Festival workers and new members social

We’re running a coach trip to Huddersfield to do a crawl of some of the good pubs there and drop in to the Magic Rock Brewery Tap on Saturday 21st November. If you worked as a volunteer at the festival we would like to thank you and if you signed up as a new member at the festival we would like to welcome you, by offering you a free place on this trip. Please book your seat with our social secretary, Phil Wood. You can email him via socials@sheffieldcamra.org.uk. Huddersfield pubs

Pubs – an academic’s viewpoint

Thursday 22nd October 2015 “Seminar & Beer Festival”:  4:30-5:30pm Lecture Theatre 9 in Hicks Building.University of Sheffield, Hounsfield Road, S3 7RH    Ignazio Cabras (University of Northumbria) will present his work on “A pint of happiness: how pubs shape and foster community cohesion in rural England“.  Following the seminar, we will walk down to the “Sheffield 41st Beer & Cider Festival 2015“ for an evening at Kelham Island Museum. Pubs in England represent an important locus for regional development and rejuvenation, particularly in rural areas where they act as hubs for social aggregation and economic activity. Generally, village pubs are regarded as complementarities to other local services and amenities that exist within the area, such as sporting events, volunteering and charity initiatives, as well as business activities. The evidence presented in this seminar provides empirical support for this proposition by estimating the impact of pubs on social and communal activities at a local level. More specifically, data and information about facilities and services available for rural parishes are used to elaborate a set of index measurements of community cohesion. The indexes, created upon a range of discrete variables capturing multiple aspects of community living, are then investigated by using different econometric and statistical techniques to measure the role of pubs in shaping the levels of community cohesion in the English countryside. Findings gathered from the analysis identify a strong positive relationship between the presence of pubs and higher levels of community cohesion index occurring within the examined parishes, indicating that this relationship is maintained in time. Results are discussed in the light of the significant decline in the number of pubs occurred in England and the UK in the last three decades, and explored with regard to possible policies and initiatives which could help preserving the positive impact these business have on rural communities.  

Annual Beer Census

Our annual Beer Census started out being known as the ‘Beer Capital Survey’ as it was a competition between Derby and Sheffield to prove which was the real ale capital in terms of beer choice. Sheffield always wins of course and in terms of smaller cities, York and Norwich also beat Derby – although it hasn’t stopped Derby attracting tourists on the basis of it’s pubs, breweries and beer festivals! Sheffield of course is also known for having a great beer scene with loads of pubs offering a variety of different beers and many enthusiasts make a regular pilgrimage to come and try new beers! On a more serious note, the beer census takes the pulse of Sheffield’s beer scene, not only recording how many different beers can be found but also the most successful breweries and brands, tracking the average price of a pint and more. This year we conducted the survey on Saturday 5th September. Whilst we were a little thin on the volunteer numbers again we still managed to run 13 survey routes and visit 145 pubs across the City hosting a total of 730 handpumps. The number of different, unique cask beers we found was 385 – impressive! It proves that Sheffield is like one big beer festival every day and there must be beers of different styles, strengths and flavours out there catering for everyone! The most common beers found in the pubs surveyed (it should be noted that not every pub was surveyed due to the limited number of people so we did restrict it to pubs that we know often sell a reasonable selection of ales – this can affect the outcome) were: 1 – Bradfield Farmers Blonde (33 pubs) 2 – Abbeydale Moonshine (32 pubs) 3 -Sharps Doom Bar (24 pubs) 4 – Greene King IPA (14 pubs) =5 – Greene King Abbot Ale (13 pubs) =5 – Black Sheep Bitter (13 pubs) =7 – Timothy Taylor Landlord (12 pubs) =7 – Kelham Island Easy Rider (12 pubs) =8 -Tetley Bitter (11 pubs) =8 – Abbeydale Deception (11 pubs) The breweries with the most pumps encountered were 1 – Abbeydale (62 pumps) 2 – Bradfield (56 pumps) 3 – Greene King (55 pumps) 4 – Thornbridge (34 pumps) =5 – Kelham Island (29 pumps) =5 – Sharp’s (29 pumps) and finally, the average price of a pint of real ale in Sheffield across those beers where the price was noted was £2.86 with the cheapest being Greene King Ruddles Bitter (3.7% ABV) in the Rawson Spring Wetherspoons (£1.70 per pint) and the most expensive beer noted was £4.20 a pint for Thornbridge Rattlesnake (6% ABV) in the Bath Hotel. COMPARISONS The latest survey figures found for other Cities doing the same survey…. Derby – 200 different beers Nottingham – 334 different beers Norwich – 254 different beers York – 281 different beers Leeds (City Centre only) – 189 different beers

Freshers – Love good beer? You’ll love Sheffield!

