Category: Festivals

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

The limited edition set of 12 Beermats advertises the 45th.Annual Steel City Beer Festival (SCBF45). On one side of each mat is the SCBF45 logo, with the reverse printed for the sponsor. The logo-side, when arranged, gives a large image of the festival poster.

The image is based on a 1979/82 TV series which was live at the time of the first CAMRA Sheffield Beer Festival: Joanne Lumley and David McCullum star in ‘Sapphire and Steel.’

In total, there are about 100,000 beermats available. Over the next few months, these will be distributed over Sheffield, the surrounding area and much wider afield – a full set is very unlikely to be seen in one place at any one time!

Four (mint condition) sets will be auctioned on e-bay – the first is now live!

All profits from these e-bay sales will go the official SCBF 2019 Charity – the Sheffield based, Burton Street Project.

Thanks to our 12 sponsors:  Abbeydale Brewery, Acorn Brewery, Blue Bee Brewery, Bradfield Brewery, Crosspool Alemakers Society Brewery, Gripple, Kelham Island Books and Music, Little Critters Brewery, Loxley Brewery, O’Hara’s Rum, Triple Point Brewery and Wetherspoon (Bankers Draft).

We’re pleased to be able to announce details of our 45th annual beer & cider festival which will take place from 16th to 19th October, again at the atmospheric Kelham Island Museum across the Victorian Courtyard, Brearley Room, Millowners Arms, Marquee and Upper Gallery. The festival will feature a range of over 250 beers including real ales on cask and other craft beers in keg, can and bottle (including Vegan and Gluten Free choices) along with around 50 traditional ciders and perries. We will also be hosting an array of street food traders, old fashioned pub games, tombola, book stall and live music. The event is entirely organised, run and staffed by volunteers who do it to share their love of good beer or cider, if you fancy joining the team and helping out, the staffing form is now live at www.steelcitybeerfestival.co.uk where you can also find more information about the festival.

It has been confirmed that the 45th Steel City Beer and Cider Festival will take place from 16–19 October 2019. The festival will again take place at the historic Kelham Island Industrial Museum for the sixth year running.

Festival planning is already underway; we had our first planning meeting in January where many of the committee positions were filled, with a large number of volunteers taking up the same positions as last year’s hugely successful festival. However, a number of roles, particularly deputy positions, still remain. Don’t worry if you haven’t been involved in organising a beer festival before, new faces are always welcome!

We hope to have the festival website and staffing form live as soon as possible. In the meantime you can register your interest in either volunteering at or sponsoring the festival by completing the form to be found on our website (under the Festivals tab).

Anyone interested in volunteering is invited to come along to our festival planning meetings. These will be held in the upstairs room at the Gardeners Rest (105 Neepsend Lane) every third Tuesday of the month at 8pm from now until September. Hope to see you there!

The 44th Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, held a little earlier than usual over the second weekend of October, was a huge success with more than 6,000 discerning drinkers descending on the Kelham Island Museum over the four days. Between them, visitors drank their way through more than 15,000 pints of cask ale; 1,600 pints of KeyKeg beer, 2,400 pints of cider and perry; and 437 bottled and canned international beers. We also signed up 96 new members, a new SCBF record surpassing last year’s 93. Our fifth year at Kelham Island continued to be successful with punters, with steady crowds turning up from around the country to experience the historic venue.  The weather was definitely on our side too, with dry weather throughout apart from a few showers early on Friday afternoon. We began the festival with 222 different cask ales, 41 KeyKeg beers, a range of 48 ciders and perries and 22 varieties of international beers. Credit must go to the orderers, who once again ordered a superb selection of beers and ciders across the whole range of styles. The KeyKeg bar was completely sold out by Friday evening, and come the close of the festival at 10pm on Saturday there were only a handful of casks with anything left in them! After a few days spent setting everything up, the festival was officially opened on Wednesday evening by Ben and Tracey from this year’s official charity, Roundabout, who help Sheffield’s homeless young people. With our collection buckets and donated tokens throughout the weekend, we are hoping to have raised around £1,500 for the charity – to be confirmed in the next edition of Beer Matters. Entertainment throughout the week was provided by the Steve French Band, James Taplin & Mick Holmes, Highway Child and rounded off on the Saturday night by Gamsu. The ever-popular Loxley Silver Band played their usual Saturday afternoon slot, and the Kelham Island Rapper roused the crowds with their nimble sword dancing routine. Of course, we shouldn’t forget Mike’s pub games in the marquee throughout the week too. This year’s food also seemed to go down well with visitors, with vendors from previous years such as Sunshine Pizza Oven and Yuley’s Bratwurst joined by popular new stalls the Dilla Deli and Sheffield’s own South Street Food. Upstairs, Oddfellows provided the chocolate once again, while Cowley’s Fine Foods added something a little different with his range of meat and vegan jerkies. Kevin’s Pies had a very successful first festival, so much so that he completely sold out – we’ll make sure he bakes a few more next year! One of the major events at our festival is the beer judging which takes place on the Wednesday. We did things a little differently this year, with each of the breweries from within our branch region submitting a beer for consideration in the Champion Beer of Sheffield competition. We also had Visitors’ Choice awards for the customers’ favourite ales and ciders over the four days, which were announced on Saturday afternoon. Champion Beer of Sheffield 1st: Little Critters – Nutty Ambassador 2nd: Neepsend – Appaloosa IPA 3rd: Eyam – Mompesson’s Calling Visitors’ Choice Beer 1st: Thornbridge – Strawberry Lucaria 2nd: Little Critters – Nutty Ambassador 3rd: Neepsend – Mentha Visitors’ Choice Cider 1st: Snails Bank – Rhubarb 2nd: Thistly Cross – Traditional 3rd: Thistly Cross – Elderflower Thanks to everybody who came down and supported us during the week: the brewers who provided the most important ingredient, beer; the customers who came and drank most of it; the local businesses who sponsored glasses, bars, programmes and more; and of course, the volunteers who made it possible. We’ll be announcing the dates of the next festival early in the New Year, so keep your eyes peeled! Dominic Nelson

