Category: Festivals

Tickets are now on sale for both the summer and winter editions of the Great British Beer Festival in their new locations for 2025.

The winter festival takes place from 12-15 February at the Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham, just 5 minutes bus ride from Meadowhall Interchange on route X3.

The summer festival takes place from 5-9 August at the NEC in Birmingham, which is a 5 minute walk from Birmingham International railway station.

Both festivals feature a huge range of UK cask ales, craft beers in keykeg, world beers, cider & perry, learn & discover bar, entertainment and more. Judging takes place for the Champion Beer of Britain at both events too.

The festivals are organised and staffed by volunteer CAMRA members with a little support from the team at CAMRA HQ, if you’d like to help out please fill in the online staffing form.

More information and advance tickets are online at greatbritishbeerfesitval.org.uk and winter.gbbf.org.uk.

Craftwerk

Arriving in Neepsend 40 minutes early, I took the opportunity to visit Alder for a couple of halves. Set in the old shoe polish works, they have 5 cask ales available. I sampled the Pomona Island – Tarquill and Quafftide, a 3.8% and 4.5% respectively.  

I then popped over to Peddlar Warehouse to find a relatively small queue, that was dealt with quickly. On entering, you were given a tickers lanyard and a half-pint glass. My first drink was a 5% Bombay Honey from The Indian Brewery, very Jaipur ish, with added sweetness. I then moved on to my second of the 16 brewers on display from around the UK, these included Lancaster, Surrey and Sussex, Kidderminster’s Copper Beach Brewing Company with a nice 4.6% APA. I then sat and had a chat with 2 guys who had travelled up from Nottiingham for the festival, I recommended that should they had room, and the legs for another, Kelham was just a short hop after the 23:00 closure. 

Next was Lune Brew Co and their LB201, a Citra, Centennial and Mosaic hopped pale of 4.1%. These beers were going down well accompanied by a DJ playing Indie classics. The next selection brought a change of flavour with a Pineapple and Passion Fruit Palaver, a 4.5% fruited pale ale. This also brought a change of entertainment with a singer/guitarist covering reggae to Indie rock. 

Seeing that beers were covered by the admission charge, it would have been rude not to try as many as possible. So, I then moved on to Bayonet Brewing – Delta Lima Six, a New England hazy pale at a sensible 4%. Next came my favourite of the festival, Only With Love’s Oh Yeah, an ice cream soda pale ale, but here’s what won it they topped it with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sprinkles. so nice I had 2 before it ran out. Even at this stage of the night with the hall full, there was never big queues and service was typically a minute or so. 

Next came our local Thornbridge – Kipling, New Zealand Pale Ale at 5.2%. The next ones in succession were Siren Craft Brew – Juicy Details, a New England hazy 6%, Jimbrew Brewing Co – Maybe It Was Two Times, a 4.8 Gluten-free pale, Disruption Is Brewing – Digital Code at 5.5%. With beer comes munchies, so I went into the courtyard to see what was on offer and decided on the Jamica food stall serving very tasty pattys,  I had the beef and it hit the spot. 

Being fed, it was back to the beer and more music in the form of a young Indie covers band. The accompanying beer was Cloudwater’s Fuzzy, another hazy New England pale. This was followed by Only With Love’s – Bongo Tropic IPA at 4.5%, yet another New England style Brew. Next was Siren’s Soundwave, an American IPA of 5.6%. 

As closing was coming up quickly, there was time for one last half from Pennine Brewing Co with Scapegoat, a Blonde Golden of 4.2%. 

All in all, a very well run and value for money festival. The range of brews in taste and geographical locations was well thought out, as well as brewers willing to chat. 

Here’s to next year. 

Our chair Paul Manning, his wife Bev and long standing Sheffield camra stalwart Alan Gibbons recently visited the Oktoberblest beer and gin festival at St Matthew’s on Carver street.

The church was built in 1855 amongst the slums of the city, is now grade 2 listed and has long been regarded as a sanctuary in the heart of the city. The church has an ambitious target to raise nearly £800,000 for interior restorations and money raised at the festival will go towards increasing the £450,000 raised to date.

The festival opened with Rt Revd Stephen Race, the bishop of Beverley blessing the beers accompanied by Fr Grant Naylor, the current vicar.

Nick Law the founder of Emmanuales gave a very illuminating talk on the brief history of beer and belief and we also enjoyed some great music whilst sampling the beers.

