By the time this issue of Beer Matters hits the pubs, we will have started sending out our festival Beermats. As usual we have 12 different sponsors for the mats, each with their own design on one side, and a different festival design on the back. Collecting all 12 mats and fitting them together will form this year’s Festival poster, another excellent design from Robin Lunnon at Durb Design.
Our Beer Matters distributors will be taking the mats far and wide across the city, and beyond, so you might have to visit several pubs to collect them all. (I know. It’s a tough ask, but I’m sure you’ll cope.)
We’ll also be putting a few sets up on Ebay to auction off for the festival charity, which this year is the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.
Don’t worry if you don’t manage to complete your collection, as we’ll be holding back a hundred or so of each design to put out on the bars at the festival itself. Yet another reason to come and see us at Steel City Beer & Cider Festival 47, 18-21 October 2023, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield
P.S. Our staffing form is now open on our website for anyone wishing to volunteer to help at this year’s festival. If you’ve never volunteered before but are considering it, simply email festival@sheffield.camra.org.ukand we’ll let you know all about it. Trust us, you’ll enjoy it.
It’s coming up to that time of year again. After last year’s successful post-covid return, we’re back once again at the Kelham Island Museum to celebrate all the best in beer and cider.
We’ve chosen to keep a very similar layout to the festival to let everyone get used to the changes we introduced last time. The Millowners Arms is still independent and offering a wide variety of drinks; The keg bar will stay in its new position in the rear courtyard, accessed through the engine room; and the Bradfield bar will be in the Brearley room, on your right as soon as you enter the festival.
No change in the range of beer and cider on offer though! Over 200 beers including around 50 keg beers, over 40 real ciders and 2 bottle bars featuring continental beers. The Sheffield Beer of The Festival award will take place again on Wednesday evening.
One noticeable change this year will be our decision to switch from beer tokens to beer cards. These will be A6 cards featuring a set of 20p boxes which will be crossed off as you spend. A common sight at other festivals we have decided to move to these to speed up service at the bar.
We have our usual array of live acts, and a great variety of food stalls, with extended vegetarian and vegan offerings this year. In addition to this we have our ever-popular Tombola stall, traditional pub games and CAMRA merchandise desk selling books and t-shirts.
Our overall festival charity is Yorkshire Air Ambulance, who will be grateful for any of your unused beer tokens, or festival glass deposit.
Although we’re not sure you’ll want to hand your glass back! We are delighted to announce that Henderson’s Relish are again one of our glass sponsors. This year they are sponsoring the pint glasses, with Bradfield brewery sponsoring the half pint ones.
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 Lincoln, and as an extra reward for the Sunday take down volunteers we have a free buffet at the Gardeners Rest. 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.
Don’t forget to look out for our festival beermats around the locals pubs. As we have done for the last few 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.
We can’t wait to welcome you all back once more.
Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, 18-21 October 2023, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield.
Festival organiser, Paul Crofts, looks back at Steel City 46 and forward to 47
After a three-year break, we were finally able to return to Kelham Island Museum for our annual beer festival. For obvious reasons, the world has changed dramatically since our last festival in 2019, and we approached the 2022 event with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
The general feeling amongst the organising committee was that there would be some pent-up demand for a festival, and that visitors would be keen to return to what has become a very popular event. However, information we were getting from CAMRA HQ was that visitor numbers at other festivals were down. There was also the background of rising prices and uncertainty about the future impacting how much people would have to spend.
Needless to say, the feedback from local breweries and on social media was positive. The hospitality industry has been particularly hard hit by the economic situation. The festival was seen as something that would help generate a bit of interest and encourage people back into going out and celebrating the Sheffield beer scene.
So when it came to opening time on the Wednesday, we were somewhat relieved to see a queue of punters actually wanting to come in! Over the next four days though, it became clear that despite a steady stream of visitors we were not going to achieve the attendance numbers we were hoping. Probably a combination of poor weather on some days, post-Covid wariness and a permanent change in some people’s habits meant an overall reduction on 2019 numbers. Luckily those that came spent a little more and by the time we closed on Saturday the committee were satisfied that we had produced another great festival.
One particularly popular feature was the half pint glasses, featuring the Henderson’s Relish logo. We ordered 35% more half pint glasses than usual in anticipation of these being popular and they sold out! Visitors also had a good range of food stalls to choose from, along with the usual exciting live music, with festival favourites Kelham Island Rapper doing their riotous routines in every bar.
Two noticeable changes this year were an expansion of the ticketed events, and a new keg bar position. Beer and cider tasting sessions, hosted by Hop Hideout and the Cider Hole, and pub heritage talks by Dave Pickersgill were an excellent addition to the festival, building on the 2019 talk by Roger Protz. The keg bar had to be repositioned due to the Millowners Arms becoming a commercial venture, and moved to the rear courtyard. A number of visitors commented that this felt separated from the rest of the festival, and we will probably look to find a better spot this year.