Just like every year, the 44th Steel City Beer & Cider Festival was organised and staffed entirely by volunteers who kindly donate their time to make it such a success. As well as the organising committee who started planning in earnest back in January, we had more than 160 volunteers who helped out on at least one day during the festival while we were open. Thanks so much to everyone who gave up their time, whether it was a few hours or a whole week – we couldn’t have done it without you! We asked a couple of volunteers to share their experience of working at the festival: The experienced hands The 44th Sheffield Beer & Cider festival has gone into the archives. There may be a used beer token or two which has been missed by the team who tidied on Sunday blowing around the museum. They may be the only visual signs left of the festival. That said, myself Steve (Millowners bar manager) and Kay (tokens manager, based in the marquee) have plenty of memories. We arrived at the Museum on the Monday morning to a relaxed atmosphere. It felt a little strange as at previous festivals there was a bit tension in the air. Our job for the day was to take delivery of the beer. A job more than just making sure the deliveries were right. Are the allergens listed? Very important these days, even more so with what has been in the press of late. Have we got pump clips? Have the casks been sent to the right bar? Out of over 200 casks only three initially went to the wrong bar. Tuesday was a far different day, making up the tokens. Everybody’s favourite job! Tearing up and stapling tokens into £10 and £5 strips, there must be an easier way of doing them. Yes there is, rewind to two years ago when it was a case of rip up and fold. So much easier! Wednesday tea time the gates opened, the beer was flowing and food munched. One concern was the weather on Friday, rain was forecast all day. Around 1pm the rain started. This was supposed to be the busiest day of the festival! Would people turn out as they had in previous years? The rain lasted about half an hour. Barring a couple of short showers that was it and any worries disappeared with the showers. The KeyKeg bar all but disappeared on the Friday night, with only about a gallon of beer left at the close. Prior to the festival starting me and Kay had gone through the beer list looking for beers to try, we found around 35. If we managed to try 10 of those, we did well due to our work loads and responsibilities. On the Saturday night, as the beers ran out, the taking down began (a brilliant idea as it takes a lot of the work load out the Sunday take down). As the last of the festival goers left the venue, take down continued until after midnight. Eventually, those involved were forced to stop. Time to sit down, relax and enjoy beer and pizza. Take down continued on Sunday morning, pleasantly interrupted by a bacon butty and coffee. Somebody must have held back the rain which had been forecast for Friday, as it came down by the barrel load. The last of the equipment was returned to storage towards the end of the afternoon. Between the two of us we put in the best part of 140 hours during the week. Why? Because we love doing it. I was talking with a couple about CAMRA and beer festivals; he asked me why I put so much time in to the festival. “So people like you can enjoy beer”, I replied. He thought for a few seconds and said, “I feel appreciated and appreciate you for putting in so much time.” Throughout the festival the senior festival and branch managers got their hands dirty, nothing seem to be below them. Previous fests have run well, but this one seemed to have run even better. A big thank you to all who worked the fest no matter how little or much you put in, whether you were volunteers, security, stall holders, museum staff or sponsors, and to those of you who enjoyed the festival. Steve Cook & Kay Firth The first-timers We are a British and Spanish couple in our thirties who have been living in Sheffield for more than two years now. Neither of us are from the Steel City, but it is definitely a welcoming city, especially for beer lovers. This was our first time volunteering at the Steel City Beer Festival. We had previously attended the event, having a good time and wondered about the experience of working behind the bar in such a great setting as the Kelham Island Museum. We regularly checked the CAMRA website for announcements requesting volunteers to work at the festival and as soon as we had the opportunity, we signed up. There are lots of jobs and times to choose from depending on your availability. When we arrived we went to the staff area where we registered and collected our T-shirt/glass. The people at the registration were very friendly and explained everything about working behind the bar as we had limited experience. When we got to the bar we started serving straight away and it was quite exciting. We were both very busy throughout our shifts, although we still managed to find time to try some beers, which made it a really good experience that didn’t feel like working. Everybody we served and worked with were having a great time and the atmosphere was very good. Overall, we had a really enjoyable time and will definitely volunteer again next year. We would both recommend giving it a try to those who like beer/cider and chatting with people across the bar. Christopher Whiteoak It may be almost a year until SCBF45, but the planning meetings start just after Christmas, and even by then some planning will have already begun! If you want to know more about how our beer festival is organised, come and join us. Check the Sheffield CAMRA website, our social media and the diary section in Beer Matters for the dates, times and locations of the planning meetings.