Love Your City: 'I love Sheffield because of climbing and beer'

Proximity to the Peak’s innumerable crags makes it the best place in the country, if scaling them is your thing. That evolved into running in the countryside, fell races and mountain biking. 

And now I’m doing it all again, albeit slower and with different eyes, as a dad.

“Where else can you have all that and live in a big city?” we still say. 

In the last couple of decades Sheffield has also emerged as a capital for another thing I love and that’s good beer, or craft beer to give it its proper name.

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We have dozens of breweries making amazing ales and, although expensive at times, tasting them has been an exciting journey of discovery. Real ale is now so commonplace in Sheffield that even my local convenience store has scores from three or four local brewers including Abbeydale, Triple Point and Thornbridge.

Happily, beer is also set to play a part in regenerating Sheffield city centre. The Fargate is opening in the old Yorkshire Bank, on Fargate, and Two Thirds is spending £500,000 on a new venue on Wellington Street in the Heart of the City scheme. 

Visiting other parts of the country, or even some local chain pubs, drives home how lucky we are and is guaranteed to set me chuntering. It’s also made me appreciate a decent real ale pub and the time and love put in by people like CAMRA.

So now I’m a real ale snob who reminisces about glory days on rock. And for that, Sheffield, I love you.