Category: Steel City Festival

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.

For the latest information on the festival please visit the website – sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival.

photographs: Dave Pickersgill.

Well, we might not have been able to hold the normal festival but the second weekend in October saw the next best thing. The Steel City Beer & Cider Festival went On Tour with 44 venues across the city putting on numerous events, Tap Takeovers, brewery tours and general fabulous beeriness!

All the venues did us proud, putting on over 300 different beers and ciders for visitors to try.

Our Pub Heritage Officer Dave Pickersgill kicked off proceedings on Thursday evening with a book signing at The Crow Inn for the latest edition of Sheffield Real Heritage Pubs. Fully updated with new pictures, copies are still available from local booksellers, or via the CAMRA website. Other signings were held at the Rising Sun, Bradfield Brewery and local bottle shop Beer Central.

Abbeydale brewery followed with a Talk and Tasting at the Rising Sun and then Tap Takeovers at the Dog & Partridge and Millowners Arms. The Tap Takeovers came thick and fast as Heist Brew not only featured the Mad Scientist brewery but also had their Head Brewer come over from Hungary. The Bear featured Three Hills brewery and also had a Meet The Brewer session.

For some venues the taps were based on a theme instead. Shakepeares had a range of Milds, Kelham Island Tavern were offering beers from various Berkshire breweries and Pangolin Craft Bar had an Irish Beer Showcase.

Other takeovers were Wilde Child at the Itchy Pig; Saltaire at the Riverside; our neighbours at Drone Valley Brewery were in the Red Deer; Portland House had a selection of beers from Shiny; The Crow had Bristol’s Arbor brewery on the taps, the Rutland featured Buxton, as did the Hillsborough Tap; the Forest had a number of their own beers from Toolmakers; the Industry Tap had a huge selection of 21 different beers; Two Thirds brought in some Brew York beers and Perch served up their own Dead Parrot beers as well as putting on some excellent music from the bands originally booked to play the festival. A little further out of town, St Mars of The Desert were featuring their two SMODfest beers.

Our friends at Triple Point brewery put on a massive range of their own beers including a couple of new ones, and also treated our Festival sponsors Arnold Laver to a personalized brewery tour and beer tasting, which I’m pleased to say led to a couple of new converts to the delights of Real Ale.

The Ecclesall and Fulwood Ale Clubs were launching a new beer brewed in memory of Head Brewer James Eardley who sadly passed away recently. Shining Light is a delicious 4.9% Pale Ale made to James’s own recipe.

Local brewery Neepsend were doing brewery tours in conjunction with Factory Floor, and also brewed two special beers for their own pubs, the Wellington, Blake Hotel, and the Sheaf View, who we were delighted to see reopen after their recent arson attack. The Sheaf also had festival favourites Sunshine Pizzas in attendance keeping everyone fed.

There was more live music taking place at the White Lion, Toolmakers Brewery, Dorothy Pax and morris dancing at the Wisewood. A Sunday afternoon session by Steve Delaney at Portland House, proved so popular they intend to continue with music on Sundays for the foreseeable future.

The festival committee managed to get round all the venues at various times, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. A well-earned reward after the hard work putting it all together.

Thanks to all the venues and breweries who supported us, and all the visitors who came out to make it a success. I’m sure we kept everyone’s appetite for Real Ale going, and next year we’ll be back in the Kelham Island Museum, better than ever. Cheers.

Dan at Heist Brew Co – “A record weekend for us, beating even our Oktoberfest celebration last
week!”

Lance at Portland House – “We had a great weekend down at Portland House. The Shiny Brewery
beers went down a treat and we had a lot of new faces in there leaving five star reviews on the bar.”

Nick at Pangolin Craft Bar – “It was a great weekend, and our best Thursday night since opening”

I’d like to add my thanks to all of the venues and to everyone who was out enjoying themselves during the course of the festival. I bumped into some Kent CAMRA members who were blown away by the festival and thought more CAMRA branches should run something like this to not only showcase some fantastic beer, but local pubs and bars too. I also met some volunteers from the previous Steel City Beer Festival who said the festival on tour was a fantastic idea, and would love to see it return in the future!

It made me feel so proud to visit the venues and see people enjoying themselves, and overhear conversations about the beer festival and where people were heading to next. After a tough 18 months for the beer industry, it felt as though this was the lift everyone needed, for both venues and punters. It felt like it really brought everyone together.

Every single venue has had something different from the norm, and I’m sure they will have gained many a regular as a result. From smaller venues like The Bear running their first tap takeover and meet the brewer event, to Heist managing to organise a tap takeover from Hungarian brewery Mad Scientist to showcase beers never before seen in the UK.

I took part in the Neepsend Brewery tour which was very interesting, especially as they had 20,000 pints in their tanks ready to go! It might have taken a while to drink them all though… Everyone involved should be proud of their efforts in putting on a fantastic citywide festival that showcased exactly why Sheffield is such a fantastic place for a pint.

Elliott

As well as Press Officer for the festival, Elliott regularly posts about the local beer scene on Instagram. Find him at thenotsosoberbarcrawl.

Sheffield CAMRA’s 46th annual Steel City Beer & Cider Festival 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!  

The organisers of the recent 45th Steel City Beer & Cider Festival would like to thank the following for donating items to the festival tombola and to sell for the Burton Street Foundation Charity:- The Fat Cat, Kelham Island Tavern, Gardeners Rest, Shakespeares, Kelham Island Brewery, Abbeydale Brewery, Triple Point Brewery, The Brew Foundation, Brian Moore, Paul & Julie Brearley, Sarah Mills, Dave Pickersgill, Paul Crofts, Alan Gibbons, Nigel & Emlyn Tasker, Terry Palmer, David Little and everyone who donated anonymously. Apologies if we have missed anyone. Andy Morton

The festival is always one of the highlights of my year, but what you may not realise is that planning for the event begins way back in January. I have volunteered on the organising committee for the past two years and amongst other things oversee the press and trade session, press contact and social media promotion. Even being involved, it still blows my mind that such a fantastic event is solely organised, set up and staffed by volunteers. While the organising side of the event can be a little stressful (especially in the immediate run up to the event) I think people would be surprised how easy it is to get involved and how rewarding it is. In fact, this year I have managed to complete my role while backpacking around Europe – if you have access to email and a little imagination anything is possible! Opening night is my most stressful time as it’s when all the year’s planning comes together for press, trade and tasting sessions. Come Thursday the fun begins, and I get to take a step back from my formal role and become a manager, moving around the festival in a variety of roles. Most likely you’ll find me on the token desk, though I’ve also been known to pull a few pints. However, my favourite job is glass washing as Brian, John and the team down there are fab and have the best playlists! 2020 is going to be a big one for me as I am planning on relocating out of the city, though I am hoping to remain on the organising committee and carry on all the great work that goes into the festival from afar. If you want to get involved in the organising side of the festival, we are always looking for passionate people to help out and volunteer – see you in January to kick off Steel City 46!

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.

1^st place – Debut by Triple Point Brewery

2^nd Place – Get Thissen Outdoorz by Sheffield Brewery Co. 3^rd place – Vanilla Stout by Bradfield Brewery

There were a couple of interesting changes for this year which added to the overall event. 3 water stations were set up allowing visitors to have a drink of tap water or to rinse their glass between drinks. Judging from the amount of use they were getting this was a popular addition and we will look to have more of these for next year. 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

• queue jump festival admission
• complimentary festival programme
• commemorative festival glass
• entry to the tutored tasting event
• talk from Roger Protz
• tasting samples of 5 different IPAs
• tokens to spend at the festival beer and cider bars

Book your tickets via Eventbrite now!