So an alternate plan was hatched a few months ago when I suggested to some of the boozier London Millers that we should have a day out drinking in Sheffield. The Millers would be playing in Crewe but they were happy to miss that and have a whole day boozing instead.
Why Sheffield? Well it has probably the best concentration of good pubs in the whole of the country and is a mecca for tickers and ‘normal’ drinkers alike.In fact it is known as the Holy City to many devotees. Most of the pubs we were going to be visiting were covered in the recent documentary file, Tickers.
(left) Chris and John on the tram - no beer drunk at this stage hence glum faces
Trev, Brian and I tried a few of these pubs a couple of seasons ago before Darlo played the Millers at the Don Valley stadium and were impressed so it was time that I had another visit, especially since the chance of an FA Cup replay at the DVS had been denied us earlier in the week (when York knocked Rotherham out).
Unfortunately two of the London Millers had to pull out leaving just Chris Turner and me. However it was a case of DAFTS to the rescue when John W was given the nod by Bev to join us – likewise Tony by Lesley – and then local boy Brian made it a quintet.
Chris, John and I met in the Station Sandwich Bar near King’s Cross – a new cafe for us which was recommended by Tony – and very good it was too. I’ll be back for more.
We took the East Coast line to Doncaster and changed for the local service to Sheffield, complete with masses of shoppers on their way to Meadowhall. On the way we also passed Millmoor, former home of Rotherham, and I was duty bound to flick Vs at former chairman Booth’s scrap yard in solidarity with the Millers.
From Sheffield station it was a short tram ride to the first pub, the Hillsborough Hotel. Tony had arrived earlier and gone breakfasting with Brian but this place did not open until noon so they’d gone on elsewhere.
The Hillsborough is a nice, clean pub with a great selection of beers, mainly from its own Crown Brewery, so we gave most of them a try.All were very good especially the Hillsborough Pale Ale and the Benny Goodman. They also had Cascade IPA from the fairly new Hardknott brewery which was excellent and in brilliant condition, almost sparkling.
As it name suggests this place is a hotel and it strikes me as a great place to stay. Andy, who was supposed to be with us, stayed there recently and highly recommends it (especially the chips - so sophisticated is our Andy!).
From here we moved on to the Gardeners Rest which was a ten minute walk away via the glamorous Neepsend Road where Brian and Tony were waiting for us.
A lot of the house beers on offer were from the Sheffield Brewery such as Crucible Best, Five Rise, Sheffield Porter and an IPA. We tried a few of these but I have to say that I wasn’t overly impressed with any of them, seeming to have a home-brew type taste.
Good snacks available though – bombay mix for most of us whilst Tony reverted to his childhood days and had a Tunnocks snowball instead. The pub seems to be quite the community pub with one wall taken up with entries to their annual photographic competition.
Unfortunately Brian had been hogging the conversation whilst we were here – nothing new so far - so much so that he still had a pint when the rest of us were ready to move on. With all the respect due to the elderly we left him behind and headed to the Harlequin walking past the Riverside which is supposed to be a good pub but we had to move on.
The Harlequin is a real tickers pub though it seemed fairly quiet when we got there – we only stayed for a pint (or a couple of halves) before moving on to the Wellington (Bottom Wellie in local parlance) as this is nice and close to the Shalesmoor tram stop.
Tony had been getting tweets from Craig Stoddart for the past hour or more so we were well aware of the Darlo line-up at Wrexham – this saw Main replacing Jefferson Louis and Senior dropped to the bench with starts for new boys Gillespie and Varna.It didn’t fill me with confidence and we were soon behind. However spirits were raised in the second half when we heard that Hatch had equalised.
Brian had beaten us to the Wellie having bypassed the Harlequin – I was pleased to see they had a Steel City Brewing beer on as I certainly like the attitude of the two brewers behind it – they like hops and like to use them in their beers and whilst they give a nod to the US hoppy beers, they’re less extreme which makes them more drinkable. Their beer today was the Červený Bez which was a variant of one I had at the Nottingham beer festival a few weeks ago.
It was whilst drinking this that the news came through that Darlo were up to their old tricks and had conceded a goal in added time and had lost the game. Doubly glad I didn’t go now.
We then caught the tram down to the station so we could try out the Sheffield Tap. This is a the big brother of the recently opened Euston Tap and which is situated next to the station. Just had a couple of halves here – both in excellent condition. I also bumped into one of my Macclesfield CAMRA chums, Rob, who was making a passing visit to the Tap himself.
But it was soon time to get the train back to Donny – standing room all the way as it was packed with returning shoppers – and then get the train to KX.I slept most of the way and was nice and refreshed (well nearly) by the time we got back to London. However neither John or Chris fancied a trip to the Euston Tap, probably a wise decision, and I traipsed off home via the curry house.
A great day out with a lot of excellent pubs and beers - there were plenty more pubs in Sheffield that we could have tried but just didn't have the time. You really need a weekend to do them all justice so maybe that is a plan to develop for next year...
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