If you’ve just arrived in Sheffield to study at either University then welcome! If you already know you appreciate great beer then you will love it here. If you are at the University of Sheffield then two starting points. One is to join the Real Ale Society, the other is to pay a visit to Interval Café Bar in the Union which always boasts a nice selection of ales. Also on campus is the University Arms, a more traditional pub, again with a good beer range. Over at Hallam University, the Student Union doesn’t do quite as good on the beer front but not to worry, there are plenty of pubs nearby with the Rutland Arms a particular favourite, the Sheffield Tap at the station has it’s own brewery and the Old Queens Head in the bus interchange offers well kept Thwaites beers and reasonably priced food. Also nearby offering real ale is the Howard, Globe, Red Lion, Royal Standard and Roebuck, plus of course lots more as you venture up into the City Centre. Don’t forget there are discoveries to be made off the main drags such as the Dove & Rainbow rock pub on Hartshead Square (down a passageway near Castle Square tram stop/Pizza Hut), Three Tuns on Silver Street Head, Dog & Partridge on Trippet Lane, Red Deer on Pitt Street and the Bath Hotel on Victoria Street to name just a few.
If you fancy exploring beyond the City Centre you may also wish to try a bus or tram crawl. Some favourites are listed below. (more details of pubs can be found at www.whatpub.com and public transport information can be found at www.travelsouthyorkshire.com). All day travel tickets can prove good value (currently £3.90 for a specific bus operator or £4.50 for any bus or tram. Until 25th October an all day tram pass costs just £3. Alternatively, on buses only, students can travel for £1 per single journey. If you are commuting weekly or longer passes are also sold. Bus 25 towards Bradway  via London Road & Heeley – Beer Engine, Hermitage, Albion, Cremorne, White Lion, Sheaf View and Brothers Arms Bus 43/44 towards Chesterfield via Dronfield – Coach & Horses, Victoria, Talbot, Jolly Farmer, Three Tuns, Dronfield Arms, Beer Stop. Bus 52 towards Hillsborough via Broomhill and Crookes – University Arms, Place, Nottingham House, Crookes Social Club, Ball Inn and Punchbowl. Bus 81/82 along Ecclesall Road – Porter Brook, Porter Cottage, Lescar, Sheffield Beer House Micropub. Bus 95 towards Walkley via Commonside – Hallamshire House, Closed Shop, Walkley Beer Co and Walkley Cottage (alternatively bus 31 will take you to the Blake). Bus 97/218 towards Totley via Abbeydale Road – Beer Engine, Cremorne, Picture House Social, the Broadfield, Robin Hood and Cross Scythes. Bus 120 towards Fulwood via Broomhill, Ranmoor and Nether Green – Francis Newton, Fox & Duck, The York, Ranmoor Inn, Rising Sun. Blue/Yellow tram towards Middlewood/Malin Bridge – alight at Shalesmoor for the famous Kelham Island real ale trail (Wellington, Ship, Shakespeare’s, Kelham Island Tavern, Fat Cat, Harlequin, Riverside, Gardeners Rest and Forest. Alight at Infirmary Road for the Hillsborough Hotel, alight at Bamforth Street for the New Barrack Tavern and alight at Hillsborough for the Rawson Spring.

So what is CAMRA about and what do you do in Sheffield?

