Sheffield Beer Survey Results

So with all the (misinformed) excitement about Sheffield’s 2012 GBG entries, the results of this fair city’s beer survey are out. Hopefully you have a copy of the September issue of Beer Matters to see the full results, but I will pick out the important bits here.

Yes, Sheffield is still the real ale capital of England! 309 different beers available and that is with a couple of areas of the city not being surveyed. Derby claims to be the capital on number of beers per head of population but as Sheffield CAMRA rightly point out; a village pub with a good range could therefore be the winner. And besides as Nottingham, Norwich and York have also done surveys recently it transpires that Derby don’t even win by their own criteria! Ours is a much more sensible measure. It shouldn’t matter how large the settlement is; it should be about how many different beers are available.

Now of course until everywhere in England is surveyed we’re never truly going to know which town or city has the largest range of real ale. And it would be good if National CAMRA could set the winning criteria instead of branches squabbling over how it should be measured. However, I reckon they’ve got more pressing campaigns to pursue such as halting the beer duty escalator.

Moonshine is still Sheffield’s most common beer (fitting as Abbeydale is Sheffield's biggest brewery) and it is good to see Bradfield’s Farmers Blonde in second place. Not at all surprising since it has been gaining momentum since winning beer of Sheffield Beer Festival last September. Easy Rider is joint third with Tetley’s but I would expect Tetley’s to be slowly falling out of favour as it is no longer brewed in Yorkshire. It’s not like Wards has made a significant comeback since Maxim took the brewing rights, and to be honest it’s better bottled in my opinion. Even the Sheaf Island doesn’t always have it on and it was supposed to be a regular for them. And you don’t see cask Stones anywhere either which is a shame because it is a fine beer when looked after. Everards have the brewing rights to the cask version and Coors have the Keg version, which is still common in the working men type pubs and clubs of the city. You can even get an Extra Cold version in The Sheaf House, Lord help us!