County Stat Attack Week 13 - East Yorkshire

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The East Riding of Yorkshire, giving it it’s full name, takes us back to Yorkshire in an area bounded by The Humber river to the south and surrounded by North Yorkshire to the North and West, the North Sea to the East. Finally established in 1996 it has also been known as Humberside.
The county shares the same history as North Yorkshire in essence. The Romans occupied the area after building a bridgehead across the Humber, displacing the Parisi tribe and building roads northwards across the Yorkshire Wolds to Derventio, modern day Malton and westwards to the River Ouse and Eboracum, now York. On Roman withdrawal the area was occupied by Anglo Saxons until invasion by the great Danish Army in AD867. The Scandinavian settlers left a legacy of place names in the county before the Norman Conquest. The lands in current East Riding were granted to followers of the Norman King William 1st, laying waste to many of the villages. Large areas were handed to religious institutions like Meux Abbey and Bridlington Priory, which were later dissolved by Henry VIII in the mid 16th C and the land sold off into private ownership. The River Humber was used as a trading route and the main city in the area, Kingston upon Hull, developed as a large port.
Apart from the Humber the main features of the landscape are The East Yorkshire Wolds which drop into the North Sea at Flamborough Head as chalk cliffs. The western part of the county is the Vale of York and River Derwent. Spurn Head is a spectacular spit of land where deposits from coastal erosion further north finally end up and is slowly moving.
The dominant settlement is Hull (Kingston upon Hull) the next largest are Bridlington, Goole and Beverley. The county is one of the least densely populated in England. Agriculture and Tourism are the main industries in the area, there is also the main import site for Natural Gas at Easington Gas Terminal.

On Ratebeer we have 20 currently active Breweries and 14 closed giving a total of 34. Of which 5 are client / commissioner brewers.

The oldest brewery we have for East Yorkshire is Old Mill Brewery, established in 1983 and still operating.

It really is a struggle to find a historic brewery of note in the area, the most significant appears to have been Hull Brewery which came into being in 1887 after the closure of Gleadow, Gibb and Co’s Anchor Brewery. The new brewery expanded rapidly acquiring other breweries and bottlers along the way and owning over 160 pubs before the turn of the century. The brewery continued to grow, spreading into north Lincolnshire, surviving both World Wars unscathed. In 1949 the brewery started to produce a beer called Anchor Export, a strong beer for the time and sold in both bottles and cans. In 1972 the Brewery was taken over by Northern Dairies and the name changed to North Country Breweries, this was followed by a rapid decline in the popularity of the Brewery which was eventually sold to Mansfield Brewery and brewing ceased in Hull in 1985. The old brewery buildings are still evident in Silvester Street.

The Brewery we have with the largest range on Ratebeer is Atom Beers (Est 2013) with 123 beers listed.

Our new awards for 2020 make Atom Beers the Best Brewery for East Yorkshire in the last year and a collaboration beer of Atom / Northern Monk Neutron Death Star as Best Beer.

The Top 10 Beers for East Yorkshire are –

  1. Atom Neutron Star
  2. Atom / Northern Monk Neutron Death Star
  3. Atom Mars
  4. Bone Machine / Credence Kaamos
  5. Atom / Doctors Orders Isotope
  6. Bone Machine Vostok Fuel
  7. Atom Vortex
  8. Atom Critical Temperature 5.5%
  9. Atom Oblivion
  10. Atom Bragg’s Law

The Top 5 Pubs / Bars in East Yorkshire –

  1. White Horse Inn [Nellie’s](Sam Smith’s), Beverley – 84
  2. Furley & Co., Hull – 80
  3. Lion & Key (Cathead), Hull – 80
  4. Tap House Hull (Yorkshire Brewing Co / Bone Machine), Hull – 79
  5. Corn Machine (Atom Brewing), Hull – 79

The Top 5 Raters of East Yorkshire Beers are –

  1. @Grumbo
  2. @manvsbeer
  3. @imdownthepub
  4. @fonefan
  5. @saxo

You only require a rather measly 23 Beers to enter the Top 50 chart for the County.
The top Rater who hails from East Yorkshire is

@Itstasty currently active.

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Hey Glen, I like the typo, Eat Yorkshire it is :+1:

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:joy:

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Another difficult county despite my rather surprising 3rd position. I have sped up on East Yorkshire ratings over recent years with visits to York Beer Festival, an Atom Brewery Tap Takeover in Oxford and a single visit to the county. 10 Ratings last year and already have one in the bag for this year.
My one visit was to a camp site East of Bridlington, so I got a bit of coastal walking in and a visit to Bridlington but it was Autumn, harvest time and the site was adjacent to one of the largest grain stores in the country. No problems other than the dust created a fly epidemic, the motor home got inundated and we bailed out after 2 days of purgatory. The trip to Hull was cancelled.
Sports wise I have had a few trips to Hull City, the old Boothferry Park ground, which as an away supporter was horrible, cramped and wet. Can’t ever remember us winning there either. Some of the worst trips in football were to that ground in my memory. I did have to visit a big Metal Box Factory in Hull on occasions but never got a chance to do the pubs, I once had to take someone there who was frightened witless of going over bridges, you can guess which route I decided to take that day, I thought he was going to end up in the footwell and he shook all day.

