Another vote from me for North Yorkshire being a lovely county. I’ve been there quite a few times for family holidays and for hillwalking trips, which has boosted it up to my 8th most rated county - although at 77 rates I’m nowhere near the top 50 raters here. My rates definitely reveal that more have been drunk in traditional pubs than from bottle/craft beer bars - as should be the case in Yorkshire!
My top 5 beers from the county are:
Theakston Vanilla Stout 4.1
Roosters Twenty Four Seven 3.9
Black Sheep Choc & Orange Stout (Cask) 3.9
Theakston Old Peculier (Bottle) 3.7
Black Dog Rhatas 3.7
I’ve rated 27 different breweries - the most rated are Black Sheep (13), then Roosters & Theakstons (both 9).
I’ve rated 6 places; rather bizarrely the top one is a supermarket. Admittedly it’s an independent supermarket - R Campbell & Sons in Leyburn - which stocks a huge number of local beers, but I’m still surprised I haven’t rated so few of the excellent pubs I’ve visited in the county. Sorry, Yorkshire, I’ll try harder next time I visit…
The highest point in the county is Whernside, way over in the west. Not the most spectacular hill considering its height, but it does have a handy wind shelter at the top (if it’s raining, make sure you sprint to get the dry side before your friends get there!).
Aside from beer I’d recommend the following amazing places in North Yorks (in no particular order):
Yordas Cave, with the waterfall hidden in the “Chapter House” (free access but bring a torch and take care).
Brimham Rocks - a huge area of improbably-balanced wind-sculpted boulders.
Peasholm Park in Scarborough. Free access, yet better than many National Trust grounds. Make sure you time your visit to coincide with one of the bizarre miniature ship battles in the lake.
Roseberry Topping (one of the more bizarrely-named hills, aka the Yorkshire Matterhorn).
West Burton waterfall - one of my favourite waterfalls but less touristy than most, despite being in the middle of a village.
The “Forbidden Corner” - a fantastical labyrinth with follies and surprises at every turn. Had even my cynical 80-year old Dad whooping with childish glee and running ahead to see what was coming next!
Aysgarth Rock Garden - bijou (verging on microscopic), free and wonderful. Make sure you leave a donation to keep it going!
I’ve had a reasonable 58 beers from 9 breweries. More than half (33) of these are from Brew York who I used to be really into around 2017/18. I don’t have a lot from them any more but do still grab the odd can here and there. And I do love the silly puns they name many of their beers with.
Brew York’s Tonkoko was responsible for introducing me to the delight that is tonka, an ingredient I absolutely love in stouts now. Empress Tonkoko is my highest rated North Yorkshire brew at 4.4.
John Smith’s is a glaring omission from my rates, could have sworn I’ve had this at some point. Must’ve been before I got into rating and drinking beer in general. Granted, bitter is a style I rarely drink so I’m not too surprised.
Other more crafty omissions are North Riding and Turning Point, both of which I thought I’d had a beer or two from before but apparently not.
I do like North Yorkshire and places like York, Robin Hoods Bay, Harrogate, Knaresborough hold fond memories as does Malham and Brimham Rocks. It’s a great county.
As regards my beery tales. Well I’ve had 172 beers from North Yorkshire, which puts me in 32nd place.
My top 5 beers include 2 from Great Heck who I understand are now closed, I really liked Great Heck and they will be a great loss, also Brew York are another that I rate very highly, and York are another great brewery who I thought were particularly solid on cask.
Great Heck - Mount Mosaic 4.1
York - Pure Gold 4.0
Great Heck - Patrick 4.0
Brew York Tonkoko 4.0
Brew York/Loko Polly Hoptimist Prime 4.0
Have rated beers from 31 breweries
28 current
3 closed
Top 6 breweries for number of beers rated
Roosters 17
Sam Smith’s 17
Great Heck 15 (closed)
Great Yorkshire 13
York 12
Brew York 11
I am not sure that I have rated any places in North Yorkshire, however I was convinced that I had place ratings for some venues in York, so I am confused now. Can anyone help me with this stat’ am I being thick (probably) but is there any obvious way of seeing how many places you’ve rated for a county? Currently I am going to the county, going to map zooming out and using the filter function and selecting view all places that I have rated, but there must be an easier way, also this shows me that I have rated the Yorkshire Tap and yet I cannot see a write up?
Click on your avatar in the top right (in the ratings section of the site not the forums bit).
From the drop-down, click on “My countries and states”.
Click on regions visited (just above the map).
Click on England (or whatever country you want).
You’ll now have a list of all the counties where you’ve rated a place, along with how many you’ve rated for each county.
As an added bonus, if you click on a county name it’ll bring up a list of all the places you’ve rated there along with the scores you gave them.
I’d recommend just trying pressing everything in this site and seeing what happens; it’s amazing how many useful stats & features are hidden by away on various pages!
Thanks for that helpful tip, I guess that a lot of my browsing is via my phone so sometimes it is a little fiddly and not so obvious to access such stats’
As previously highlighted above the two oldest breweries in North Yorkshire are both in Tadcaster and both started by the same family. Initially the Old Brewery was founded in Tadcaster in 1758 as Backhouse and Hartley. Tadcaster was particularly favoured for brewing due to the quality of the water, very similar to Burton upon Trent and brewing had been undertaken in the town since the 14th Century.
