Category: Steel City Festival

Sheffield & District CAMRA are pleased to announce that the official charity of the 44^th Steel City Beer and Cider Festival will be local charity, Roundabout. Roundabout is Sheffield’s youth housing charity, which celebrated its 40^th anniversary last year. The charity provides shelter, support and life skills to young people aged 16-24 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Every day, Roundabout helps around 155 young people living in accommodation either provided by, or supported by, the charity, giving them the chance to develop long term independent living skills and avoid homelessness. The charity is also strongly committed to homeless prevention and delivers highly effective mediation sessions and drop-in advice services, as well as homeless education in schools. Each year, we select a local charity to support during the festival. Proceeds from the quiz, collection buckets and unused beer tokens are all donated to the chosen charity. Last year the official festival charity was Weston Park Cancer Charity, and we were delighted to be able to donate a total of £1,300. Paul Crofts, festival organiser, said: “Sheffield Beer Festival always has a strong local emphasis so we are delighted to be working with Roundabout as this year’s festival charity, and helping to raise funds for the valuable help and support they give to the homeless young people of the city.” Ben Keegan, Roundabout Chief Executive: “We’re thrilled that the Sheffield Beer Festival has chosen to support our charity this year. As an increasing amount of young people in the city are turning to us for help, we rely heavily on the generosity of local people and organisations to ensure that we can continue to be there for those who need us. This event will not only help us to raise vital funds, but will also allow us to raise awareness of youth homelessness and the work we do in the city.” Poppy Hayhurst

Visitors to the recent Sheffield Beer Festival proved just as generous as they were thirsty, as a combination of cash collections, donations of unused beer tickets, and a contribution from Sheffield branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) saw this year’s charity total reach £2,000. Press Officer Paul Crofts said “It’s a fantastic sum to raise for such a good charity. It was far more than we anticipated, and shows how much local people think of the Sheffield Children’s Hospital” The 4-day festival took place at Kelham Island Museum in October, and featured over 300 different beers and ciders, as well as live music and an array of street food vendors. Community Fundraiser for The Children’s Hospital Charity, Cheryl Davidson said, “We want to say a massive thank you to everyone who donated at Sheffield Beer Festival. To raise so much at the event really will make a difference to all of our patients and their families at Sheffield Children’s Hospital

New Keg Bar for Steel City Beer & Cider Festival This year’s festival will see an important addition to the beer offering. A keg bar is being installed for the first time at the festival to showcase CAMRA-approved cask-conditioned KeyKeg beers. Several local brewers have been producing keg beers that fall within CAMRA’s definition of Real Ale and we are pleased that we now have the means of offering them to our visitors. All the equipment for the bar is being kindly provided by Abbeydale Brewery and will be sited in an additional room made available to us by the Kelham Island Museum. 12 different keg beers will be on sale and we are delighted that we are able to include this popular development within the UK brewing scene in our festival. The whole subject of Keykeg beers has been a controversial one for some time from CAMRA’s point of view, but now that approval has been given for cask-conditioned keg beers, we can showcase some of the excellent beers available, showing a different side to modern brewing. FESTIVAL TIME! By the time you get this copy of Beer Matters the Steel City Beer & Cider Festival will be just a few weeks away. So here’s a last quick rundown of what all you eager visitors can expect. Over 300 Beers & Ciders Why not visit our website to look at the full beer and cider list to see what beery delights are available to try. Several brewers have produced one-off specials for the festival. New KeyKeg bar Don’t faint! This year sees the introduction of a KeyKeg bar offering CAMRA-approved cask-conditioned KeyKeg beers. This will be in our new extra room downstairs. International Bottle Bars You can also try a range of International bottled beers if your tastes run further afield. With a bottle bar in each of the main rooms, you don’t need to leave your friends to get that extra-strong belgian sour you’ve been thinking about. Fancy Dress Friday Volunteer types will already know that Friday night is fancy dress night, but customers are encouraged to come in fancy dress too. There’s no prizes, but a good chance your photo might end up in Beer Matters. This year’s theme is Sci-FI so we’re expecting some interesting costumes. Kelham Island Museum For the third year running the festival is taking place at the atmospheric and hugely popular Kelham Island Museum. The Museum will be running their famous Steam Engine at 6pm and 8pm on Friday. Live Music The upstairs room will be featuring great live bands in the evenings, and the Loxley Silver Brass Band on Saturday Afternoon. Thursday night is soul band The Basement, Friday night is rock’n’roll with Vegas 6, and rockabilly outfit The Slingshots round things off Saturday night. Food Stalls Festival regulars will know that we have a great selection of hot food, and this year is no exception, with several stalls returning once again. If you want more details on the festival, please visit sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival. (For anyone who spotted the subliminal message in the above article, well done! Visit the website, then click on “Get Involved” to claim your prize!) VOLUNTEERS STILL WANTED If you’ve been thinking of volunteering, but haven’t got round to it, the good news is that there’s still time. Just head over to sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival and click on Get Involved to offer your services. Don’t worry if you don’t have any experience of working at a festival, we’ll find something nice and simple to ease you into it. Don’t forget that you’ll get free beer tokens, a free festival t-shirt (although numbers are limited so best be quick), and a volunteers trip out to a Manchester brewery and  later in the year. If you’re still not sure about anything you can always email members of the committee directly to ask any questions you might have. And… we’ve said it before but it really is true…the biggest  benefit to volunteering is that you’ll have the satisfaction of being part of the team that delivers another successful festival.

