retiredmartin

September 2026. Sheffield.

The first few weeks after the publication of the annual Good Beer Guide are invariably a whirl of travel to the nearest towns to mop up the easy wins (ugh), the low hanging fruit (ugh, ugh) and get the closest counties pinked in.

But then you come up against limiting factors like remote social clubs open from 7pm and West Yorkshire doesn’t look quite so easy,

and you end up walking down to Sheffield’s University quarter, which is all of it really.

Oh look, there’s a beer festival on. AGAIN.

It’s Freshers Week, and those are the pubs closest to the two Universities, quite a few CAMRA favourites amongst them, incuding “proper” Irish pub the Dog & Partridge.

Sheffield Centre CAMRA Pub of the Year 2026, a good allrounder as famed for its biachlár as its beer.

A bit too early in the evening for actual Freshers, perhaps,

the D & P is nicely ticking over to the sounds of Iggy’s “Lust for Life“, which means someone has already taken residence in the famous central snug, my favourite Sheffield pub room.

A pint of the black stuff, but this is Cloudwater stout. An old chap at the bar is having tasters (ugh);

he ends up with half (a pint’s a taster !) and retires to the snug as well. So it’s fair game to follow him in.

It’s a GOOD pint, rich and tasty, ideally matched with the Dublin Spice Bag.

Somehow, I resist, as Mrs RM calls to tell me there’s beef stew or something and we need to use up the food before we head south to attend to parents again. Such a shame, as there’s no calorie count on that Spice Bag so it would have been virtually guilt free.