Hello, and welcome back to the Eternal Hoptimists,
The eagle eyed among you will have seen that Mark went on a little excursion to Sheffield last week. Sadly he was flying solo on this one, as Sam had to work! But lets find out what tipples Mark discovered on his journey and what was the festival like overall?!
I’ll start by saying that I love everything about the Sheffield pub and beer scene and have done since my first visit to the city back in 2015. In fact I have a very good friend who lives in the city who I try and visit several times per year, yes this does involve drinking beer!
One particular highlight of my Sheffield yearly calendar is the CAMRA run Steel City Beer & Cider Festival which in 2022 took place for the first time since 2019 due to the COVID pandemic. It is safe to say that I was excited by the prospect so headed over with friends, via a few pubs first of course!
The Venue
In October 2022 Kelham Island was voted in the top 50 coolest places in the world to live which has since attracted even more visitors to the area which has to me always been the Mecca for real ale and pubs. Located in the centre of Kelham Island is the spectacular Kelham Island Museum which also hosts the annual beer and cider festival, and what a venue it is too!
Festival goers are treated to almost three festivals in one. Firstly a giant marquee is erected within the courtyard that houses a giant bar with a vast array of beers supported by a number of food vendors and the museums own onsite freehouse The Millowners Arms which for the festival had a tap takeover from Squawk.
Upstairs within the upper hall we have yet another massive bar with even more choice. This is supported by more food outlets and a live entertainment area which gets the venue buzzing as the days progress.
If this is not enough there is also a keg bar located within the Stone Room that was used for the first time and to access this required a pleasant walk through the engine room, home to the spectacular River Don Steam engine which is the most powerful in Europe and is fired up for festival goers to experience at various points of the day. It is an incredible sight to behold and a pretty spectacular place to enjoy your beer.
If this is not enough, attached to the bar in the upper hall is a very impressive range of ciders of all styles along with a bottle and can bar, which ensures that there is plenty of choice for all.
The Beers (and ciders)
On entering the venue I knew that we would have a massive choice on offer if any previous festivals are anything to go by but this year was pretty spectacular with 210 cask beers spread across the bars, up to 53 keg beers, 43 ciders and a massive selection of cans and bottles. If I were to have one minor criticism it would have to be that around a third of all beers came from breweries located within the Sheffield and surrounding areas so were pretty familiar and unless they were pretty unique, I bypassed many of these as I knew that I would see them in pubs in the city. This also allowed me to sample as many new ones as possible.
A real bonus of festivals is that beers are available in third measures which certainly helped to be able to maximise the numbers of beer that could be sampled in one visit. Thankfully I got to try quite a few of my own and a few tasters of friends beers. My favourite beers of the festival were as follows:
1: Beak/Third Moon – Paste (Keg). This was an incredible imperial stout weighing in at a hefty 11% abv. Absolutely jam packed with flavours of bourbon, chocolate, coconut and breakfast pancakes with maple syrup. A truly stunning beer!
2: Saint Mars of the Desert/Wild Beer – Crumbling Splendour (Keg). Dark sport beer fermented in oak foeder with sherry yeast. This 8.5% abv beer had flavours bouncing around the palate leaving me with a pleasant sourness in the mouth helped along with the well-balanced use of sherry.
3: Abbeydale/Ascension Cider – Funk Dungeon, Pull of Gravity (Keg) – A 5.6% abv this was a beer more tried out of curiosity as I was really unsure as to whether a beer/cider mix would work…..and it did! Probably not to everyone’s taste I found this to be very drinkable and the crisp tarte apple flavours worked really well.
Although my top 3 beers were all keg I should say that the cask range had some incredibly nice beers, many that were familiar and an awful lot of beers that were new to me. It was just a shame that I did not get to try as many as I would of liked. This just highlights that one visit to a festival of this size is simply not enough…..Bring on 2023!
The|Eternal|Hoptimitsts 