The Campaign for Real Ale nationally has been promoting real ale, pubs and drinkers rights since 1971 and the Sheffield & District branch has now been going 41 years. Back in the early 70s there were a smaller number of breweries all producing beer on industrial scales, they also owned the pubs which only served their own beers. These breweries and pub operators were discovering new ways of cutting costs and increasing profits – at the expense of quality and flavour – including using cheaper ingredients and putting filtered and pasteurised beer into kegs and tanks, with then had gas added on dispense to replace the natural sparkle from cask conditioning. CAMRA’s founders decided that the loss of traditional cask beer – and more importantly the influx of crap beer – was worth fighting against. Fast forward to 2015 and the issues for CAMRA are different – although there are a few big brands of awful beer, there are a lot of small ‘craft’ breweries producing good quality beer across all the formats – cask real ale plus keg, can and bottle. The issues instead now are more about pub closures and taxation. Although our campaigning is more focused on pubs at the moment, we are still embracing our heritage of promoting real ale by organising beer festivals, running champion beer competitions, maintaining a working relationship and dialogue with breweries  and reporting on the real ale brewing scene in our newspapers and magazines. In Sheffield we are one of many volunteer run branches (all of CAMRA is volunteer run except for a few paid professional support staff at HQ in St Albans) and publish a monthly newsletter ‘Beer Matters magazine’, run a Pub of the Month and Pub of the Year award scheme, organise an annual Beer & Cider Festival in October, conduct an annual pub survey and more. We also run regular socials included guided pub crawls, brewery tours and more. CAMRA also incorporates ‘Apple’ who campaign for traditional cider and perry – that is your farmhouse style versions served ‘flat’ and made from nothing more than fermented fresh apple or pear juice – not made from industrial concentrates nor un-natural additives. We have two key cider dates in Sheffield – in October we help with apple pressing at Woodthorpe Hall and in January we judge Cider Pub of the Year. You can join CAMRA by filling in the form in the back of Beer Matters or online at www.camra.org.uk. Membership if you pay by direct debit is just £24 a year, or less if you are under 26.

So what is ‘cask’, ‘keg’, ‘craft’ and ‘real ale’? And why does CAMRA only support some of them?

Well, Cask and Keg are simply the type of barrel draught beer is supplied in. Typically real ale comes in a cask and other beers come in kegs, although that statement is slightly complicated with the introduction of disposable ‘key-kegs’ that can be used for either. Real Ale is a term introduced by CAMRA many years ago, the definition is beer that undergoes secondary fermentation in the container from which is served and is served without the addition of external gases to the beer on dispense. It is generally brewed from natural ingredients in the traditional manners and maintains the full flavours and aromas the brewer intended. The process of secondary fermentation actually generates gas giving a freshly served beer a natural sparkle. Craft beer is actually an American term and doesn’t have a formal definition in the UK – however it is generally taken to mean a beer brewed in small batches from natural ingredients by a brewer that cares. Many real ales therefore can also be considered ‘craft’, however this term extends to those keg beers that are of the higher quality and basically fizzy real ales. The ‘craft’ term is beginning to get abused by some bigger breweries marketing departments though so be careful! CAMRA’s heritage is to promote real ale and continues to do so. However as the campaigning priorities move more towards pubs, it is not considered worthwhile establishing a way of defining which keg beers are good and which are bad, so they are simply deemed ‘out of scope’ and simply another product on the bar alongside the real ale. Most people soon discover the dreadful bland ones, for example any brand that includes ‘Smooth’ in the name…  

Woodthorpe Hall Cider

Woodthorpe Hall is one of only two artisan cider makers we are aware of in our area, based at the end of a country lane in Holmesfield, near Dronfield. The Hall is the home of Dick Shepley and his family, he is the man behind the Owd Barker strong Farmhouse Cider, the cider is made from the apple juices produced at his annual apple pressing day where friends, family, business contacts and a few CAMRA members all turn up and volunteer for the day in his garden! Many of the apples used are windfall from trees in the area, however this stock sometimes supplemented with apples bought in from Orchards in South West England. Owd Barker is certainly not a single variety cider – all the different apples are chucked in together! The process on the day involves carting apples from trailers and sacks on the driveway in wheelbarrows to the pressing area where they are washed by hand before being pulped and mashed using a series of Heath Robinson esque motorised machinery with the results shovelled into buckets ready to be pressed. The mashed apples are squashed into juice on the old fashioned apple press, with the juice poured into plastic water bottles (of the office mineral water cooler style) to be transported to the fermentation tanks. It isn’t all work of course, there is a lunch break that involves repairing to a pub in the village for food and an afternoon tea break happens with coffee and home made cakes then after the days pressing is complete a few social drinks are enjoyed with a few tubs of last years cider laid on for workers! A small group of Sheffield & Dronfield CAMRA members will be going to Woodthorpe Hall to help with the apple pressing on Saturday 3rd October, email beermatters@sheffieldcamra.org.uk if you fancy joining us.

