Sheffield Food Festival 2012 - its a beer thing...

Morning,

    its true that in fact, the Sheffield Food Festival 2012 (not the Sheffieled, as I typed yesterday whilst hungover!) is still on, throughout today and into Sunday, but I don't have time to wait for all that to happen! This is hot news so I'm going to throw it out there early....

So, this is my first year visiting the food festival. I never really heard about it before, perhaps because if its about the same time each year am usually on holiday or thinking about Sheffield beer festival, a far beery-er and potentially finer event, I'm sure you'll agree.

This year, I understand in contrast to previous years, the main draw is a Sheffield Breweries Co-operative Craft Beer Marquee, in a tent in the Peace Gardens. Now its important to get ones sniggering out of the way early on,  at the hilariously ironic concept of freely available alcohol in the Peace Gardens, which of course unlike the rest of the week, its not being drunk from green plastic bottles by outdoor lager enthusiasts. Oh no, this comes in, albeit plastic, glasses, and is served by the brewers themselves. What's not to love?

A brewers dozen. Minus 3.

The beer tent features , according to the website link here and as seen with my own eyes, beers from nine Sheffield breweries, and there are tutored beer tastings and information about the ingredients and processes used.

For reasons of pedantry its important to set straight a few anomalies here. For instance, Welbeck Abbey brewery, no matter how generous your interpretation, isn't in Sheffield. Its also worth noting that the Sheffield food fest website described the tent as a marque, not a marquee, and also that erstwhile Sheffield brewing giants On The Edge Brewery, Little Ale Cart and Steel City Brewing weren't represented. But lets not get tangled up in facts. As regular readers will know, I rarely let them encroach on my writing...

Last night there was Rich from Blue Bee, Dan from Abbeydale, Pete from the Brew Company, Mick (I didn't speak to this gentleman, so hopefully someone identified him correctly) from Kelham Island, and Alison from the new Wood Street Brewery. All but Rich were behind the bar, on which there were a selection of ingredients, some instantly familiar and some less so, for smelling, and I assume tasting, although I wasn't tempted to try.

Dave can sense crystal malt and fuggles nearby...

The crystal malt interested me straight away (indeed, I did spot Dave U, above, from Steel City Brewing, and I reckon it was the presence of crystal malt on the bar that forbid his and Steel City Brewing's involvement) and I quickly identified that smell. Sorry, that's not very professional. I mean, aroma. For ease of recognition, Pete had brewed a beer (with a red label, I didn't have the heart to tell him I couldn't read the bugger) which I tried, and it did, indeed, taste of the caramelly, slightly sweet crystal I had in front of me. He explained to me about the different colour of malts, and how the roasting process caramelises the malt, lending, I think, that distinct flavour.

The sample of fuggles hops was less obvious. Not as much aroma by a long way, as with the maris otter, which reminded me very faintly of biscuits, and without an obvious single varietal example on offer, it was very difficult to translate the aroma into a beer flavour. On the other hand, just one whiff of the dried citra hops told me straight away that I was back drinking the matchless Brodies Citra. A powerful pungent aroma which just said refreshment.

Speaking of which, whilst at the bar of course, it would have been rude not to have had some beer. I started with a half of the Yellow Wood IPA from Wood Street, which was OK, but lacked the hoppiness I and it, craved, as well as two excellent pints of the Blue bee Glitterati. It was nice to taste it again in the sobering environment of the festival - I describe it thus because somebody turned up in a short sleeved shirt. It was chuffing perishing.

I finished on a half of Back to Black from Kelham Island. It was just about the only dark beer on (I understand suppliers were encouraged to only supply pale beer, which is presumably down to Sheffielders love of pale beers, but not exactly complimentary about the scope of our collective palates) and went down a treat. Alas, it did nothing to warm me up.....

Unfortunately, planning has not been my forte of late so I hadn't considered that in fact the bar may close quite early. That being 20.00. And this, after having arrived at 17.00 to find most of the food stalls winding down for the day (although I did get an excellent sausage butty from the Whirlow Hall Farm BBQ, and not a bad price at £2.50, which couldn't be said of the absurd costs in some of the more exotic stalls) proved to be my undoing. I did manage 2 hours schmoozing with brewing nobility, but I really will have to pop back again today en route to the Abbeydale Rugby Club beer festival. There are still a lot of stalls and products that I fancy trying.

So, that's all the gen I have on the Sheffield Food festival 2012 for now, more precisely the all important beer tent! Many thanks to the brewers I met for their advice and company, and beers. (and apologies to any foodies reading this, I concede I didn't really go into the whole "food" aspect of the festival very much...or at all)

In conclusion, with the weather promising to warm up today I think the peace gardens will be an enjoyable venue for a pint this afternoon, maybe to accompany some fresh hot food. I'd warmly recommend a visit. And don't forget the Abbeydale RUFC beer festival...

Cheers!

Wee Beefy

The end is nigh

Hello,

   this is more a note than a blog post (you may be relieved to discover) which serves only to tell you that I have done something that I am not proud of. Lots of bloggers have done it, it seems, most of them appear to have escaped unscathed. I just hope I will not be the first to suffer.

I joined Twitter. As Wee Beefy, as it happens.

