Sheffield's cask-ale oasis

If you can run a great pub in Kelham Island you can run one anywhere. The area was once one of the powerhouses of industrial Sheffield, but it has slipped into decay.

My directions to the Kelham Island Tavern summed up the problem. "Go past a closed fabric shop and we're at the back of a car park," owner Trevor Wraith said. All around are derelict buildings, sad reminders of Sheffield's proud past.

But suddenly you're confronted by a brightly-painted pub decked out with shrubs and flower pots.

It's cheery, welcoming, busy. And it's the Campaign for Real Ale's National Pub of the Year.

I had to wait some time to talk to Wraith as he was on kitchen duty that day. I enjoyed the wait, supping a couple of pints, including a darkly delicious porter from the Sheffield Brewing Co a few minutes' walk away.

The brewery operates from part of the former Blanco polish works and, in common with the pub, is bringing life back to the area.

The Kelham Island Tavern — KIT for short — has 11 handpumps and it concentrates in the main on beers from breweries within shouting distance. Wraith and his manager Lewis Gonda are enthusiastic supporters of Camra's LocAle scheme, which encourages licensees to stock beers from breweries not more than 20 or 30 miles away. It helps both small craft breweries and the environment by cutting down on "beer miles".

Regular beers in the KIT include Bradfield Farmer's Blonde from just outside Sheffield in the Peak District and Acorn Barnsley Bitter. Guest beers are drawn from, among others, Marston Moor near York and Marble in Manchester.

The main L-shaped front room, dominated by a massive oak bar, is decorated with the awards the pub has won from Camra. They include Sheffield Pub of the Year in 2004, 2005 and 2006, Yorkshire Pub of the Year four times and now the pinnacle of success, National Pub of the Year.

Trevor Wraith worked in engineering in Doncaster and enjoyed working behind the bars of local pubs in his free time. When he was made redundant he decided to turn his hobby into a full-time job. He ran the Rutland Arms in Sheffield, an Allied Breweries pub, and went on a Master Cellarman course to learn the skills required to look after cask beer.

The Rutland sold seven handpumped ales, but when it was taken over by Punch the pubco threw out all the guest beers. That didn't suit Wraith's belief in offering a good choice to drinkers so he moved out of the Rutland and bought the KIT.

He got it for a song, for pennies, he admits. It was in a terrible state. As a result of leaking water, the timbers in the pub were rotten and the entire roof had to be rebuilt. He has since spent £150,000 on refurbishing the pub inside and out, and he's added a new back room that looks out over a pleasant beer garden.

Heart of revival​

The revamped KIT opened in March 2002. Lewis Gonda, a redundant steel worker — there's a lot of them in Sheffield — had worked with Wraith at the Rutland and switched to the tavern. Wraith and Gonda wanted a "shiny pub" with a welcoming exterior. They also had to get rid of the old clientele, mainly scrap-metal dealers with a terrible reputation for fighting and drug-taking.

"We cleared them out — just froze them out," Wraith says. "I changed the beer range and drinkers started to come down from the Rutland. After one year we won Sheffield Camra Pub of the Year."

The pub has become a magnet for cask-ale drinkers. Regulars include groups from Peterborough and Wakefield, and now drinkers come from even further afield as a result of the KIT's national fame.

In 2007, the pub suffered horrendous flood damage when the whole of Kelham Island was several feet under. But the pub was soon up and running again, not only serving great pints, but also simple pie-and-peas type meals for lunchtime regulars who come from the offices that have replaced local industry.

But beer is the belt-and-braces of the pub. "We can do as many as 30 different beers at the weekend," Wraith says. "I do three 18-gallon casks of Barnsley Bitter a week and we also sell a lot of mild — it's a big dark beer pub."

The most astonishing fact about the KIT is that cask ale accounts for 90% of beer sales. The lagers are genuine Continental ones and there's a good range of imported bottled beers, including the Belgian beers high on every connoisseur's approved list.

The Kelham Island Tavern is at the heart of Sheffield's revival. There were once three large breweries in the city — Stones, Ward's and Whitbread. They are long gone, but they have been replaced by eight smaller craft breweries, which, along with specialist pubs such as the KIT and Dave Wickett's equally-celebrated Fat Cat, are putting the steel back into Steel City.