The annual Steel City Beer & Cider Festival is now only a few short months away, and we are on the lookout for more volunteers to help make the festival even better than before. If you have a day or two, (or more, or just half a day even) you could spare between 17^th and 23^rd October and fancy the idea of being part of our team, please get in touch. Staffing forms are now up on our website sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival. There are a variety of roles available depending on your experience and availability, and all volunteers receive a FREE festival T-shirt as well as free entry and free beer tokens. Although, of course, the biggest reward is the satisfaction of being part of an enthusiastic team that makes the Festival such a highlight of the Sheffield calendar! For anyone who would like to offer their services as a Bar Manager, we are also having a training day to run through how the bars work in a bit more detail. This is being held at Blue Bee Brewery and is allied to a brew day, so all attendees will get the chance to be involved with brewing a festival beer in addition to the training. It takes place on Saturday 17^th September, starting a 9am till around 4pm. If you wish to attend this day, you will need to email us on festival@sheffieldcamra.org.uk so we know how many people will be there (and how many pizzas to order for lunch!)

One of the more inexpensive options for this years festival is sponsoring a cask. For only £50 + vat you or your company can sponsor a specific cask and have the pleasure of showing your friends or colleagues your support for one of Sheffield’s best festivals. With a highly visible new label design, you can incorporate your company logo and details, and with 4 free entry tickets included in the price, you will be able to invite your guests to see (and taste!) your sponsored beer. The picture shows the newly designed layout, seen here with the details for The Commercial at Chapeltown, our first label sponsor. Anyone interested should contact sponsorship@sheffieldcamra.org.uk for more details.

The first sponsored items for this years festival have begun to appear at pubs, clubs and various venues across the city. Beermats! Lots of them. A number of sponsors have kindly contributed to a bumper print run of 90,000 mats, which started appearing in early July to put the festival in front of the 100,000 people who come into Sheffield for the Tramlines Festival. A total of 13 sponsors took advantage of our special rate to help promote both the festival and their business. The mats will be released in phases up to the Festival in October, so collectors will need to be eagle-eyed to get one of each. Alternatively for the serious collectors, we have put together three collectors sets containing one of all 13 designs and will be auctioning them on ebay once a month over the summer with proceeds going to the Childrens Hospital Charity.

Thanks again to all our beermat Sponsors Travelmaster Abbeydale Brewery Stancill Brewery Acorn Brewery Bradfield Brewery Emmanuales Little Critters Brewing Co. Lost Industry Brewing Network Taxis Shakespeare’s Sheffield Brewery Co. Thornbridge Brewery True North Brew Co.