I have 136 ratings of East Yorkshire beers putting the county 5th bottom of my English counties, just above last weeks Surrey, there is an average of 3.2 which is reasonable. I have reviewed beers from 26 Breweries in the county, top of that list, 12 of which are now unfortunately closed. We do have a short visit planned for later in the year, but I don’t think I will break my Hull pub duck.

The Breweries with most ratings for me are –

  1. Atom Beers – 26
  2. Wold Top Brewery – 19
  3. Great Newsome Brewery – 12
  4. Bone Machine Brew Co. – 10
  5. Half Moon Brewery – 10
  6. Old Mill Brewery – 10

I have 4 beers that I have given a 4 or above –

  1. Bone Machine Vostok Fuel – 4.3
  2. Wold Top Wolds Way – 4.1
  3. Old Mill Traditional Bitter – 4
  4. Great Newsome Sleck Dust – 4

The highest rated beer that I have tried is the Atom Mars which averages 3.66 but unfortunately I didn’t like it that much and gave it only 2.9. I have had 3 of the top 10 beers for the county.

My highest rated breweries for the area are (5+ Ratings)

  1. Gene Pool Brewery – 3.433
  2. Bone Machine Brew Co. – 3.43
  3. Great Newsome Brewery – 3.317
  4. Atom Brewing - 3.3

I have reviewed just 5 places in East Yorkshire and the highest is a Wetherspoons so I haven’t really had the greatest experience there. (Yet!)

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Especially with the top local rater being called Itstasty!

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Love Hull and Spurn Head, Beverley is a lovely town too. I was due to visit Hull again last year; the CAMRA Beer Festival weekend, sadly cancelled.

Last time I was in Hull was a sunny Sunday in Sep 2019 and I reviewed five pubs in the city during our walkabout. It’s the only time I’ve been since recording my beery stats. Being a traditionalist I liked the Minerva, Wm Hawkes and the Lion & Key the most (although the beer quality in the Lion & Key was a bit ‘iffy’).

The people of Hull are so open and friendly, it has had some money spent on it since the ‘City of Culture’ thing a few years back; it’s always had some good watering holes. I will return when I can.

My Stats are not as impressive as I expected to be honest:

30 rated beers, puts me equal 35th in the ratings.

Top 3 beers are Wold Top Shepherd’s Watch and Great Newsome’s Jem’s Stout & Winter Warmer.

10 Breweries, 4 of which have closed.

9 from Wold Top and 8 from Great Newsome, the rest with nothing above 3 rates.

Been to Nellie’s and many other pubs in Beverley and Hull, but before records were kept. I can vividly remember visiting The Whalebone Inn and it’s brewery room (more like a broom cupboard) in 2003 and stopping off at the Bateman owned Bay Horse on the way back into town. There were four of us in my little party and we became known as ‘The Shropshire Four’ during our drinking weekend, word got round about us for some reason and in one pub we got a standing ovation for having a holiday in Hull.

The Humber Bridge is well worth looking at too, another of ‘my bridge collection’.

<*))))))><

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I love going over the big ones, which made the Dave the Bridge hater incident so funny for me. I was reminded of it when I saw him down Banbury market the other day. Humber Bridge was quite expensive I seem to remember, I got some stick when I put my expenses in.

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As a side note about the area, the ship ‘PS Tattershall Castle’ now a floating restaurant on the Thames, was a Humber Ferry for many years, well before the new Humber bridge was built.

When Grimsby Town played Hull City in the old days the fans would cross over the Humber on that ferry and others, then to be herded into open top cattle trucks for the rail journey to Boothferry Park, as it had it’s own station back then. Amazing history right there!

<*))))))><

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Yes, it is expensive and you pay on the Yorkshire Git side too!

<*))))))><

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I think we must have been taken directly to the station near the ground on our Football Specials, it’s all a bit of a blur these days. I know we used to think that their fans were quite quiet back in the day.

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Yes Glen, they’ve always been strangely quiet, preferring to moan quietly while sitting rather than getting animated and loud, they would clap occasionally, but I think they had stopped doing that last season.

