Best pubs Sheffield: 'Truly magnificent' Sheffield boozer hailed by YouTube star who's visited 5,000 pubs

The Great British Pub Crawl’s Dale Harvey embarked on his latest epic tour of Sheffield’s watering holes last Friday, February 28, and was once again impressed by the city’s many fine drinking establishments.

One in particular stood out, and it’s a relatively new addition to Sheffield’s food and drink scene, having only opened in 2023.

The Old Shoe, in Orchard Square shopping centre, off Fargate, was the last of 14 pubs Dale visited on Friday evening and he said ‘saving the best till last’ would be a ‘pretty fitting’ description.

He called the beer line up ‘off the scale’, praised the ‘fantastic tap array’ and said there were enough different beers in the fridges ‘to keep Belgium drunk for a week’.

Dale concluded: “A truly magnificent little place that I will DEFINITELY be back to!”

The Old Shoe, which specialises in cider and natural wines as well as beer, has an average rating of 4.8/5 from nearly 200 Google reviews, with one fan calling it the ‘best spot in Sheffield city centre’.

In 2022, Dale and his wife Holly set themselves the task of visiting every pub, micropub and bar in the UK, and they have made good progress since, passing the 5,000 mark.

The couple from Nottingham had already made a couple of previous trips to Sheffield, including a pub crawl along Abbeydale Road, where Dale stopped at 23 pubs and bars in one day.

As well as The Old Shoe, Dale’s latest visit included a stop at another relatively new opening, the Beaten Track, in what was the Wig & Pen on Campo Lane, where he praised the ‘decent keg range’ and ‘excellent looking pizza menu’.

The Church House, a popular live music venue, on St James’ Street, near Sheffield Cathedral, he called ‘highly impressive’, and the Dog & Partridge, on Trippet Lane, he said, was a ‘phenomenal looking pub inside and out’, which ‘packs a punch with its beer offering’ too.

‘A banger of a pub’

Dale described The Grapes, another Irish pub few doors along from the Dog & Partridge, as a ‘stunner’, and called Fagan’s, on Broad Lane, ‘another great little boozer’.

Perch, a relatively new brewhouse, kitchen and bottle shop on Garden Street, is ‘definitely worth seeking out’, he said, while the University Arms, on Brook Hill, is, in his words, ‘a banger of a pub’.

Dale called The Bath Hotel, a traditional pub on the corner of Victoria Street and Convent Street, a ‘10/10 all round’, and he said The Beehive, on West Street, was a ‘friendly’ venue with some ‘brilliant cheap deals’.

The Cavendish next door, he said, has a ‘decent tap and cider line up’, and The Wick At Both Ends, he called a ‘brilliant cocktail bar’, describing the famous flaming Lemon Drizzle shot as one of the best he’s ever had.

Dale loved The Red Deer, tucked away on Pitt Street, which he called a ‘proper real ale pub’, and he also enjoyed the Hallamshire Hotel, on West Street, which he described as a ‘mecca dedicated to the 1970s’.

Katie O’Brien’s, on Mappin Street, he said had been ‘very nicely decked out’ but said it you want an authentic Irish pub ‘this probably isn't the place you'd look for it in Sheffield’.

He was also left cold by All Bar One, saying that although the one he visited ‘seemed like a decent example of the chain’ they ‘just aren’t really my cup of tea or vibe’.

You can follow Dale and Holly’s attempt to visit every pub in Britain on YouTube and Facebook.