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.
Sat outside the Plough in Hathersage as the sun begins to setAdmiring the sunset sat outside the Fox House Inn
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!
Manor House hotel – setting up for One Valley festival which here featured an outside bar with cask ale from Abbeydale, a food van and a stage with live music followed by a DJ.Green Dragon before opening on One Valley Festival day, which here featured an outside bar with cask ales, a gin trailer, fish and chip stall and performance area for live singers.Dronfield Arms on One Valley festival day, which here featured an outside bar, pizza stall, stage for live music and later on a sunset disco outdoors.
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.
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.
Chesterfield CAMRA’s usual annual beer festival at the Winding Wheel theatre couldn’t happen this year as Covid uncertainty had impacted the planning timescales. As a replacement a huge list of pubs across Chesterfield town centre, Brampton and Whittington Moor teamed up to put on a weekend walkabout event featuring beer, food and music.
Members of Sheffield and Dronfield CAMRA branches all arranged to get together for a couple of joint socials, with us visiting Whittington Moor on the Friday night then the town centre & “Brampton Mile” on Saturday afternoon. On both days we also caught up with friends from Chesterfield branch too!
Friday night saw us start at the Glassworks on Whittington Moor, which is run by Brampton Brewery. For the festival weekend they had a number of guest ales on the bar alongside their own including Anarchy Deafening Silence pale ale, Durham Apricity Copper Ale and Durham Dark Angel Stout. With a 6:30pm start we were able to sit and relax here for a bit! By the time we moved on to the Beer Parlour it was packed with the usual friendly crowd and great beers, including one from the relatively local Silver Brewhouse and a classic not seen about as much these days – Bass.
We finished in the Derby Tup to enjoy live blues music from Slim Wilson & The Swamp Brothers along with again a great range of beers including a plum porter and IPA from Eyam Brewery, a pale ale from Scarborough and more, including another local classic – Hartington Bitter from Whim Brewery.
On Saturday afternoon we met up at the Pig & Pump in Chesterfield town centre, which for the festival weekend featured an Abbeydale Brewery tap takeover, with the brewery supplying a diverse range of beers from Serenity, a 3.9% pleasantly hopped pale ale, up to Black Mass, a 6.66% black IPA.
Next we walked up to the Hidden Knight for a quick half, this is a Greene King pub but they had a guest ale on from Thornbridge. We then proceeded to an old favourite, the Chesterfield Alehouse micropub, who were hosting a tap takeover with all the handpumps given over to showcasing beers from Two by Two brewing whilst a good number of the keg taps featured beer from Seven Bro7hers Brewery.
We were then within touching distance of the Brampton Mile and visited the Tramway Tavern, Brampton Brewery and Real Ale corner (which had a couple of extra casks on gravity) before time ran out and we caught the X17 bus back to Sheffield.
However a special mention goes to David Marsh from North London CAMRA branch who joined us for the afternoon who apparantly managed to fit in another 5 pubs after we left before he caught his train home from Chesterfield!
