Pint Pleasures: The Raven Inn, Walkley

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Previous Pint Pleasures - August 27, 2020

The Raven Inn, 35 Palm Street, Walkley, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

In November of last year, after a major refurbishment of what had been the Palm Tree in Walkley, the Raven Inn opened its doors. The second pub owned by the Loxley Brewing Company, the Raven looks really nice on the outside, with large illuminated ravens that are visible as one is descending the hill. Inside the pub is very clean with an almost Nordic feel to it, with plenty of wood furniture and low-hanging chandeliers. There are six handpumps on the bar, at least half of them offering Loxley’s own brews, and also nine taps which feature craft beers as well as Edinger, Vier, and Carling.

On my first visit Mike, Andrew, and I stopped in on a busy Sunday afternoon and had pints of Wisewood Seven (4.4% ABV, Loxley Brewing Company, Loxley, South Yorkshire). None of us had been impressed by Loxley's beers up to this point, eg. Loxleys One through Six, but this 5-hop pale ale was good, with bitter hops galore. I can’t really say what hops were used, but it certainly had a good feisty taste. At some point since our pre-Covid Lockdown visits the brewery made a decision to give their numbered beers proper names. As a result Wisewood Seven is now called Lomas, which was inspired by a man who murdered his wife in a house on Loxley Common on a snowy night back in 1821. For some reason, though, as the beer was still called Wisewood Seven, we were inspired to chat about horseracing tracks instead.

After seating ourselves in the back room we spoke about the raven theme after discovering that the Loxley Beer Company has a raven on their logo. Mike thought the logo was probably created by some goth young girls from Loxley who love Edgar Allen Poe. All I really know is that Sheffield now has both a Crow and a Raven, and plenty of Monkeys. There is also an antler theme in the light fixtures. So do ravens have antlers?

A couple of weeks later the Raven was the second stop of a 5-pub Walkley crawl with several friends. It was an early Saturday evening and the place was so packed that our little group, numbering six so far, had to stand around a pillar near the bar. As was my plan in each of the pubs we visited, I went for a half pint of Wisewood Seven -- while my fellow crawlers, having agreed to do a half in each pub, all ordered full pints. Oh well, which of us was going to feel a lot better in the morning as well as able to remember what her last beer of the night was?

On this visit I went out in the rear garden which was quite an interesting environment back when it was the Palm. It had been cleared and paved over and was now just a vast expanse of tarmac. The woman behind the bar said that they had specific plans for the garden, so that was a relief.

Now let’s fast-forward several months, through the pub closures that happened on the 20th of March, 2020 and the Covid-19 lockdown, careering all the way through to the 6th of July re-opening of the Raven. For Andrew’s and my second venture out to a pub, and Mike’s first, we all met at the pub on a Monday afternoon where we found it very clean, well-sanitised, appropriately spaced, and just waiting for us. Andrew and I first went for pints of Shindigger West Coast Pale (4.5% ABV, Shindigger Brewing, Manchester), which was a very light and pleasant keg beer. It was so strange, sitting with a three-dimensional friend at a table having one of those “pint” things that we had all been so used to having. I even remembered the old customs of purchasing rounds, so I paid for the first one. For our second round, which Mike bought, I decided to try a supposedly hoppy cask ale, Gunson Citra IPA (4.8% ABV, Loxley Brewery, Sheffield, South Yorkshire). I really should have had this one first, because my main impression was that it was quite a bit maltier than my first pint. Although it was a bit of a rainy day we stepped outside in the back a couple of times. The beer garden now has quite a few social-isolation-spaced picnic tables, so it looks like a nice place to have a pint if it ever actually stops raining and the sun ever comes out for long enough. (Which will probably never happen because this is Sheffield.) Anyway, if we do get a rare sunny spell, we’ll have to stop back and sit in the garden. Perhaps we’ll be joined by some real ravens...