The county of North Yorkshire was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act with the division of Greater Yorkshire, roughly following the older system of Ridings. It is the largest county in England, covering National Park areas including the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. The Pennine Hills run along its western side and the Vale of Pickering and coastal resorts to the east.
The historic county of Yorkshire itself has been occupied by Romans, Angles but principally Vikings from whom many of the place names have developed. The county town was always the Cathedral City of York, founded at the confluence of the Ouse and Foss by the Romans as Eboracum, sacked by the Vikings it became Jorvik and became the capital of Viking Britain. The city was close to the Great North Road which aided its economy, it became a major cloth manufacturing and importer of traded goods from the continent, more recently with Chocolate and Confectionery. Guy Fawkes was from York, famous for the gunpowder plot, the city was besieged by Parliamentarians in the Civil War, losing much of its medieval buildings. The town of Middlesbrough has the largest population in the area, other large settlements include Harrogate and Scarborough.
There are currently 61 Active and 27 Closed Breweries on Ratebeer for North Yorkshire, totalling 88, there are 9 Client / Commissioner Breweries amongst these.
The oldest Breweries still producing in North Yorkshire are Samuel Smith (Est 1758) and John Smiths (Est 1847 but now owned by Heineken), both based in the town of Tadcaster, there is also Theakston (Est 1830), based in Masham but ended up in the hands of Scottish & Newcastle Brewery, who closed the Masham site, however in 2003 the Theakston family bought the brewery back and re-established the old brewery.
The Brewery with the largest range in North Yorkshire is Rudgate Brewery (Est 1992) with 328 beers on Ratebeer, including the Marston Moor beers after taking over that company in 2004.
Samuel Smith’s were named as Best Brewery in 2019 for North Yorkshire (Discussion Point!) and Brew York’s Imperial Tonkoko Stout named as Best Beer.
The Top 10 Beers are –
Brew York Imperial Tonkoko Stout
Brew York Empress Tonkoko Stout
Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout
Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout
Courage Russian Imperial Stout (-2003) R
Brew York Mocha Man Randy Savage
Brew York / Amundsen Espresso Patronum
Brew York Extra Brownie Pints
Brew York Cherry Tonkoko
Brew York Tonkoko
The Top 6 Places are –
York Tap, York – 93
Trembling Madness Drinks Shop, York – 90
Pivni, York – 86
Rook and Gaskill, York – 84
House of Trembling Madness, York – 84
North Riding Brewpub, Scarborough - 84
The Top 5 Raters of beers from North Yorkshire are –
To get onto the Top 50 list for North Yorkshire Beers you will require a healthy 129 Ratings
The person from North Yorkshire with most ratings on Ratebeer is: @gegwilson – Last seen July 2019
232 Different beers rated from North Yorkshire, puts me 23rd in the totals pecking order.
Top beers:
Hambleton Nightmare
Sam Smith’s Taddy Porter
Sam Smith’s Imperial Stout
33 Breweries sampled.
Most tried:
Rudgate @ 41 beers
Black Sheep @ 29 beers
Sam Smith’s @ 16 beers
Reviewed 16 places and have visited the area many times over the years, I have an old school friend who lives up there now and we’ve stayed with him a few times since he moved. Another friend lives near Scarborough and we’ve also stayed with him. Love York and Skipton for their pubs, never been to Middlesbrough or Harrogate though.
North Yorkshire is one of my (and probably many others) favourite areas of the country. I have walked the Pennine Way through the area, it’s the nicest stretch of the whole cursed path, as I used to know it. I started my Coast to Coast in Robin Hoods Bay and walked westwards. Wild walking and homely pubs all over the area. We go to York Beer Festival every year, it’s our favourite Beer Festival, we have also stayed near Knaresborough and Scarborough on different occasions and love visiting Harrogate. The only time I have visited Middlesbrough though is for Football, so no real beer experiences there. I did have to work at a chocolate factory in York on many occasions and stay overs with colleagues were always a pleasure going round the pubs in the evenings…
I have a total of 743 ratings for North Yorkshire, putting me in 2nd position in the top 50, and making it my 3rd highest County with a reasonable average of 3.2, I am however top in the number of unique Breweries tried with a total of 69 (51 open, 18 now closed).
My most productive Breweries are: Roosters - 71 beers, Rudgate – 57 and Brew York – 41, all still going gladly.