No doubt this will be tremendous fun (especially the character limit) and, having no mobile internet access, it will be great for finding out about stuff many hours after its happened, finished being discussed, been posted, tweeted, re-tweeted, or indeed anything affording it any semblance of use or need. So much like now really, when I rarely get on the Internet until 22.00....

Here's to finding stuff out.

Wee Beefy

More beer gen revalations

Now then,

    You may have guessed that I haven't been out much lately - this would be down to my having caught the lurg, and housemaids knee, all at the same time. I was supposed to be going for a walk out near Midhopestones today (in the morning, not now!) but have cancelled as I continue aching, shaking, coughing and refusing food. Thank God the con-dem alliance gave me something to cover....

Mind you, I have now arisen from my bedly catacomb

And, I have been cheered up by a positive response to my Sheffield blogger post. Thanks to those commenting I now have another Sheffield blog to follow in the form of studentdrinker and this has spurred me on, too late some would argue, to find out about other Sheffield blogs or websites about pubs.

I discovered a pub food review site called whatsonupnorth which despite making me shiver on reading that the reviewer had ordered a lime and soda at the Broadfield and used a picture from before it reopened, is still an interesting read (it does also include authors observations on the pubs themselves depending on who contributes). I also found a very short lived but now seemingly abandoned one called aleblog.co.uk which had a few posts around February and March 2011, and one about the Blake that was, erm, password protected? I also know you can find stuff out on Sheffield forum, and Steel City Kitchen here also features reviews of pub food if that's your bag.

One that I think is particularly interesting and well worth a look is Sheffield Pub Guide here. Its good, firstly,  because it gives details of the establishments owners. Who knew that the Red Deer, which has demonstrated a refreshing amount of independence in terms of decor, beer range and music, in the last 18 months, is owned by Punch Taverns?

Also, in addition to a brief description (optional), there are a criteria of questions set out, with answers provided by the relevant licensees/owners/landlords/tenants/managers (etc). Now, as with all that is Internet, you can't bet your life on it, but its an interesting steer towards the type of pub you are going to find if you plan on visiting one for the first time (and of course, haven't found a review on here first) . And they are updated, as the home page demonstrates.

Obviously my approach, as a blogger, is to provide opinion - I do like facts, and detailed information, but its mainly subjective (and I quite often rely on remembered statements which may be very much open to interpretation). With the exception of one or two of the questions answered, the responses to the questions on the Sheffieldpub site are simply yes, no, or at what time.

I think its worth a look, especially if you were going somewhere for the first time with one of those strange folks for whom beer range, cost, styles usually sold, and from which brewery, isn't important. More especially if you wish to fanny about "eating" whilst you are out.

All we need now are a few more actual blogs in Sheff and the picture will be nearer complete.

Wee Beefy

Why so shy Steel City?

Good evening (night sounds like a bad start...)

    I am going to begin with a caveat. Not unusual in my posts, but not usually at the beginning. I worry perhaps too much that I will tripped up, discombobulated, fooled, misinformed, or worse still wrong. And I genuinely don't like people to get the wrong idea about what I am saying. Hence, perhaps, the lenght f my posts.  Anyway, to my excuse in waiting....

I follow 2 Sheffield blogs via this site, Barl Fire and Mike Grice.com. Both are very good, well written blogs packed full of information, which is something I am keen on. The content of both is, as far as I can see, exclusively bottled beer. I also tried to follow on Word Press "Get to the pub dot com" which alas is now updated only very occasionally. Interestingly, this blog, shared its focus, unequally, between pub visits and music (more the pubs). This is also a very well written blog by someone with a great turn of phrase and endearing writing style of which I am quite envious.

OK, so against the above backdrop, that makes me

the only Sheffield blogger posting about Sheffield pubs
(and real ales and bottled beers).

That sounds good, but, barring any sudden comments posted by hurt, overlooked Sheffield pub bloggers it is truly a puzzling state of affairs.

Recently, in fact for many years now, Sheffield has been tussling with the likes of Derby and Norwich to be crowned beer capital of Britain, and achieved it numerous times. It may have few late night real ale venues, and not many pubs have adopted the trend for selling a range of key-keg beers from the UK and beyond, but its still a stonking good place to drink in.

I myself have taken people on a few pub crawls of Sheffield already this year (and rashly promised a couple more) and that doesn't cover half of the best that's on offer. So why does no-one in Sheffield seem to love their pubs enough to write about them?

Over the Pennines, I know of and follow some of 7 real ale blogs in Manchester and Merseyside, many of which, for what it matters, appear to be highly ranked on various blog rating sites. West Yorkshire likewise seems positively awash with beery or rather pub paeans and similar bibulous writings. Since this in no way aims or serves to suggest one region is better than the other in terms of quality of pubs, it makes you wonder why those North and West of here are so much more vocal?

If you are a Sheffield blogger and wish to contest my claim of being the only Sheffield blogger posting about Sheffield pubs I would genuinely like to hear from you. I think that Steel City solidarity is good news, since one of the features of blogging that I am currently enjoying is the shared following of blogs, which brings their content to a wider audience.

Surely there's more of us out there?

Wee Beefy

N.B - Steve, am afraid you don't count mate, sorry - Sheffield bloggers have to be at the very least Sheffield based! Nae mind.