Join the annual beer census pub crawls.. Saturday 5th September

Our annual city wide survey that takes the pulse of Sheffield’s beer scene, recording how many different beers you can find on one day and possibly proving that Sheffield is the real ale capital of Britain. This is an annual survey we have been doing for a few years now, which started following an argument between someone from Derby and someone from Sheffield about which City was the true beer capital! A number of other Cities including Nottingham, Norwich and York now also conduct such a census. We have a number of different pub crawls going on at the same time, each with a designated leader who will have survey forms and take you to the various pubs on their route. The daytime crawls generally start at midday and finish at the Red Deer to hand paperwork in, the evening crawls start at the Red Deer at 7pm and we regroup at the end of the night at the Kelham Island Tavern. As well as gathering useful campaigning data for us, it is also a great day out trying different beers and visiting pubs you might not normally get chance to visit. All the daytime crawls except the City Centre ones involve using buses, trains or trams between pubs so we reccomend buying an all day travel ticket – If you are doing the Chapeltown route this also involves train travel so the ticket is a Travelmaster at £7.60, the others are bus and possibly tram so the ticket to get is a Citywide at £4.50. Both tickets are valid on all bus operators and sold by bus drivers and tram conductors. If you would like to join one of the crawls, just go to the meeting point shown below and find the appointed leader. If you cannot make any of the official crawl but still want to take part, you can take note of the beer range in any Sheffield pub you are in that day and email the details to us. Please include the details of the pub, Brewery/Beer/ABV and the price per pint. Also it would be useful to note if the pub serves real cider or craft keg too. ROUTE A – Dore, Totley, Millhouses, Broadfield Meet at the Devonshire Arms in Dore at midday. (Buses 70 or M17) ROUTE B – Norton Lees, Woodseats, Heeley, Highfield.  Meet at the Cross Scythes on Derbyshire Lane at midday. (Bus 19 or 20A) ROUTE C – Banner Cross, Hunters Bar, Ecclesall Road Meet at the Banner Cross at midday. (Buses 65,70,81,82,83,85,88 or 272) ROUTE D – Deepcar, Hillsborough, Bradfield Meet at the Royal Oak in Deepcar at midday. (Bus 57 or SL) ROUTE E – Chapeltown, Burncross, Meadowhall, Attercliffe Meet at the Wagon & Horses (Wetherspoon) next to Chapeltown station at 11am (Train or buses 29,75,79A,87 or 265) ROUTE F – Walkley, Crookes, Commonside Meet at the Walkley Cottage at midday (bus 95) ROUTE G – Lodge Moor, Nether Green, Ranmoor Meet at the Three Merry Lads in Lodge Moor at midday (bus 51) ROUTES H, I and J – Sheffield City Centre Meet at the Sheffield Tap at 11am, depending on how many are present the routes will be split up as considered appropriate as there are so many City Centre outlets now! ROUTES K, L and M – West Bar, Kelham Island, Shalesmoor, Neepsend, Hillsborough Meet at the Red Deer on Pitt Street, Sheffield City Centre, at 7pm and the routes around the Upper Don Valley will be split amongst those present as deemed appropriate. All three routes will meet back up at the end of the evening in the Kelham Island Tavern.