I have 17 beers rated 4 or over, my best are:
North Yorkshire is one of the 8 counties where I’ve not registered any place rates. However at 139 beers it’s my seventh highest, including 14 during the beer-light pandemic. I come in at 44th highest rater of this county. My numbers have been boosted pre-pandemic by the popularity of a few N Yorks breweries (North Riding, Brass Castle, Brew York) in Leicester’s hostelries such as the Blue Boar and Real Ale Classroom
My top 5 N Yorks beers are:
Hop Studio Citra (4.4)
Great Heck Shankar IPA (4.1)
Samuel Smiths Imperial Stout (4)
BAD Communication Meltdown (3.9)
Great Heck Black Jesus (3.9)
I’ve tried 25 breweries, the most popular being Sam Smiths (19 beers), Bad Seed and North Riding (11 beers). My highest rated breweries are:
Turning Point (3.51 average)
Brew York (3.49)
Brass Castle and Great Heck (3.44 each)
Can’t wait for our first visit, which will probably end up being 2022 now.
432 rates for me, putting me in 6th position, from just 26 brewers. North Riding provide 197 of those (with about 6 new rates sat in my fridge right now). Top rated beer at 4.4 is a North Riding stout, but I’ve loads of theirs rated 4.0 and above. When they’re spot on I find them very Kernelesque!
Visited the area dozens of times and usually mostly for beer, and have worked in and around North Yorkshire for many years since my early twenties.
I’ve rated a few places, but my favourite is probably House of Trembling Madness original location (in York) and the North Riding brewpub (Scarborough). Least favourite is definitely the York Tap. Despite the range of beer it’s usually unbelievably boring and as with most Pivni places it’s hideously understaffed!
Also, as Glen mentioned above, Harrogate is definitely worth a day, with a good range of traditional boozers and craft beer bars.
I know what you mean about the York Tap, in the early days it was very good but in recent years it has been decidedly average, grubby, understaffed. The North Riding Brewpub is an excellent place to go, a bit of a haul from the centre but we’ll worth it, good breakfast in the cafe opposite too.
When you use the gent’s facilities on the station platform rather than paddle through an inch of piss in the Tap’s toilet, you know there’s something wrong!
Not giving much input again but with 7 rates it´s one of my counties with more rates than 1-2
Obviously mostly only beers from Samuel Smith as they are available in Germany as well.
Will try to add more diversity to my UK rates in 2021.
Have 323 ratings from North Yorkshire, with 58 breweries putting me into second place in terms of North Yorkshire breweries rated
Brass Castle in Malton is my most rated brewery, having needed to move to drinking gluten free beers.
The most memorable is North Yorkshire Brewing Co, I got married at Pinchinthorpe Hall where the brewery used to be located and we had a specially brewed beer of theirs on at the reception.
In terms of cider, there are quite afew (13) active cider producers in North Yorkshire, the most prolific is Orchards of Husthwaite with 20 ciders listed, and from the others have visited both the Thornborough Cidery and Ampleforth Abbey orchards.
The top cider and cidery raters for North Yorkshire are:
Before I got into beer I was more into pubs so Sam Smiths has always been a favourite. Used to be a regular at their pubs until I started going in search of ticks. 11 ticks but will have been way more than that in the past.
Brew York is a pretty popular brewery that for some reason has never been on my radar. Don’t tend to see their beers on tap down here? Also the first beers of theirs I came across were in ASDA so I think I’ve always seen them completely unfairly as a supermarket brewery.
Pretty sure I have had more Roosters beers pre-RB as my local Wine Rack used to stock them.
Have only been to North Yorks whilst I was at Uni. Got shitfaced in Scarborough and then the next day had to map a suburb of Bridlington in the rain. Decamped to the first pub we spotted and made up the rest of the map. I am now an advisor to the Tory Party.
My meagre RateBeer totals for North Yorkshire are 15 ratings from 10 breweries. Highest rated are Theakstons Old Peculier and Brew York Tonkoko.
My own records show total of 148 beers drunk from 31 breweries. Most beers from Roosters (21), Rudgate (17), Black Sheep (15).
Not rated any places on Ratebeer, but I’ve been drinking in York many a time, but not anywhere else in the county ever. Favourite watering holes would be Maltings and House of Trembling Madness.
I’ve been to York a few times with family, not really frequented the pubs though. The railway museum is my favourite museum in the country, great for kids.
I’ve looked at the House of Trembling Madness online store, recommended on here, and I have to say it is tempting to try them. Some good choice at decent prices.
The county where I grew up and have a massive fondness for - my first drinking experiences were in the many pubs of my home town of Harrogate, supping Stones, Bass Special and of course creamy Tetley’s.
Considering this, my total of 7 beers is pretty poor, Brew York supplying the 3 highest rated of those, and only 4 breweries in total (having said that, recently had a Roosters stout so that will boost the numbers when I finally get round to entering it).
No place ratings yet, but that will change when it’s good to visit places again, and I head back home to see family and friends. It’s a wonderful county, even with my bias, with plenty of lovely towns, villages and places of interest to visit, and the landscape is breathtaking - I feel tears welling up as I type this
