Last weekend saw the Rotherham Real Ale Festival, now in its second year at Magna after relocating from Oakwood school (think it was Oakwood anyway). I was very impressed with the festival last year and once again it didn't disappoint. I went on the Friday evening and it's fair to say it was well attended.
After finishing work, I met Peter, one of my drinking partners for the evening (and fellow 366 attempter) in the Old Queen's Head, which is next to Sheffield bus station. From the outside this looks like some olde worlde gem.
Unfortunately a fairly brutal refurbishment some years ago has left the inside looking like a cross between a bad working men's club and a Brewers Fayre effort that houses greedy fuckers scoffing carveries until they burst - grim. It's owned by Thwaites as well which is nowhere near the top of my list of favourite breweries. Time to move on, sharpish.
Thankfully our next destination was a marked improvement - The Carlton in Attercliffe.
This was a bit of a grail of mine - I'd been past it countless times and always thought it looked a very inviting place for a pint but when I had attempted to go in previously it had been shut.
A cosy main bar patronised by a few locals, it reminded me a bit of the pub in Early Doors - somewhere you could just pop in for a pint and a blather. I'm sure some of the greatest ideas and plans for world domination have been discussed at the bar over the years only to evaporate in a hungover fug the next morning. I could have quite happily stayed in here for a few but there was a beer festival to attend.
On to Magna then, an old steelworks turned science park on the edge of Sheffield / Rotherham. The theme for this year was Baa's of Steel, where 236 beers were being showcased from all the steel-making regions in the UK. First up was the North East & Yorkshire hall.
I had one of Scarborough Brewery's Pioneer Pale, a steady start with a fairly bog-standard pale ale. After a stop off in the West Midlands bar it was onto the main hall, which was mainly South Yorkshire.
Whilst this was the biggest part of the festival, it didn't hold that much interest for me as all the breweries on show were local and therefore readily available in Sheffield. I did stumble across the Timothy Taylor stall and got myself a lovely Golden Best. Could do with one of these in my house.
I moved on next to the West Yorkshire hall - I'll grudgingly concede that I had my favourite ale of the festival in here, Ridgeside - Desert Aire. Coming in at a healthy 4.8%, this slipped down very nicely indeed, plenty of citrus hits in there, could have quite happily spent the rest of my tokens on it. Other areas of note were the Scotland bar where I tried nice ales from River Leven brewery and the North East bar, where I enjoyed one from Mordue called Northumbrian Blonde. This was very similar to Abbeydale's Deception with a big smack of grapefruit in it, lovely stuff.
All in all another great effort by the organisers, plenty of choice and the layout, with different areas for different regions, was a real winner. Up next, a day out in London this weekend - I'll do something next week with a round up of the day's supping, current count is 77.