A couple of CAMRA employees who came up from the St Albans head office to work with us were impressed with what they saw and we believe it enhanced Sheffield’s reputation as well as justifying the decision to hold the 2023 Members’ Weekend here this April.
Steel City 47
Looking forward to this year’s festival we have looked at some of the changes forced on us by the pandemic and are planning several improvements.
It has been obvious for a while now that we have an enthusiastic but ageing band of volunteers, and the physical work of running the festival is becoming more of a challenge. We have a concern that this may now be putting off some people who might otherwise be only too willing to help. Therefore we have plans to use third-party companies to cover some of the more strenuous and time-consuming elements of the build. From discussion with a number of existing volunteers it appears these moves will be very popular and we hope that it will help in recruiting new volunteers as well as encouraging back some of our previous volunteers.
We also plan to work more on attracting new volunteers to specific areas. Something in particular that we want to improve is the number of people in our cellar team. Anyone who thinks this may be something they would be interested in can email festival@sheffield.camra.org.uk and we will be happy to give them more details on what is involved. We would like to have a larger team so we can share out the workload and make it easier and more enjoyable for everyone.
One pleasing aspect of this year’s festival, which will be vital for the coming year, is the great camaraderie between the volunteers. This was evident both during the festival and at the subsequent staff trip to Halifax. We’ll be keeping this going during planning meetings, with ongoing communication with all volunteers and by arranging a couple of social events over the summer.
Again, anyone wanting to know more can email us or call in to one of our planning meetings, which are held the third Tuesday in each month at the Gardeners Rest in Neepsend. I can guarantee that being part of our team will be both enjoyable and rewarding.
The dates pencilled in for Steel City 47 are 18-21 October 2023.
Everyone involved with the recent Steel City 46 was delighted to discover that Sheffield Children’s Hospital put our name to one of their Xmas Snowflakes as a thank you for our £1,200 donation. We’d like to pass on those thanks to everyone who donated money at the festival.
Our snowflake is (or maybe was, if you’re reading this in Beer Matters) on one of the columns above the doors to the Memorial Hall at the rear of Sheffield City Hall.
This year’s Xmas Snowflake project has already raised over £360,000, which will go towards building a helipad and making facilities at Sheffield Children’s Hospital even better than they already are.
Generous customers at our 46th Steel City Beer and Cider Festival, held at Kelham Island Museum in October 2022, raised £1,200 for the Children’s Hospital Charity by donating unspent drinks tokens or chucking cash in donation buckets around the festival.
Following the successful tutored beer tasting led by Roger Protz at the previous Steel City Beer Festival back in 2019, the recent 2022 edition saw three tutored tastings plus a couple of talks.
Mike Pomranz, from the Cider Hole, led participants through four ciders. These included Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry, Flakey Bark S.V.P. 2020 (6.4%) and Sheffield brewed, Exemption Ciderhouse, Steel City Spontaneous Speed Run (5.8%). The latter involved apples which were on thru tree a few weeks earlier. Mike gave us the benefit of his experiences across the Atlantic, providing wide-ranging comments and opinions.
Julia Gray, the owner of Hop Hideout and the driving force behind Sheffield Beer Week, led two tutored beer tastings, each concentrating on a different set of five beers, a mix of cask and key-keg. Skilfully weaving her story and comments about beer history and production, Julia led us on an exploration of beer styles. A bonus was unscheduled inputs from Dan and Martha (Saint Mars of the Desert Brewery) who provided a potted history of their experiences in brewing and talked us through one of their beers. This was the music equivalent of attending a gig by the Rolling Stones and seeing Bob Dylan drop-in.
Dave Pickersgill twice delivered a talk about Sheffield, heritage and pubs. On each occasion, the slides were identical but different pubs were explored as comments from the audience influenced the verbal input. Several books were sold (and autographed) and the speaker was embarrassed when one attendee described the talk as ‘inspirational.’
One of the volunteer staff team who fetched and served the various beers and ciders described his Friday afternoon as different, eye-opening and to be repeated.
Thanks to all our speakers and the staff who made it happen. We intend to host similar events at SCBF47, and at the forthcoming national Members Weekend. We hope to see you at a future event.
A small number of new one off beers were brewed especially for our Steel City Beer & Cider festival and are likely to also appear in pubs afterwards.
Abbeydale Brewery produced a special edition of their Black Mass, in memory of the late Martin “SillyWabbit” Reville who was a long standing festival volunteer. The regular beer is a black IPA, the special is infused with coffee and is served from a wooden cask.
Collyfobble Brewery had former Dronfield CAMRA chairman Rob Barwell visit for a brewday to upscale one of his home brew recipes – you can read about that elsewhere in this issue!
Crosspool Ale Makers Society and Hopscotch Craft Brewers collaborated to put in an appearance with “GingerBix and Chill”. This 6% ABV beer has a biscuit aroma and a sweet but fiery flavour from ginger biscuits and habanero chillies. It is amber in colour and leaves a subtle but satisfying warmth on the back of the throat.
