Jolly Farmer

Had a really excellent meal here last night. My compliments to the chef.

The Jolly Farmer at Dronfield Woodhouse has been voted the winner of the pub of the month award for January by local members of the Campaign for Real Ale. The pub of the month awards are designed to highlight pubs in Sheffield and the surrounding area that offer good quality real ale in a comfortable and friendly atmosphere. The certificate will be presented to the manager and his staff at the pub on the evening of Friday 12th January.

The Jolly Farmer is an interesting pub. It's branded as an alehouse, and is built and fitted out with a mixture of brick and wood, like a building you might find on a farm, or even in a Western movie, yet it fits in to its landscape well, which means you have a pub with character.

Inside there are several distinct areas, with a tap room containing a pool table, and a lounge with various separate areas, including a raised non-smoking section, which is used as a dining area during meal times. On the bar there is quite a choice of real ales. Black Sheep, Deuchars IPA, Tetley Bitter and John Smith's Magnet are available all the time, plus there are two guest beers that change on a regular basis, these are normally an interesting beer from a microbrewery, sourced via SIBA's direct delivery scheme.

The pub hosts special events from time to time. In the summer, inspired by the big music festivals, they held a weekend of entertainment at the pub where tickets included all the performances and food. More recently was their annual beer festival, which was held in early November, where a temporary festival bar was built in the non-smoking room in addition to the pub's own bar, which increased the range of real ales available up to 14, with the festival beers being from small breweries in our region such as Wentworth, Abbeydale, Acorn, Hanby and Thornbridge.

If you want to get to the pub by bus, Stagecoach bus 43 and TM Travel buses 89 and 293 stop on Pentland Road, almost by the front door!

We will be presenting the pub of the month certificate to Karl and his staff on the evening of Friday 12th January, from 8:30PM, please come along and join the celebrations! To make it easier, we are running a mini-coach there from Sheffield city centre, departing from outside the Old Queen's Head at 6:45PM, calling at Woodseats, Meadowhead and the Coach & Horses (Dronfield) along the way. Book seats via Richard Ryan on 07956 114926.

More information: Dave Williams, Sheffield CAMRA chairman: 07851 998745; Andrew Cullen, Beer Matters editor and press officer: 07863 341497; The Jolly Farmer: 01246 418018

We have added the Jolly Farmer pub in Dronfield to our database of pubs.