The Beer Festival celebrates its 43rd birthday at Kelham Island

Milly Gibson
Nov 15, 2017
1 min read

The festival is celebrating its 43rd birthday this year. After finding its roots in university halls with a small gathering of students, it has grown so popular in Sheffield that they had to relocate, so they decided to host the event at Kelham Island.

Andrew Cullen, staffing officer of the beer festival said that the idea behind it was to bring beers to people that you couldn't get in Sheffield.

"We make a big party of it, with live music, games, food and more. It's all run by volunteers who want to share their passion for beer and cider."

They opened their doors for 5 days in October and featured over 200 real ales, craft beers and ciders including The Kernel and a Tiramisu beer.

Their venue at Kelham Island, is mostly known for it's traditional pubs so seems to be the perfect place to host the festival.

Sheffield is known for being the real ale capital of the world and according to the BBC it has almost five times more breweries than greater London. The history of Sheffield's breweries goes all the way back to 1758 so it is no wonder they want to celebrate here.

"It's an incredibly atmospheric venue. As well as Sheffield being well known for it's good beers, it's also known for it's steel industry. So it fits nicely into a celebration of Sheffield."

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