Barrow Hill volunteers wobble around Wakefield

This trip, on the first  of  August, was reward for volunteering for the bar at the Rail Ale Festival at Barrow Hill. Six of us from Dronfield CAMRA, Roger & Ruth Hepworth, Ken Perkins. Michelle Kay, Linda Walker and myself, Kevin Thompson, attended. Ken and Michelle did their own thing while the remaining four of us did our best to hang onto the main party. Mark, the trip organiser, had laid on a coach to sample some of the delights of Wakefield at a variety of venues. The eager fifty or so CAMRA  members assembled in Chesterfield on Saturday morning for the one hour journey up the M1. As everyone knows, Wakefield is the administrative centre of West Yorkshire. Pub quiz addicts will be familiar with the fact that Wakefield is the largest city in the UK which does not possess a League Football team. Wakefield has a long history of brewing which is discussed in some detail on Wakefield CAMRA’s website:  http://www.wakefieldcamra.org.uk/lost_brewers.html First port of call was Fernandes Brewery Tap & Bier Keller, Avison Yard, which had opened earlier for our arrival. The queue soon ran from the bar down the pub’s narrow, steep stairs with drinkers quaffing their first pint free. Roger and Myself selected Ossett Brewery’s Yorkshire Blonde, as our first tipple, an extremely good session beer at 3.9% to start the day.  Ruth, a dark beer drinker went with the Fernandes Dustcutter, while Linda plumped for a medium sweet, but strong cider.  As there were people still just getting started on their first pint, we  decided to sample another. This time we went with Fernandes Polaris, while the ladies stuck with their original choices. Next on the itinerary came the Bull & Fairhouse, a traditional, music orientated pub with a good selection of ales. Sticking to paler ales, myself and Roger went with Old Bob’s Silver Bullitt at 4%, Ruth tried Hazelnut Mild from the Brass Castle Brewery while Linda went with Weston’s Rosies Pig, a medium cider at 5%. Actually attached next door on Market Street, it was a short hop to Graziers, a more sports orientated pub. There Roger and myself ordered two pints of Leed’s Brewery Pale, a nice hoppy beer, in line with the others we had sampled elsewhere. Ruth went with an old favourite in Taylor’s Landlord, while, I threw a nice Old Rosie cider in for Linda, omitting to mention the fact it came in at a leg wobbling 7.5%. SAM_1750 As we were fast approaching the halfway point of the day, the munchies set in and we went off in search of food. On the main shopping area of Westgate, we found a nice local bakers to fill a corner. The sausage roll, chicken and stuffing rolls and Cornish pasty did the trick and we set off for the next destination of Wakefield Labour Club, affectionately known locally as “The Red Shed,” due to it’s socialist roots.  The club situated, just off the bottom of the Ridings,  was already quite busy and our numbers soon had it buzzing with conversation. The beer was cheap and an excellent Phoenix Gold was consumed by the men, while Ruth chose a Plum Porter from Titanic Brewery. Due to its reputation, we walked back over Westgate in search of Harry’s Bar. After a few mistakes with the GPS, a local actually pointed out the alleyway where the pub was situated. This bar was lovely, a quaint, wooden adorned building, large enough for the group, but small enough for intimate conversations. First choice here was a favourite of mine, which Roger went along with, Moorhouses Pride of Pendle, a consistently good pale. Ruth plumped for the North Riding Oatmeal Stout, a pint of which I finished the day on. The cider on the bar which caught Linda’s eye was a cherry 5% medium. SAM_1746 So, as it approached 6pm and with a bellyful of beer, we wobbled our way back to Wakefield Train Station for our coach pick-up, with good experiences of great venues, and the added bonus of no poor beer throughout the day. Another beer was consumed in the Blue Bell in Chesterfield, Hobgoblin’s Gold, before boarding the bus back to Dronfield. I should think we will return sometime, especially as Revolution Brewery is opening a venue there later this year to boost the real ale scene. Roger Hepworth

