for October at Kelham Island Museum!