Bringing beer back to York
For a city with so many pubs, it always seemed an oversight that York didn’t have a brewery to call its own. But that was the case for the best part of half a century, until an enterprising team decided to bring brewing back inside the city walls.
York Brewery opened on Toft Green in 1996, using second-hand kit and a skeleton staff. Overcoming leaks and spills, and taking on a pub industry largely tied to specific beer suppliers, the brewery soon made a name for itself and its genuinely fantastic beers.
Info
Address 12 Toft Green, York YO1 6JT, +44 (0)1904 621162, www.york-brewery.co.uk, brewerytap@york-brewery.co.uk | Public Transport 4-minute walk from either Tanner Row or Nunnery Lane car parks. Closest bus stops: on Queen Street and Nunnery Lane | Hours Mon–Sat noon–8pm| Tip Nearby Micklegate is replete with excellent pubs. Try Brigantes – it has ten hand-pulled ales, including at least one from the brewery.
But as its range and output increased, the business was hampered by a lack of outlets. Boss Tony Thomson decided there was only one way to change that: open some York Brewery-owned pubs. Both the Last Drop Inn on Colliergate and the Three Legged Mare on High Petergate were named after places of execution – the latter was the name of a distinctive type of gallows, although locals quickly rechristened the pub the Wonky Donkey. The brewery’s third pub, on Stonegate, has the more tourist-friendly title the Yorkshire Terrier.
The pubs have been a great success, partly because York Brewery beers are worth seeking out. Centurion’s Ghost Ale – named in honour of the phantom Roman legion seen to march through the cellar of Treasurer’s House (see p. 204) – was crowned Best Strong Bitter two years in a row at the Great British Beer Festival in London.
One of the best places to sample the beer is the Tap Room, in the brewery itself, perhaps after a tour of the plant. It is built into an historic warren of rooms; somewhere on the Micklegate side of the building is the birthplace of Joseph Hansom, inventor of the hansom cab.
Twelve years after launching the brewery, the founders sold it to Mitchell’s Hotels & Inns. And although the new company hails from Lancaster, on entirely the wrong side of the Pennines, it continues to support brewing in the city.
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