The beer in Broadstairs – a trip report

THE GARDEN OF ALE Earlier this year, we enjoyed a family holiday in the Kent coastal resort of Broadstairs. Over the course of the week, we were able to soak up the traditional seaside fare that the town has to offer, visit attractions such as the World War II tunnels at Dover Castle and enjoy fish and chips after a walk to the nearby town of Ramsgate. IMG_0042 Despite just missing the 10th Planet Thanet Easter Beer festival at Margate’s Winter Gardens, I was of course keen to check out the East Kent real ale scene and broke our journey down by calling at the Rose and Crown, a 16th century free house in the rural location of Perry Wood a few miles south of Faversham. As well as decent food and an extensive garden, this reputedly haunted inn offered real ales in the shape of Woodforde’s Wherry, Adnams Southwold Bitter and Harvey’s Sussex Best Bitter (4.0%). I chose the latter which was in decent nick, before making our way east. Upon our arrival in Broadstairs, it became apparent that the town was gripped with election fever with one Nigel Farage attempting to steal the South Thanet constituency from the Tories whilst seeing off ‘Pub Landlord’ Al Murray in the process. Also contesting the seat was Nigel Askew (a real pub landlord) representing the Bez’s Reality Party whose battle bus could be seen on the town’s High Street. IMG_0049 Having settled into our self catering accommodation in a quiet square near to the sea front and containing a blue plaque dedicated to Bagpuss, Clangers and Noggin The Nog co-creator, Oliver Postgate, I took the opportunity to call in at a couple of Broadstairs hostelries. First up was Neptune’s Hall, a former Good Beer Guide listed pub close to the town’s harbour (on Harbour Street, in fact) which had gone into the notebook (not an actual book on this occasion) on my only previous visit to the town. Like many Shepherd Neame pubs I observed during the week, this well maintained pub has a handsome exterior and as well as SN’s Master Brew and Spitfire, guest ales such as Aurora (4.8%) a nice golden beer from Great Yarmouth brewer, Lacon’s. After this, I made the short walk to The Chapel, a unique 2012 conversion of the former St Mary’s Chapel into a pub-cum-second hand bookshop offering a special Kentish menu (crab and stuff) and ales straight from the cask from local breweries including Hopdaemon and Gadds of Ramsgate. The Chapel has a sort of bohemian atmosphere and is the sister pub to the award-winning Lifeboat Ale and Cider House in Margate which was recommended to me. On Easter Monday, we visited Canterbury which boasts several Good Beer Guide entries and chose to eat in the City Arms on Butchery Lane, close to the city’s famous cathedral. Beer of choice on this occasion was GB (4.2%) from local micro, Canterbury Brewers. Having bumped into the Archbishop himself outside Canterbury Cathedral, my voyage along Stella Street continued back in Broadstairs when I sighted dem’ Kumars, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal strolling along the beach and later that evening, 2006 X-Factor finalist, Ben Mills guzzling white wine in the Wrotham Arms, a back street Shepherd Neame pub. Yard of Ale, Broadstairs Micro pubs are clearly thriving in this part of the world and they don’t come much better than The Yard of Ale in the St Peter’s part of town which I visited on Tuesday evening. The recently crowned Thanet and East Kent CAMRA Pub of the Year is in an old stable yard with an original cobbled floor and a great range of gravity dispensed beers. Customer service is high on the agenda here with co-owner, Shawn Galvin and wife Clare taking time to meet and greet customers old and new. Not too far away in St Peter’s, ale drinkers and Two Ronnies aficionados will find the Four Candles, home to Britain’s smallest brewery. This small one-roomed pub was opened in the premises of a hardware shop in 2012 by owner, Mike Beaumont with a one barrel plant in opened in the pub cellar two years later. Another great addition to the local pub scene. On Wednesday evening, it was time to visit The Tartar Frigate which occupies a splendid harbourside position in Broadstairs and is home to an upmarket seafood restaurant and weekly acoustic music (Chicory Tip are regulars!) sessions. After an fine pint of Gadds’ No 5 (4.4%), we made our last port of call, 39 Steps, Broadstairs aThe 39 Steps Alehouse, a micro pub sporting film posters of the John Buchan novel of the same name, a myriad of pump clips and real ales straight from the cask. On this occasion, we both sampled Devil’s Dyke Salted Caramel (5.0%) from the Downlands Brewery in West Sussex. Patrick Hancock, Dronfield & District CAMRA

More members discounts…

I’ve just been reading the latest edition of Beer Matters and saw the section on pubs that offer discounts to CAMRA members. As a fully paid up member I can confirm that I have been taking advantage of the following offers in pubs near where I live: Rising Sun, Abbey Lane – 20p off a pint Robin Hood, Millhouses – 20p off a pint Waggon & Horses, Millhouses – 10% off a pint I’ve saved £££s with these over the last year or so, and with the Wetherspoon vouchers I have more than made up my annual membership fee!  J The Rising Sun has four or five real ales on (three of them guests) whilst the Robin has up to 7 on, (up to five of which are guests).  The guest ales tend to be national brews as both pubs are Mitchel’s and Butlers.  The ale in both pubs is well kept and we like the Rising Sun in particular as it is an old fashioned, traditional pub (if you get in later after the eating has tailed off  – late Saturday and Sunday evenings are bliss). The Waggon has up to three ales on, all of which vary, but tend to be from local breweries, including Abbeydale, Kelham Island, Thornbridge and Bradfield.  It is mainly a grill pub, but has recently got Cask Marque accreditation so it is trying to attract drinkers.  It does however tend to die out once the diners have gone home. I consider myself lucky that these pubs, all offering discounts, are within walking distance for me – happy to spread the word about the discounts via Beer Matters. Cheers Mark Godson  

Record breaking 3 Valleys!

The sun shone down on the Dronfield area on the 6th June and an estimated 8,000 people descended on the town to enjoy a day of beer, cider, food and music! Participating venues included the Castle Inn, Barlow Brewery, Tickled Trout, Miners Arms, Jolly Farmer, Talbot Arms, Hyde Park Inn, Victoria, Manor House Hotel, Green Dragon, Three Tuns, White Swan, Dronfield Arms, Coach & Horses, Royal Oak and Travellers Rest. 3v15 3tuns 3v15 miners hundall 3v15 green dragon 3v15 manor house 3v15 tickled trout 3v15 dronfield arms