BrewSocial is another brewer that supplied a special edition of an existing beer. “Good as Gold” is a strong hoppy ale, pure gold in colour. Sweetish, but not cloying. Generous addition of El Dorado hops give a tantalising taste experience. This cask at the festival had been specially dry-hopped for added golden goodness!
Three limited edition sets of 12 mint condition beermats, advertising Steel City 46 – Sheffield Beer & Cider Festival 2022 (SC46) will be auctioned on e-bay. On one side of each mat is the SC46 logo, with the reverse printed for the sponsor. The logo-side, when arranged, gives a large image of the festival poster.
There are 60,000 beermats available, 5,000 for each sponsor. Over the next few months, these will be distributed over Sheffield, the surrounding area and wider afield. However, a full set is very unlikely to be seen in one place at any one time!
Thanks to our sponsors: Abbeydale, Acorn, Blue Bee, Bradfield, Chantry, Little Critters, Neepsend, Peak, St Mars of the Desert, Save the Leadmill, Tapped, and Triple Point.
All profits from these eBay sales will go the official SC46 charity – Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The festival will be held at Kelham Island Industrial Museum from 19-22 October 2022.
A lot has changed since we last held our festival in 2019. It goes without saying that the last couple of years have been extremely difficult for a lot of people, including the hospitality industry that we all hold so dear. Victims of the times include Kelham Island Brewery and Sheffield Brewery, both of whom would always appear on our bars, and we are extremely saddened they won’t be here again this year.
There have been a few changes at the Kelham Island Museum too. The Millowners Arms is now being run as an independent venue, although they are working with us to be a part of the festival as normal. All this has meant a rejig of the festival layout. We have an extra room in the rear courtyard which will house our KeyKeg bar, and the Bradfield bar is switching to the Brearley Room, the old home of the keg bar. The marquee layout will also change slightly, but we’re sure that these improvements will make the festival better than ever.
No change in the range of beer and cider on offer though! Over 300 beers including around 50 keg beers, over 40 real ciders and two bottle bars featuring continental beers. The Sheffield Beer of The Festival award will take place again on Wednesday evening.
We have our usual array of live acts, and a great variety of food stalls, with extended vegetarian and vegan offerings this year. In addition to this we have our ever-popular tombola stall, traditional pub games and CAMRA merchandise desk selling books and t-shirts.
This year will see three charities taking a stall. Sheffield Churches Council for Community Care (SCCC) will appear on Thursday, the Stan Shaw Memorial Appeal on Friday, and the return of the Sheffield WI cake stall on the Saturday. Our overall festival charity is Sheffield Children’s Hospital, which will be grateful for any of your unused beer tokens, or festival glass deposit.
Although we’re not sure you’ll want to hand your glass back! We are delighted to announce that the half-pint glasses this year are being sponsored by none other than Henderson’s Relish. The distinctive orange logo will be gracing a 12oz conical glass which we’re sure will be in big demand.
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 Halifax, and as an extra reward for the Sunday takedown volunteers we have a free buffet at a yet-to-be-decided venue. If you fancy joining our happy band please visit our website sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival to get more details on volunteering. We’re sure that you’ll enjoy it.
Don’t forget to look out for our festival beermats around the locals pubs. As we have done for the last three years, the festival side of the mats are all different and once you collect all twelve they fit together to form an image of the festival poster.
We can’t wait to welcome you all back.
Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, 19-22 October 2022, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield.
We are really happy to be able to announce that after missing two years for Covid, we’ve had the go ahead to organise our 46th normally annual Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, which will take place from 19 to 22 October.
The venue is once again the wonderfully atmospheric Kelham Island Museum and as before we’ll have cask ale, proper cider, stalls and live music in the upper hall, street food traders in the Victorian Courtyard and a marquee containing even more real ale & cider along with traditional pub games.
There are some changes to the festival site as a result of the Millowners Arms now being a proper commercially run pub all year around rather than a museum exhibit (this bar will be open as normal but within the festival site providing some additional food and drink choices for festival visitors). Bradfield Brewery’s bar which was previously hosted in the Millowners will this year be in the Brearley Room whilst the keykeg bar is being moved to a new area – the Stone Garden which will feature a bar serving craft beer in keg, can and bottle along with seating. To reach the Stone Garden you use the doors by the marquee and walk through the rooms containing the River Don steam powered beam engine and the Hawley knife collection.
Some initiatives from the last festival that went down well are being retained including the self service glass rinse facilities and the pre-bookable private tutored tasting and talk events. This year the half pint glasses are being sponsored by Hendersons Relish and the pint glasses are being sponsored by Bradfield Brewery, we anticipate them being popular souvenirs!
Posters and flyers (sponsored by Arnold Laver) will soon be available to get out and promote the event with promotional beer mats coming in the summer. There are still many sponsorship opportunities available if you would like to promote your business and support the festival at the same time, we’ll be opening the volunteering form soon.
