Category: News

Beer Census 2017 app

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
You might have seen the article in the August edition of Beer Matters where we revealed the results of this year’s Sheffield Beer Census, which took place on 10 June. Well, we have now released a web app designed to let you explore the results for yourself! We might have given you the headline figures already, but there’s much more to discover. beer census app Find out the average price of your favourite pint, discover the most popular beers and breweries available in your area and see how the price of a pint is correlated with its strength. You can find the app at sheffieldbeer.shinyapps.io/census-app.

An apple a day…

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
There are many things I took from my time living in Bristol, a love of cider was not one of them. To this day that has always surprised me. My summers were spent sat in the garden with my friends trying every type of cider produced in the South West. Yet much to their dismay my preferred choice always seemed to be ‘anything with blackcurrant’. With that I found cider became a firm fixture on my ‘no go’ drinks list. However, this past July two events came up in Sheffield CAMRA’s diary that made me think I really should give cider another chance; these being the Wetherspoon’s Real Cider Festival and The Cider Pub of the Year presentation. After sampling many, many different ciders I found a preference towards the medium-sweet varieties as I found they had a much fresher taste, perfect for the summer weather. I also preferred cask to keg – probably why I’d never truly taken to cider before as shop-bought is almost always fizzy. The cask ciders tasted had a smoothness that I didn’t experience with any of the keg varieties, which made them a lot easier to drink and allowed any tart flavours to come through the fruit. Although I tasted many ciders which were tasty and well-rounded (Scrummage by the Bottle Kicking Cider Company comes to mind), my top three reflect the ones that I found perhaps a little too easy to drink! 1) Slack Alice 4.6% – Celtic Marches: Over the course of the evening at the Cider Pub of the Year presentation I found myself continuously coming back to this drink. Described as a medium cider, I found it to be well rounded with semblance to a fresh apple juice, if not a little tarter. 2) Strawberry Cider 4.0% – Barbourne Cider Company: Noted in the tasting notes as being voted cider of the festival at the CAMRA Worcester beer festival 2016, this strawberry cider tasted in The Sheaf Island certainly did not disappoint. Unlike a lot of the other fruit ciders I tried it was not overly sweet and was extremely light and palatable. 3) Thundering Molly 5.2% – Celtic Marches: Also tasted in the Harlequin, Thundering Molly is a well-rounded medium cider. With a strong apple aroma, it tasted both fresh and fruity and overall was a solid cider, if not a little better after a few minutes left to settle in the glass. Poppy

Introducing GBBF Winter

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
CAMRA have announced that their winter beer festival, previously known as the National Winter Ales Festival, will be known as the Great British Beer Festival Winter from the 2018 edition onwards. The new name was chosen for greater consistency with the campaign’s flagship Great British Beer Festival, and also reflects the fact that there are more beers available at the event than just winter ales. The first festival under the new name will be held from 20-24 February 2018 at St Andrew’s & Blackfriars Hall in Norwich.

Dom’s Casks of the Month

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
I’ve been thinking for a while about starting a new column where CAMRA members can write about their favourite cask beers from the last month. The idea was first brought up at the branch meeting back in June, but I’ve never got round to starting the ball rolling until now. So, here they are, in no particular order, my three favourite real ales I have tried in Sheffield over the last few weeks: What: Hallertau Blanc + Ekuanot Pale (4.1%) – North Brewery (Leeds) Where: Devonshire Cat This beer was sampled as part of North Brewery’s recent tap takeover event at the Devonshire Cat. With its combination of German and American hops, the pint was attractive to the eye and the nose with a good-sized white head and a fruity, tropical aroma from the Ekuanot. The flavour had defined citrus notes imparted by the Hallertau Blanc hop, without being overly bitter. A good, sessionable pale. What: Drop O’ the Black Stuff (4.0%) – Springhead (Laneham, nr Retford) Where: Sentinel Brewery I’ve always been a fan of darker ales, and this porter was no exception. Not quite black but a very deep brown colour, the aroma was packed with chocolate, liquorice and malt. Fortunately, the taste wasn’t nearly as sweet as the aroma might have suggested, with a delicious coffee bitterness from the roasted malt providing an excellent balance of flavours. What: Brewers Reserve (5.0%) – Kent Brewery (Birling) Where: The Drink Inn A little stronger than the other entries on this list, but no less drinkable. Poured a rich, clear golden colour with a clean white head. The nose had a strong hoppy character, with notes of citrus and farmyard. The beer was very easy to drink, with the bitterness of the hops complimenting a strong malty flavour. You’d have to be careful not to have too many at this strength though! Have you tried any outstanding real ales around Sheffield lately? Send in your three favourite beers for the next issue of Beer Matters. Dominic Nelson

SCBF43 cask sponsorship

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
Do you want your pub or business name to be seen by thousands of people? If so, you should consider sponsoring a cask at this year’s 43rd Steel City Beer & Cider Festival, taking place from 18-21 October at the Kelham Island Museum. For just £50 (+ VAT) you can sponsor a cask of your choice, giving you or your company valuable exposure while showing your support for Sheffield’s biggest real ale festival. Your company logo and details will be incorporated into the label for your chosen beer, and you will receive 2 free festival tickets, a mention in the programme and a link on our festival website. If interested, please contact sponsorship@sheffieldcamra.org.uk for further information.