John Smith bought the Old Brewery in 1847 using family money, very soon afterwards expanding into a new brewery close by but retaining the Old Brewery. On John Smith’s death in 1879 the John Smith Brewery went to his brother William and the Old Brewery to his nephew Samuel. On arriving at the Old Brewery Samuel found that it had been completely stripped out and equipment moved to the John Smith’s Brewery, however Samuel refurbished the brewery and soon became a competitor to the larger brewer.
Since this split the Breweries have followed very different paths. Samuel Smith’s remains an Unlimited Family owned Company, very traditional in style owning over 200 pubs throughout the country, all of which have to follow the strict operating rules within the company. They have reduced their Cask Ale range to just one beer – Old Brewery Bitter OBB. The brewery supplies it’s pubs with a range of Brewery Conditioned beers (Bright Beer) in kegs and a range of Bottle Beers. The bottled beer range is the main reason for the Breweries popularity across the world, particularly before the current fad for beers in cans and bottles. Samuels Smith’s beers have scored highly in many of our beer and brewery awards due to its worldwide distribution and for its quality.
John Smith’s Brewery has followed a much more tangled path. William Smith died in 1886 and passed the brewery to a partnership of 2 of his nephews Henry Herbert & Frank Riley. This started a rapid expansion in size, becoming a Limited Company in 1892 as John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery Company. With the money accruing from this they obtained their own maltings and became known as one of the best run companies in the country. They commenced bottling for the First World War developing the method of artificially carbonating beer. In the 50’s the company became a Public Limited Company and began taking over a number of other breweries in Yorkshire and beyond, immediately closing them down and replacing beers with their own brands. They became the 3rd largest brewery in the country but dilating the Riley-Smith share ownership to just 10%. In 1970 the company was purchased by Courage, who at the time were the largest in the country, John Smith’s owned about 1800 pubs at the time. John Smith’s Bitter became a nationally distributed brand after the take over eventually outstripping Courage’s own brands in sales. Courage became Scottish & Newcastle and shipped out production of John Smith’s cask ale to initially Burtonwood, then Cameron’s. In 2010 Heineken had taken over the company and discontinued cask ale production. The John Smith’s brewery in Tadcaster currently produces kegged and bottled beers from the Heineken stable.
I have a certain fondness for this part of the country. My parents lived in Malton when I was a toddler and we used to return regularly to visit relatives in the area.
Can’t say I’ve rated any places here apart from a few in York, but the list of sights from wheresthepath, plus the mountain bike trails, will put this on my ‘weekend break’ visit list next year!
I’ve rated 109 beers from 22 different active breweries in North Yorkshire, and 2 now closed breweries including the much missed Great Heck. No need to list all the breweries, but the most-rated is Bad Seed from Malton who I’ve followed since their inception.
Top rated beer is, strangely, Samuel Smiths Apricot beer, and why not. It’s a nice beer and obviously I loved it back in 2015. North Riding Chocolate and Fudge porter is second (lovely cask beer) joint with Brew York’s Brownie Pints.
Lowest rated is, also strangely, Newcey Brown, now brewed at Sam Smiths.
A wonderful county for scenery and for beer. A strong tradition of traditional brewing as well as a great new wave of craft breweries. York is a great city for a pub crawl and the genuine market towns of Malton, Pickering, etc, are alive and vibrant, not just market towns by name.
The county I have the third most ratings from with 361. According to my stats, my best beer to date is Hop Studio Avenoir which is an oatmeal stout and I gave 4.2. I have another 7 breweries rated at 4.0.
This is my 4th highest county, and I’m 6th overall with 498 rates. I’d put this down to a combination of family holidays on the coast (Scarborough, Whitby, Filey) and beer trips to York and Leeds.
I also used to work in Leeds and would (totally unnecessarily) change trains at York going back to Edinburgh to give myself an hour in the York Tap. Sad to hear it’s gone downhill in recent years.
Shout out to Belly Rub beer shop, who I phoned when we arrived in Scarborough last year and promptly delivered me “one of everything local”, with a couple of freebies on top (they were duplicates, but the wife had those!).
Lots of solid beers scoring 3.9 - 4, but top for me were:
Hop Studio Avenoir - 4.2 (bottle from Beers of Europe)
Brew York Took the Midnight Grain - 4.2 (can thanks to @Stuu666
Roosters Anniversary IPA - 4.1 (Bottle at a @cgarvieuk tasting back in 2013!)
Lady Luck Black Cat Porter - 4.1 (Cask at the Angel, Whitby)
Last time I was in Leeds we met a journalist friend of a friend and he took us to The Duncan, a rather lively Sam Smith’s pub. There was what looked like blood spray on the ceiling, but might have just been staining from a thrown pint, and an actual turd next to the urinals. On the plus side I got change from a fiver for three pints, one of which was a rate! We didn’t linger over them. The Tivoil in Morecambe was a much nicer Smith’s pub, and I got 3 rates there on my last visit.
I was a student in Leeds pre-RB and used to work in the Marks & Spencer’s on Briggate. Very fond memories of finishing up at 5.30 on a Sunday (when it was double-time because Sunday trading was still quite novel) and a gang of us spending the rest of the day until closing time in Whitelocks. There’s a slight link, even though it’s West Yorkshire, but I drank a lot of Rooster’s there in my time!
