If you are looking to enjoy a summer of pub and need inspiration, you could do well to check out the new “Great British Beer Garden” Facebook page and blog started by former Dronfield CAMRA chairman and keen home brewer Rob Barwell.

He kicked off by enjoying a Friday evening sunset chasing whilst enjoying a nice beer in Hathersage and Fox House.

The next day saw Rob head out around Dronfield on the day of the One Valley Festival, which sees many pubs and clubs in the area add outside bars, music stages, food stalls and more and this year the weather was perfect. Some of his photographs were from before opening time when the venues were still setting up, others once the party got started!

Of course it is worth noting that the Manor House and Green Dragon have their outdoor areas open all the time with a DJ on Friday evenings at both venues with the Dragon having live entertainment on Saturday evenings.

Our last RambAle of the year took place in late September: nine used the Huddersfield train from Sheffield, two took a double-bus route from Hoyland and one took the scenic route from Stocksbridge on the 3-times daily 23 Millhouse Green flyer.

After meeting on platform two, and admiring the 1912 Art Deco masterpiece which is the Penistone Paramount, our first stop was in the well-stocked Penistone Tap & Brewhouse. This was the original home of the Woodland Brewery (formally Whitefaced Brewery, named after a local breed of sheep). The brewery has recently moved to a larger local site.

We then utilised the Trans-Pennine Trail, originally part of the, Sheffield-Manchester, Woodhead Railway line, progressing to GBG-serial entry, the multiple award-winning and hardly-changed Huntsman in Thurlstone. The pub lived up to its billing, providing the usual six, well-kept, cask beers. The choice included Abbeydale, Acorn and Salamander.

Our next stop was the nearby Crystal Palace, since May 2021, the home, and only regular outlet, for Kibble Brewery. Four of their beers, all named after major coal seams, were available: Barnsley Bed Bitter (4.2%), Colliers Monday (5.8%), Kent Thin Pale (4.2%) and Kent Thin Pale: Strawberry (4.2%). In addition, Head Brewer, Alasdair Twist, provided a brewery tour and an entertaining series of anecdotes. The 2.5 Bbl. brewery is located in a former stable block in the car park. A kibble is a big bucket used in pit shafts: the owner felt that the mash tun (from the now-closed Hamelsworde brewery) looks like a kibble. There is also a smaller pilot plant which is used for one-off specials.

We then returned to Penistone via Stottercliffe Road, paying a return visit to the, now busy, Penistone Tap & Brewhouse before catching our return transport.

An excellent afternoon in the late September sunshine.

In Sheffield & District branch we get to enter two of our Pub of the Year award winners into the national competition – one in Yorkshire and one in North Derbyshire. Our Derbyshire entry is the Anglers Rest in Bamford and we’ll be presenting them with our District Pub of the Year award on 30 July at 3pm (all welcome to join us there for a beer!)

Part of the deal of entering a pub in the North Derbyshire competition is you have to help out judging all the other branch’s entries and this made for an enjoyable day out!

Judging is to a set criteria, this includes factors such as beer quality, clientele mix, cleanliness, service, promotion of real ale, value for money, community and sympathy with CAMRA’s aims.

We started with a ride on the Stagecoach X17 bus from Sheffield to Matlock, this is a limited stop service routed via the Dronfield by-pass and Chesterfield and takes just over an hour to get there, where we planned to visit the Matlock & Dales entry to the competition.

The Twenty Ten in Matlock was of a relatively modern design with a mixture of sofa areas and dining type table areas and a pool table at the back. The bar boasted a good selection of cask ales along with some interesting craft beers on keg plus some quality sausage rolls and other bar snacks as well as a more substantial food menu, all served by a friendly manager and staff. Standards were high with everything kept clean and tidy and this is the pub that went on to win the competition.

Whilst in Matlock we took the opportunity to visit Bod, newly opened just a few doors down, the latest branch of a cafe-bar chain owned by Titanic Brewery. This was a laid back kind of place with two counters – a traditional pub bar serving beers from Titanic plus guests and a coffee shop counter serving hot drinks and some rather nice cakes!

A half hour or so back on the X17 bus took us to Chesterfield to judge their entry, the Chesterfield Arms, which is now also home to Twisted Devil brewery, located in what used to be the barn function room. A visit here is of course an opportunity to try their beers, however there is a wide range of ales from various breweries both modern and traditional, including the classic bitter that is Bass! Bar snacks from the fridge include pork pies and cheese platters whilst the hot food menu features pizzas, wings and loaded fries.

Again, whilst in the area, we succumbed to the temptation to pop in another close by pub that we had to walk past to reach the bus stop – the Neptune Beer Emporium is on a residential street just down the hill and is of an interesting design – you walk in and are immediately faced with the bar, which features a great range of reasonably priced beers on both cask and keg and there are rooms to both the left and right plus a decent sized outdoor drinking area at the rear. This pub also regularly features live music.

Our next hop was on TM Travel’s number 15 bus to judge the Dronfield & District branch entry. The bus was faster than expected (well I suppose the timetable might have gave us a clue I suppose) as it jumped on the Dronfield by-pass for a quick whizz up to Unstone then just nipped up the country lane to drop us outside the Miners Arms in Hundall, which sits on the edge of a hill in a rural spot with a great view over the valley. The Miners is a traditional local village boozer with a range of reasonably priced ales and ciders, pool table, sport on TV, occasional live music and beer garden. You can usually find beer from Pictish along with the local Drone Valley brewery plus changing guests, a great atmosphere and lots of dogs wandering around looking for attention!

