The Brothers Arms, Heeley, Sheffield

The first signage I saw climbing up the hill was for Ye Olde Shakespeare Inn, and you don't see its current name until you get quite close (certainly at night-time). Once inside, you find a fairly compact bar, with a small seating area to the left of the entrance, a room to the right being used for live music and another room at the back as the main seating area. Plenty of different real ales available from at least seven handpumps on two sides of the compact gantried servery from the likes of Bradfield, Blue Bee and Bad Seed, together with a cider. The place had a good community feel, and the singing continued even after the bar had stopped serving.

After a long uphill slog through the back streets of Heeley, I was pleased to see this pub emerge over the horizon with its promise of liquid refreshment. The pub has a nice community feel to it, with the locals all on first name terms with the staff and each other and a sense that it is an important part of this neighbourhood. You enter into a nice checkered tile floored area centred around a small servery with a basic wood plank counter and a rather busy, decorative bar back with a striking gantry. There's limited space opposite the bar, with a small seating area crammed into one of the corners, but a partitioning wall screens an open area beyond which has a dartboard, bookcase and no seats whatsoever, which made me wonder if it was some sort of live music performance area - a thought given more credence by the fact that someone was busy setting up some sort of sound system equipment when I left the pub. To the rear of the pub, there is an elongated seating are - the only realistic place to get comfortable in the whole pub, albeit on hard pews that run down either side of the room, supported by some low stools. This space has retro-style wallpaper, a small fireplace with a little stove inside and a nice photo montage of the pub plus a picture of it as 'Ye Olde Shakespeare Inn'. Other items of note include a selection of old brewery mirrors, a stack of board games and a forlorn looking acoustic guitar waiting for someone to pick it up. Doors to the rear lead out to a good sized beer garden which, given the pub's elevated position, affords some pretty good views out across the city. Music of a Cuban flavour was being played through the pub at a sensible volume throughout my stay and the place felt like a hive of activity, despite a relatively low midweek turnout. There is an extensive ale range on offer here, which seemed a little incongruous with the small number of customers. Options consisted of Bradfield Farmers Blonde, Hop Jacket Digby, Brothers Arms best, Tapped Rodeo, Great Heck Blonde, Phoenix Wobbly Bob, Pictish Ginger and Pheasantry Dark Pheasant. I gave the Digby a try and the friendly barmaid offered me a taster and explained that the beer was supposed to be cloudy. Unfortunately, the taster, and the first half or so of the pint tasted fine, but it quickly deteriorated and in the end I really struggled to finish my pint - not sure this was a conditioning issue rather than a sub-par beer. I thought this was quite a nice pub that sadly fell down in a few key areas. Putting aside the disappointing pint, which I suspect might've been a one-off issue, the place was a bit lacking in comfort and ambience which caused me to leave unsure as to just how good the pub really is. I think it's worthy of a stop-off if only because there are a number of other good pubs around that would make a decent crawl, but there were certainly signs that the pub may well be worth the trip in its own right - I'll have to give it another go, perhaps at a busier time, to make sure.

Now taken over by local band, the Everly Pregnant Brothers, and renamed after them, there is now much more of an emphasis on real ale. The place had been brightened up and a lot of clutter removed, which is not always a good thing, but it does leave more room for people to stand around chatting about this and that. The unidentifiable paintings of the previous regime have been replaced by white paint and some of the band's record sleeves, which are in the style of old fashioned Penguin book covers with outrageously unfunny puns for their titles (such as "No Oven, No Pie"). Beers seen on my recent visit included examples from breweries such as Box Steam, Pictish and the rather more local Bradfield, Stancil and Blue Bee. Also the ubiquitous Sharps Doom Bar. There's a house beer from Bradfield, but it's just the Farmers Bitter renamed. It's a lot busier than it used to be, but this was early days and initial interest may die down. There's an interesting real ale crawl to be made now, starting at the Cremorne and taking in the Sheaf View, this one, the White Lion and possibly the Broadfield on Abbeydale Road (or the other way around, of course), starting and finishing with buses to/from the city centre.