This year we are celebrating our 40th annual Steel City Beer festival – volunteers from Sheffield & District CAMRA have been organising and staffing this event in various venues since the 1970s!
We are pleased to announce the basic details and you may well enjoy the same excitement as us about what’s new.
The dates this year are the 29th October to the 1st November and the venue is Kelham Island Industrial museum. As usual there will be over 100 real ales to choose from plus a selection of continental bottled beers and a great choice of traditional cider and perry. Also as usual there will be a choice of foods plus stalls selling various goods, old fashioned pub games to play plus a programme of live music.
The various bars and stalls will be spread across 4 areas – the upper hall, the Mill Owners Pub, the marquee and the plaza – each area will offer unique character and atmosphere.
The beer range will showcase some of our local breweries along with new, rare and interesting real ales from across the UK with all the common beer styles such as pale ales, bitters, mild, stout and porter covered and our volunteers behind the bars happy to advise about beers and ciders and help you choose one you will enjoy.
At this point we are looking for businesses to help support us and promote themselves by being a sponsor at the festival – whatever your budget we will be grateful for your support, the most basic package is to sponsor an individual beer and see your company name on the cask and in the programme, up scaling you could sponsor the van we hire for set up/take down, sponsor the programme, sponsor the posters/flyers, sponsor a festival zone or for the top level of support you could sponsor the whole festival! All our sponsors package include complimentary tickets that include entry, glass, first drink and a go on the games, these tickets could be used for corporate hospitality or a staff thankyou – or just use them yourself!
Kelham Island Museum is easy to get to – walkable from the City Centre or served by buses nearby on Gibralter Street or Nursery Street, additionally it is only a short walk from Shalesmoor tram stop.
The location of the venue also makes it easy to combine a visit to the festival with some great nearby pubs.
Members of our Dronfield & District sub branch got together for a working social at Barrow Hill on the Saturday of this annual festival, which was held in May as usual.
The festival hosts 5 real ale bars, a cider bar and a craft keg bar as well as various food and goods stalls and railway attractions.
Following a hectic few hours serving on the Derbyshire Brewers Collective bar members were able to enjoy a bit of social time, drinking the beer they had earned as well as sampling some of the foods on offer (Stalls sold options including burgers, liver and onions, hot dogs, noodles, curry, pies, cheeses, chocolate and fruit).
They also had a go on the train ride – 4 old ex BR carriages hauled one way down the remains of the branch line by a diesel shunter then back into the platform by a steam locomotive.
Once everyone had enough of this busy festival in the hot sunshine they made an escape by taxi to the Travellers Rest at Apperknowle for further beer and the end of the FA Cup final football match on TV with lifts arranged home from here!
The JD Wetherspoons pubs across our area are joining in the chain’s latest International beer festival, which runs from 28th March to 13th April.
This sees a selection of 50 real ales offered on rotation from breweries across the UK, 10 of which have been brewed by guest brewers from around the world.
Wetherspoons have produced a 36 page booklet for their beer festival which can be picked up in the pubs or downloaded from their website, this gives you all the background to the guest brewers and lists of all the featured beer with tasting notes, numbered 1-50 so you can tick off the beers you have tried and play beer bingo!
The beers from the international guest brewers always create a talking point at the bar, not only because their beers are not often seen in a cask conditioned format but they are generally doing something a bit interesting, different and extreme, often at a host brewer that can be quite traditional and conservative!
As usual we held a tombola stall at our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival to raise funds for the branch and we’d like to thank everyone who supported this and Andy Morton for organising and staffing, but special thanks to the following people who donated prizes:
Tom (ex of Univ Arms, now at The Anvil, Stannington)
Diane/Duncan (Fat Cat)
Chris/Robin (Shakespeares)
Pat/Eddy (Gardeners Rest)
Trevor/Lewis (Kelham Island Tavern)
Graham (Anglers Rest, Millers Dale)
Bradfield Brewery
Mike Humphreys
Alan Gibbons
John Silburn
Sarah Mills
David Little
Mike Rose
Mike Hensman
Two tasting competitions were held on the opening night of the festival, the Champion Beer of Sheffield and Beer of the Festival. Both were judged in blind tastings by panels of brewers, publicans and drinkers. And the winners are…
Champion Beer of Sheffield
Sheffield’s breweries can nominate one of their regular beers to be judged in this competition. The top three were:
1st – The Brew Company, Crazy Horse IPA
2nd – Sheffield Brewery Co., Sheffield Porter
3rd = Abbeydale, Black Mass
3rd = Bradfield, Farmers Blonde
Beer of the Festival
Beers available at the festival were separated by style and judged in these categories. The winner of each category went on to the Beer of the Festival competition.
Category Winners
Mild – Brampton, Mild
Bitter – Sportsman, Darker Shade of Ale
Best Bitter – Ashover, Littlemoor Citra
Strong Bitter – Tigertops, Black Hop
Porter – Acorn, Old Moor Porter
Stout – Wentworth, Sloe Stout
Overall Winners
Gold – Ashover, Littlemoor Citra
Silver – Brampton, Mild
Bronze – Tigertops, Black Hop
Congratulations to all of the winners. All are available at the festival so come down and try them.
