Sheffield "not the usual suspects" bus crawl

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I'm planning a trial run of a new pub crawl in Sheffield. Please see the attached document for details. I'll be starting at the Carlton at about 12 noon, next Tuesday - 3rd April. Approximate itinerary is as follows:

12:00 Carlton
13:00 White Lion
13:30 Sheaf View
14:30 The Ale House
15:30 Broadfield
16:30 Fox & Duck and/or York
17:30 Rising Sun
19:00 Blake
20:30 Shakespeares

If anyone is free and can make it to Sheffield, it'd be great to see you. If you want to join in but can't make it for the start, please send me a PM and I'll let you know my mobile number. It'll be quite easy to catch up as the bus routes will take us across the city centre a few times.

Once I've done the crawl and ironed out any wrinkles, I'll post it on Pubs Galore.

Cheers

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheffield hatter

the bus routes will take us across the city centre a few times.

Does this not suggest the route needs a little tweaking? :whistle:

We did the Rising Sun & nearby Ranmoor last time up there, and the former was particularly good.
Have a great tour, & I look foward to reports on the rest...

My infrequent trips to Sheffield wont include April 3rd sad to say,but hope the bus crawl goes well.Your mission to highlight other crawl routes besides the well trodden Valley of Beer route is very worth while,I have really enjoyed the pubs of Broomhill and the Fulwood Road while collecting /delivering my son to the University, so will keep an eye out for the final version.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trainman

Does this not suggest the route needs a little tweaking? :whistle:

Yes, in an ideal world there would be buses linking all the good real ale pubs in a logical circuit, but in reality most buses go into and out of the city centre, or meander slowly through estates and villages with little apparent desire to get anywhere at all. :(

A more dedicated drinker, or one with perhaps less respect for his liver, would pop into a city centre pub every time we pass through.:sick: I leave that sort of "tweak" to others.

Yesterday in Sheffield we had rain, sleet and snow, but fortunately for me the trial run of my bus crawl was the day before. I'd arranged to meet my crawling companion, Jeff, at the Arundel Gate bus stop in time to get to the first pub for 12 noon. I arrived just as the bus pulled up, so we hurriedly got on and bought our CityWide all day bus tickets, and the bus then proceeded to go nowhere for about six or seven minutes. Something to do with a timetable...

When we got to Attercliffe it was 11:58. We crossed the road to the Carlton, and found it had been open since 11! This is a really nice pub, with wood panelling on walls and ceiling, a friendly and knowledgeable landlady and an interesting selection of well kept beers. There are six hand pumps, though only three beers were on, it being Tuesday. Two more were in the process of being pulled through; these included a house beer (Carlton Ale, brewed by Phoenix) which appears about once a month. We had Black Iris Bitter 4.3% which was an unusual best bitter with a hard to pin down flavour. The others were Cottage Riley Kestrel 4.3% and Great Newsome Sleck Dust 3.7%.

On leaving the Carlton we just missed a bus back into the city, but as Jeff pointed out, there was bound to be another one along in a minute, and indeed there was. We changed buses (52 to 25A) in Waingate, just outside the market, and arrived outside the White Lion at 13:00, a fairly rapid journey of 25 minutes across the city. Unfortunately this pub is not open at lunch times during the week, so we went straight to the Sheaf View. This is an excellent pub, a slightly unusual shape with a long thin room, almost a passageway, leading to the large bar area with its eight hand pumps and vast selection of continental lagers and malt whiskies. Beers available were Pictish Brewers Gold 3.8%, Derventio Boars Head 5.5%, Atomic Planet 4.1%, Salamander Golden 4.5%, Vale Spring Promise 3.9%, Bradfield Farmers Blonde, Kelham Island Bete Noire and Easy Rider. We had the Vale, which was a very drinkable well balanced bitter, right up my street, and a contender for beer of the day. The owner of the Sheaf View, James Birkett, was in attendance - he also owns the Blake Hotel, which is the penultimate stop on this bus crawl - so we alerted him to the possibility that we might be seeing him again later.

Next we walked the short distance to Abbeydale Road and caught an 87 to Millhouses. Unfortunately the bus stop I had thought we would alight at turned out to be for school buses only, so we had an extra quarter mile walk back to Archer Road and then up the slight incline to The Ale House, which is another pub that apparently does not open at lunch time in the week. Jeff was making some disparaging remarks about the organisation of the pub crawl at this point, and it started to rain, but I pointed out that this was intended as a trial run and, as the rain held off, the mutiny subsided. We walked back to Abbeydale Road and caught the 87 (same driver as before) to the Broadfield. It had taken us 45 minutes from leaving the Sheaf View, so we were in need of a pint. The Broadfield has 10 hand pumps, with eight ales and two ciders. The beers were mostly local, the likes of Wentworth Black Zac 4.6%, Acorn Old Moor Porter 4.4% and Kelham Island Pride of Sheffield 4.0%. We decided to try the Coastal Faeries Old Ale 4.4% (from Cornwall), which unfortunately was probably not quite ready - the barman had trouble pouring it because it was so lively, and the taste was not quite right either.

To make up for the two pubs missed so far, we decided to go slightly off piste and walked round the corner to the Byron House, about five minutes or so. There are six hand pumps on here, always with the same beers: Tetleys, London Pride, Black Sheep, Abbot and two from Bradfield. The Blonde had just gone off, so we had the other Bradfield: Brown Cow. (These two beers are fairly close approximations to the old Sheffield rivals, Stones and Wards).