Nick had brought two beers – Noah’s Dark a 5.4% dark Belgian ale and Solomon’s gold a 4.5% Belgian golden ale. Both tasted great and we also tasted (mainly half’s!) of Reunion Witbier a 5% cloudy white ale from Mount St Bernard Trappist brewer in rural Leicestershire. This was followed by Juiceinator a 4.7% pale and Days of Thunder a 5% hazy pale both from Bang the Elephant brewery in Langley Mill, Derbyshire.

We ended with Santa’s Little Belter a 4.9% ginger and cinnamon dark ale from the recently closed Halton Turner brewery in Digbeth, Birmingham together with Jolly YPA a 4.8% pale from Jolly Boys brewery in Barnsley.

We enjoyed the evening and look forward to next years event as it becomes a regular on the Sheffield festival calendar.

Following its residency for the last few years at Burton on Trent, 2025 sees the winter edition of CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) move to its new home for the next four years – Yorkshire – with the venue being the Magna Centre on the edge of Rotherham.

The festival takes place from 12 to 15 February 2025.

Magna is a former steel works that has been converted into a science museum and events space and is big enough for the festival to grow and have a number of features added to it that visitors to the summer GBBF are used to such as the Learn & Discover bar, Bieres Sans Frontier bar and a dedicated Champion Winter beer of Britain bar – as well as a number of cask ale bars, real cider & perry and live music. The bars will be spread across a main hall hosting the music stage and a number of smaller rooms which you can explore, the venue’s cafes will also be open serving hot food.

The bigger capacity also means there should be no problems turning up and paying on the door if you make a last minute decision to go, however advance tickets will still be sold online with a separate admissions desk offering advance ticket holders quicker entry.

Magna is no stranger to hosting beer festivals, 2024 was the final year of the long established Rotherham Real Ale & Music Festival which was a charity fundraiser assisted by the Rotherham CAMRA branch and GBBF Winter will be picking up where they left off.

Magna is on bus route X3, operated by First bus, which runs between Sheffield, Meadowhall, Rotherham and Doncaster. Buses connect with trains and trams at Meadowhall Interchange or you may wish to combine your trip to the festival with pubs in Rotherham or Sheffield.

As with all CAMRA festivals, this is organised and staffed by volunteers and the staffing form will be launched for CAMRA members to sign up to volunteer soon.

INFORMATION AND ADVANCE TICKETS > winter.gbbf.org.uk

Your editor recently spent a day volunteering behind the bar at the brand new Swinton (near Rotherham) beer festival, held at St Margaret’s Anglo-Catholic church to help them raise funds for a new community hall. The beer festival was run alongside the annual town fair which is held in a field attached to the church with a variety of stalls along with a kiddies ride, ice cream van and a couple of hot food traders.

Inside the church the ladies who run the regular coffee morning there were assembled serving coffee, pop and crisps from the kitchen area as well as manning a stall selling home made cakes.

At the front of the church there was an all day live entertainment programme with a number of different singers, dancers and bands of different genres helping to maintain a great atmosphere!

Down one side of the church was a huge bar with lots of real ales on handpump, this was flanked at one end by a bar serving wine and spirits and the other end by a bar serving craft beer and lager on keg via a tap wall, borrowed from Maison du Biere of Elsecar.

The cask range was all sourced from Yorkshire and included beer from Woodlands brewery of Penistone which isn’t often seen out and about, also a couple of rare cask ales from Emmanuales of Sheffield. Nailmaker brewery had supplied a festival special – “Ale Mary” which was a regular pale ale infused with Juniper berries, this was one of the first to sell out!

The beer festival was kept busy by a wonderful mix of people – families popping in for refreshment after visiting the fair, priests and staff from this and other nearby churches relaxing with a beer knowing they were supporting the fundraiser and beery folk who had made the effort to visit having seen the beer list!

The venue was easy enough to get to – 20 minutes on the local train from Sheffield to Swinton station from where you can either walk or do as I did jump on a bus for the short ride up to the church! On the way back I got a bus from outside the church to Rotherham Interchange and connected with the Tram Train to Sheffield Cathedral, from where I walked up to the Dog & Partridge for a pint and a chat to another customer about how the England match had gone whilst I’d been busy chucking beer at people (we won on penalties).

All in all, a great little do and worth a visit next year should it happen again!

• Check out our beer festival listings for other upcoming events in or near Sheffield