SCBF43 festival staffing

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
AS PASSIONATE ABOUT BEER & CIDER AS US? HELP MAKE OUR FESTIVAL HAPPEN! Our Steel City Beer & Cider Festival is a popular annual celebration of traditional real ales, international craft beer and artisan cider accompanied by street food, live music and more – all set within the incredibly atmospheric Kelham Island Industrial Museum. It is organised, run and staffed by volunteer CAMRA members who all come together to put the event on to share their passion for good beer and/or cider. We are now recruiting volunteer staff. Although it is unpaid work there are perks of course – you get in for free and get to try the draught beer and cider for free; you may also even get a free staff t-shirt! Volunteers are required on site from Monday morning onwards to help with the build and set up of the festival, staff it when we are open Wednesday to Saturday and help take it all to bits and transport the kit back to storage on the Sunday. There are a variety of roles available staffing the festival whilst it is open for business – not just the obvious serving drinks on the bars but also working on admissions, selling beer tokens and programmes, hosting the games, promoting CAMRA membership, working on the glass return desk (including glass washing), cellar work, health & safety support, administrative and financial roles, sign writing and more. Although volunteering at the beer festival can be hard work at times, it is also fun and generally quite rewarding. If you’d like to help out, please keep an eye out for the staffing form coming soon on our website, sheffield.camra.org.uk/festival. Andy Cullen, Staffing Officer

Beer Census results

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
On Saturday 10 June, members of the Sheffield & District branch travelled to all corners of the city for the annual Beer Census. The intention was to gain some insight into the amount, range and cost of the real ales available in Sheffield on any given day. It’s an annual opportunity to take the pulse of the Sheffield ale scene, and a great excuse to visit a few of those pubs you walk past all the time but never seem to go in. Our intrepid enumerators headed out from midday, some surveying more than 20 pubs, before convening at the Red Deer in the city centre in the evening (a few of them a little worse for wear!). Unfortunately, we were not able to visit as many pubs as last year, but we believe that what we did find enables us to sustain our claim of being the Beer Capital of the UK. beer survey results 4 136 pubs were visited on the day and between them they offered 590 real ales. That equates to an average of 4.3 handpumps per pub, which is far higher than the number found by Manchester in their recent beer survey. In total, there were 360 unique beers from 148 different breweries. Real cider was available at 24 of the pubs surveyed, comprising 25 unique ciders from 20 different makers. The average cost of a pint of real ale was £3.12, an increase of about 8p (or 2.6% for the mathematically minded) from last year. This is in line with 2% inflation, plus the 2p beer duty added in the March budget. Beers ranged in price from £1.79 to £5.60. The average amount paid for a pint of real cider was somewhat higher at £3.72. Local breweries dominated the pumps, with Abbeydale (57), Bradfield (50) and Thornbridge (46) the top three most widely available breweries in Sheffield’s pubs. Abbeydale’s Moonshine took the top spot in the beer standings, being offered in 33 of the 136 pubs visited. Encouragingly, local beers held six of the top ten places. Thanks to everyone who organised and took part in the census, and a special thank you to Phil Ellett who created an excellent online system for us to check-in our findings.

SCBF43 beer mats on eBay

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
Four limited edition sets of 15 mint condition Beermats, advertising the 43rd Annual Steel City Beer Festival (SCBF43) are to be auctioned on eBay. On one side of each mat is the SCBF43 logo, with the reverse printed for the sponsor. The logo side, when arranged, gives a large image of the festival poster. The original plan was to have 14 mats. However, a printing error has resulted in two different ‘Toolmakers’ mats. In total, there are about 100,000 beermats available. 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! SCBF43 mats 6 Thanks to our sponsors:  Abbeydale, Acorn, Blue Bee, Bradfield, Emmanuales, Little Critters (two different designs) Lost Industry, Sentinel, Shakespeares, Sheffield, Thornbridge (Peakender 2017), Toolmakers (two different logo sides) and True North. All profits from these eBay sales will go the official SCBF 2017 Charity – Weston Park Cancer Charity http://www.wphcancercharity.org.uk/  The festival will be held at Kelham Island Industrial Museum from 18-21 October 2017. Dave Pickersgill

BeerX to leave Sheffield

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) has annouced that next year’s BeerX trade show will take place in Liverpool rather than Sheffield. The exhibition, one of the largest of its kind in the UK, had been held here for the last five years. This year’s BeerX took place at iceSheffield from 16-19 March, hosting more than 2,000 industry delegates and featuring more than 400 beers. The BeerAlive! festival was held in a pop-up beer tent next door. SIBA’s operations director, Nick Stafford, said: “It was a tough decision to move the event as Sheffield has been BeerX’s home for five years, but we think the time is right for a change and look forward to hosting our key event […] in Liverpool.” One of the main reasons given for the move was the relative ease of getting to Liverpool by road, rail and air compared to Sheffield. Air travel has become increasingly important with SIBA looking to attract more international visitors. Next year’s event will take place over just two days instead of four, and will not feature the simultaneous beer festival.

George & Dragon day trip

Posted on by Dominic Nelson
Sheffield & District CAMRA are hoping to arrange a day trip to visit CAMRA’s national Pub of the Year for 2017, the George & Dragon in Hudswell, North Yorkshire. The pub was re-opened in 2010 by a local community group and also won the Yorkshire Pub of the Year award in 2016. We have provisionally scheduled the trip for Saturday 2 September and are currently trying to gauge interest. We are planning to depart from the Old Queen’s Head in the city centre at 11:00, and stop for a drinks break at the Castle Tavern in Richmond around 13:00. It is then a short drive to the George & Dragon, where we are hoping to spend about two hours. On the way back, we will stop for food at the Cover Bridge Inn in East Witton, then we should arrive back in Sheffield around 21:30. The cost of the transport will be around £20 per person, depending on numbers. If you are interested, or know anyone who might be, please contact our Social Secretary, Patrick Johnson, at social@sheffieldcamra.org.uk, or sign up at the August branch meeting. The deadline for bookings is Saturday 5 August, so please act quickly to avoid disappointment!