To get back to Sheffield we had to join the next number 15 bus down to Dronfield town centre and connect with the Stagecoach 43 or 44 to Sheffield, this of course offers the chance for a beer between buses around the Dronfield High Street area (pubs here include the Victoria, Blue Stoops, Manor House Hotel and Green Dragon) or Dronfield Bottom (options include the Dronfield Arms, Underdog and White Swan). As it turned out the TM Travel bus didn’t turn up to pick us up in Hundall so a taxi was summonsed which quickly took us down to Dronfield, giving us time to visit 2 pubs with beer gardens before the bus to Sheffield was due!

More information about the pubs – visit whatpub.com, CAMRA’s national pub database maintained by volunteers (we are looking for some assistance with this if you are interested by the way!)

Bus tickets:

Stagecoach: a Gold DayRider offers unlimited travel on all their buses in Derbyshire plus South & West Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire along with Supertram. Adult £7.80, group of up to 5 people £20.

Bus 43/44 provides up to 3 buses an hour between Sheffield and Dronfield whilst the X17 runs hourly through to Matlock (half hourly as far as Chesterfield).

TM Travel: Their Daysaver costs £4.50. The rural bus 15 runs once every 2 hours.

Derbyshire Wayfarer: Includes almost all buses and trains in Derbyshire plus direct services between Sheffield and Derbyshire, adult £13.40, family (2 adults and 3 children) £24.

We were finally able to do our Redmires RambAle at our third attempt back in March. However, our first pub, the Shiny Sheff, had no cask ales on following a recent reopening under new management. (Hopefully that is no longer the case.) We left and carried on with our walk up to the dams and then down to the Three Merry Lads, followed by a visit to the Sportsman Inn.

April saw us out in the Peak District, although our first intended pub the Fox House, was then closed for refurbishment. However, a short walk through the Longshaw estate soon brought us to the Grouse for some refreshment. From there we dropped down through Hay Wood to Grindleford Station, passing the busy café there and having our sandwiches outside the Padley Chapel. We were surprised to see a couple of deer calmly grazing in the field next to us. We then followed the Derwent riverside path to Hathersage finishing with a drink at the Little John Inn.

For our May walk we took the 65 bus out to Great Hucklow, starting with a drink at the Queen Anne pub there. One of the few to have draught Bass on the bar, along with another beer on rotation. A short walk from there took us to the Blind Bull in Little Hucklow. A good choice of draught ales in this Inn which dates back to the 12th Century but which had a recent renovation following some years of closure. It was certainly proving popular with locals when we were there.

From there we traversed a number of fields (and stiles) to get to Bradwell. We went in the Bowling Green there, although we also found some friends had gone to the Shoulder of Mutton. We all found our way back home via the 272 bus service.

Our most recent outing has been to join the Dronfield One Valley Extra Beer Festival starting with a 43 bus ride to the Drone Valley Brewery in Unstone. They had extended their bar to have a full range of their beers on (see pic). Not everyone was happy with having to drink them from squashy plastic ‘glasses’, nor the pricing (an across the range £4 a pint) but there were no complaints about the quality. Food was also available and entertainment was promised later in the day.

We decided to make our way up the hill to the Miners Arms at Hundall, which was its usual busy self, both inside and out in the garden where a second bar had been set up, along with a stage and another food stall.

Our third call was to the Travellers Rest at Apperknowle, where beer in glass glasses was available and taken with our sandwiches. We possibly spent too long there as by the time we got to Troway for a visit to the Gate Inn there we found it closed. We followed field paths from there towards Coal Aston, ending our walk there when a 44 bus appeared.

So an eventful year so far with some new faces joining the regulars.

We’ll be having another walk in June when we shall go from Malin Bridge up to the Wisewood Inn for their Loxley Beer festival. In July we shall be walking from Deepcar to the Wortley Beer Festival and in August a shortish walk from Castleton to Hope for the Bank Holiday Beer Festival at the Old Hall Hotel.

More details in the diary section in Beer Matters or on the website

Join us for rambling and ale!

Due to lockdowns and ongoing Covid restrictions we were only able to do four RambAles last year, but that was still four more than we expected and the previous year. We’re pleased to say that all of them proved enjoyable and it was great to get out and enjoy visiting many of our local pubs again for a drink whilst enjoying a not too strenuous walk with friends.

We shall be visiting more of them through the next few months and also going further afield to some of the many local villages in the easily reached surrounding countryside which have great pubs in them too – all worth visiting. Many of them are within walking distance and we shall have the back up of the city’s public transport system to help get us there and back.

Sheffield has many great pubs and green spaces within, and around, its boundaries. Now they are open again it’s time for us to get our boots on and make the most of them – do join us!

We already have a number of ideas for more RambAles in September and October but we’re waiting for the football fixture lists and dates of local beer festivals to come out so we can fit our walks around them.

We aim to provide a series of walks which we hope people won’t find either too long or too strenuous and most will feature a number of pubs and drop-out points where people can leave and make their own way back by bus or train to Sheffield if they don’t fancy doing the whole walk or want to stay for another drink in a particular pub. These will also provide joining points for any latecomers. Most timings and fares will be given in the walks listing. Any additions or amendments will also be published in new leaflets, future editions of Beer Matters and the branch website. Contact the RambAle coordinator on 07842 530 128 or rambale@sheffield.camra.org.uk if you need more information on any of these walks.

Everyone is welcome to join us but please come suitably equipped for changeable and inclement weather and walking conditions which may be rough, wet and muddy in places. In most cases you will also need to bring (or be able to buy) sufficient food and drink.

PLEASE NOTE: bus, tram and train times are subject to change and last minute cancellation. Please check before setting off.

Malcolm & Jenny