Next we took another short walk to The Lounge (Montgomery Hotel). When I was here last week there were two real ales on, but this time we had struck unlucky, with Sheffield Five Rivers just gone off and Kelham Island Easy Rider due to come on next, which left Sheffield Crucible Best 3.8% as the only available ale. No choice, but a good ale nevertheless.

We went out to the bus stop across the road where the 22 runs every 10 minutes into the city centre. We'd just missed one, so had an eight minute wait. Our next destination was Broomhill, but we mistakenly got on a 120 that only went as far as Hallamshire Hospital (look out for the destination sign on the front: it should say Fulwood), and had to walk the last bit up hill to the Fox and Duck. It took about half an hour from the Montgomery to here. My notes by now were becoming a little sketchy, but there were eight hand pumps on here, two of them with ciders. My photos tell me that there were two from Milestone, two Cottage, plus Abbeydale Moonshine and Black Hole Brewery's Cosmic. I had the Cottage Bristol Bulldog 4.3% and Jeff had their Between The Posts 4.6%. This is a pub owned by the student union and staffed by students, but the clientèle seemed to be mostly middle aged locals.

Just a few yards along the road is the York, which is in the same ownership as the Broadfield, though I find it a less congenial pub as it has a strong emphasis on food, with tables set up for diners reducing the available space for drinkers. There are nine hand pumps here, all available and serving two ciders and seven ales. I had the Double Maxim 4.7% and Jeff went for the Brew Company's Anvil Porter 3.9%. Others were True North First Born 4.3%, Brew Company's Cedar Lake Amber 4.6%, Abbeydale Deception, Milestone Shine On and Bradfield Farmers Blonde.

At 17:40 we caught a 120 bus to Nether Green, arriving at the Rising Sun 10 minutes later. Here we met three friends who had finished work for the day and joined us for the last few pubs. There are an impressive 11 hand pumps here, with Pot Belly Crazy Daze 5.5%, Foxfield Dark Mild 3.3% and Brown Cow Captain Oates 4.5% amongst the ales on offer. My photos are a little blurry at this point - light fading, I expect - but there were also a couple from Oxfordshire Ales, one from Raw and five from Abbeydale. We had been meaning to get something to eat about this time, but there is no food here on Tuesdays, so we just carried on drinking. The mild was very good, and I was tempted by the Crazy Daze but resisted. My beer of the day was the Captain Oates, a dark and complex beer. (I may have made a witty remark about "just popping out for a pint", which my friends were polite enough to laugh at.)

We left here at 18:30 and went off piste again, calling at the Bulls Head and the Ranmoor, a quick bus ride or even a reasonable walk down the road. At the former I made my first drinking error of the day, going for the Acorn Yorkshire Pride 3.7%, which is a modern pale ale tasting of perfume and lychees, not my cup of tea at all. The others on offer were Sharps Doom Bar 4.0%, Timothy Taylor Golden Best 3.5% and Wharfe Bank Tether Blond 4.1%, which Jeff enjoyed. We then popped into the Ranmoor, where there are five hand pumps, serving Timothy Taylor Landlord 4.3%, two from Bradfield, one from Abbeydale and Woodforde's Wherry 3.7%, of which I had a half just to refresh my palate after the lychees. We caught what turned out to be our last bus of the day from outside the Ranmoor, a 120 to the university. We walked through Weston Park, arriving at the bus stop at 19.50, having just missed the 95 up the hill to the Blake Hotel. As it was getting cold and dark, and we had arranged to meet some friends in the Shakespeare at 20:30, we decided to give the Blake a miss on this occasion.

The bus stop is just opposite the Star & Garter, recently reopened after refurbishment and now sporting four hand pumps, so we popped in just to get warm. The London Pride was not on, which left Bombardier, Easy Rider and "Star & Garter Ale", which is rebadged Tetleys Bitter 3.7%. This was very pleasant and at only £2.15 a pint surprisingly cheap.

From here we walked down the hill to reach the Shakespeare (or Shakespeares, as the signage would have it) at exactly 20:30 - bang on schedule. Here there's an overwhelming array of 13 hand pumps, but by this time I was beyond not only note taking but also photography, so all I can say is that I had a modest half of Revolutions Devolution 4.5%. Then all good intentions went out of the window and I had another pint of the same to finish off.

As previously mentioned, this was meant to be a trial run, and clearly there were a couple of hiccoughs along the way, but this has the makings of a pretty good pub crawl and we had a very enjoyable day doing it.

Cheers

an enjoyable read

Well done Will,that looked like a very good days drinking.

An enjoyable read, Will. Would loved to have joined you, particularly as you were going to the Sheaf View, but not to be this time. Agree with you about the Captain Oates - fabulous stuff and a previous BOTW.

For those who want to do this crawl for themselves, I've now created a slightly revised version here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheffield hatter

I'm planning a trial run of a new pub crawl in Sheffield. Please see the attached document for details. I'll be starting at the Carlton at about 12 noon, next Tuesday - It is important to open on tuesday cause it's the day 2012 teen pubs are open. 3rd April. Approximate itinerary is as follows:

12:00 Carlton
13:00 White Lion
13:30 Sheaf View
14:30 The Ale House
15:30 Broadfield
16:30 Fox & Duck and/or York
17:30 Rising Sun
19:00 Blake
20:30 Shakespeares

If anyone is free and can make it to Sheffield, it'd be great to see you. If you want to join in but can't make it for the start, please send me a PM and I'll let you know my mobile number. It'll be quite easy to catch up as the bus routes will take us across the city centre a few times.

Once I've done the crawl and ironed out any wrinkles, I'll post it on Pubs Galore.

Cheers

Ha ha broadfield, my favourite ! Wish I could be here.