As York Brewery prepares to come of age, GAVIN AITCHISON tries some of the new beers coming out soon

ANYONE born at the same time as York Brewery will very soon be able to sample their first legal beers.

The Toft Green outfit was founded in May 1996, meaning it will come of age in just four months’ time.

It is perhaps appropriate, therefore, that the firm has declared 2014 will be its most exciting year yet, one in which their brewers shake off the shackles, break all the rules they can and allow instinct and fun to trump dull reason.

This week the brewery revealed its new beer ranges for 2014, a varied and novel selection that takes drinkers on an ambling stroll round York’s Bar Walls then on a whistlestop trip around the world – a teenage gap-year trip befitting their 18th birthday, but accompanied by the smell of fresh hops and rich malt rather than hostel sweat and cheap spirits.

Creativity, innovation and discovery are what this year is all about for the brewers. Unveiling their plans for the year ahead, brewery director Andy Barker said: “Too often creative talent is strangled by management, budget and bureaucracy. At York Brewery, we intend to make 2014 the year that passion and instinct override such constraints.”

This year, he says, “will be a journey led by our brewers” – and they’ve been given carte blanche.

It’s a shrewd move that could help York compete once again for the fickle tastes of today’s neophiliac drinkers. When York Brewery opened in 1996 it was the exciting newbie, producing the first ales within the Walls for more than 40 years. But in recent years it has inevitably come to be seen as rather passé, a part of the old guard looking on while edgy new breweries spring up on their doorstep. It has become easy for many to overlook it on the bar, which is a shame given that the brewers continue to do a grand job.

Two new collections unveiled on Tuesday could therefore prove timely and enjoyable. The first is the “Off The Wall” series and the second is the “Globe Hopping” range, and both boast new beers, eye-catching pump clips and (most importantly of all) mouth-watering styles.

Andy says he believes some of the best inventions happen by accident, so he wanted his brewers to follow their hearts. The first beer in the Off The Wall range, on the bars already, is Great Walls of Fire – a smoked porter with German Rauchmalt and an ABV of 5.1 per cent, pleasingly strong without being overpowering. Seven more beers in the series will follow by the end of the year and the project has enthused the team at Toft Green, says head brewer Nick Webster.

“Although committed to our core range, the team are relishing the opportunity to be able to produce unconventional beers with a real difference,” he says. “There is a definite air of excitement in the brewery.”

Alongside that range, the Globe Hopping series also promises great things. This consists of four single-hopped beers, each with an ABV of four per cent, using hops from – in order – the USA, Poland, New Zealand and England.

The first beer, Mt Rainier, uses simcoe hops and takes its name from the highest volcano in mainland USA, which stands near the hop paradise that is the Yakima Valley. Mt Rainier will have an earthy, pine-like fragrance, says the promotional blurb, and it will be on the bars next month.

New releases will then follow every 80 days for the rest of the year. The single-hop approach, tried successfully by many before now, is interesting for brewers but also useful for customers, allowing drinkers to identify more deliberately the flavours and hops they most enjoy.

The total upshot is that, taking account of the core range and the existing programme of monthly specials, York Brewery will produce 23 different beers throughout 2014 – meaning there will be plenty of glasses to raise in celebration as the brewery marks its 18th birthday in style.

 

• NEXT Saturday is Burns Night, and several local pubs are putting on special beers or menus.

The Rook and Gaskill in Lawrence Street hopes to offer haggis burgers next weekend. All this coming week, the Nicholson’s pubs in York (Punch Bowl in Stonegate, Harkers in St Helen’s Square and Cross Keys in Goodramgate) are serving haggis.

Also all week, the JD Wetherspoon’s pubs (including The Postern Gate and Punch Bowl, Blossom Street, in York and The Giant Bellflower in Selby) are serving traditional haggis, neeps and tatties; haggis burger and haggis hot dogs.

They will also have Caledonian Brewery’s Auld Acquaintance on the bar and special offers on whiskies.

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