<*))))))><

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I guess I will take what solace I can from the fact that I only drink good beer from Eat Yorks

Atom Neutron Star 4 3.82 2/22/2018
Bone Machine Vostok Fuel 3.7 3.57 8/2/2018 8/2/2018
Atom Catalyst 3.6 3.35 2/22/2018
Twisted Angel White Label #04 NE Citra / Mosaic 3.6 3.14 6/17/2018

These are my top 4 from a slim 17 total.
I think it was truly said that few people go to Hull by accident. Overall I prefer Beverley. Any county in which a gas terminal deserves honourable mention, may need to work on its tourism, and as for the coast I prefer further north. Scarborough rather than Bridlington. And I won’t be drinking any more Twisted Angel beers since it folded in 2019. I will have to seek out more Atom ales. Wold Top and Great Newsome seem to circulate more frequently in Nottingham. I assume Gene Pool is a joking reference to the generally close family relationships associated with rural east England.

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This came too soon for me. I was thinking of putting another order in to get onto the board. Hull’s ace but I have not been there since I graduated and back then it was Caffrey’s or Cider & Blacks for me. Not forgetting the Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters at Spiders Nightclub. They were full of red food dye so when you puked it looked like there’d been a murder.

17 Beers from 7 breweries:

• Atom – 6
• Bricknell – 3
• Aire Heads / Bone Machine / Vittles and Company – 2
• Great Newsome / Raven Hill – 1

Top 5:

• Atom Isotope - 4.2
• Atom Neutron Star – 3.9
• Atom Phobos & Deimos – 3.7
• Bricknell Paragon Porter (5.8%) – 3.7
• Bricknell Chocolate Porter (6.6%) – 3.7

When I heard about Atom I was keen to try out a Hull brewer. Attended a tender presentation in London and the sales guy I was with was happy how it went so offered to take me to Craft Beer Co St Mary Axe, which we’d walked past earlier. I spotted the Atom Neutron Star and he winced a bit when he saw how much the third cost. We didn’t win the tender either.

I could rate Vittles and Company for their mail-order services, I guess. When I was in Hull I have a feeling there was sweet FA in terms of beer. Went to the Minerva a few times when my Dad dropped me off and also to Beverley. I do remember a bank holiday where we arrived in Hull by lunchtime and my Dad decided we should go for a pub lunch. None of the pubs on his list were serving food so we ended up with fish and chips.

Anyway, a second order from Vittles and Company will be made shortly… depending on which of the places on my list I decide to order from. I should also probably buy some Wold Top beers, see them around but never bother with them.

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Sad to say another county duck for me for my least favourite of the Yorkshire set - had I rated properly since I joined the RB community, I’d be in double figures at least, with plenty of Atom stuff having been quaffed, but that counts for nowt! Funny place is East Yorkshire - we lost it for a while, when it joined up with part of Lincolnshire to create the nonsense of Humberside, but not sure many Yorkshire folk were that bothered about losing it, probably because your first thought is Hull and that doesn’t inspire much really. It is however, from memory, a lovely county, with some breathtaking bits of coastline and quaint little villages dotted about, but not sure it’s top of my list of places to visit.

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Considering my county borders East Yorkshire I’ve a fairly paltry 38 rates, from just 7 different brewers. I don’t chase county or country ticks, and I’m not fussed about many of the breweries over that way. Atom are fine, but not especially worth seeking out, for me. The highest rated came from Bricknell brewery, but I’ve never seen them make it over to Sheffield.

Hull is a place I visit on a very regular basis, but always with work, and the idea of nipping for a swift pint during a break is something very much frowned upon in my profession!

There’s plenty of bars though, that appeal in Hull these days, so a visit for beer would be nice one day. There’s a brewer called Dock’s Beers that has an interesting looking tap room (in Grimsby). Soon, maybe…

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Sex workers not allowed alcohol on a break in lockdown?

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I have high hopes for Bone Machine Brewery, reasonably new and I have had some decent beers from them.

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You’ll have to ask Rich or Gary about that.

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A mere two ratings, both from Atom, both sampled at Friends of Ham in Leeds following Canada’s heartbreaking loss to Italy at Elland Road in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Mars (3.9/5) was lovely. Bragg’s Law #2 (3.0/5) was less so.

Incidentally “Friends of Ham” might be one of my favourite bar names. :slight_smile:

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Now we are talking! East Yorkshire is one of my primary targets in the county stat attack. I’ve rated 60 so far putting me at #13 on the list. Atom is my primary target as I’ve had 26 from them, however thanks to a few orders here and there I’ve had over a dozen Great Newsome beers as well.

Top 5 Beers:
Half Moon Olde Skool (Wood Cask) 4.0
Atom / Northern Monk Neutron Death Star 4.0
Atom Gravity Well 4.0
Atom Trajectory 4.0
Atom / Doctors Orders Isotope 3.9

Unfortunately, I was set to go to Hull for the Saturday of last years Hull Real Ale & Cider Festival, but of course that was cancelled due to COVID. Once all the lockdown stuff is done and UK opens back up, I hope to get up there to do a proper pub crawl of the city. Maybe I can talk @Grumbo into going as well.

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