IT'S been a while since Bar Talk caught up with those sound folk at York Brewery. Two new summer brews plus a fourth pub on the horizon were all the excuses we needed to head to Toft Green for an update.

On arrival, the place was hot and frothy. What's brewing, we asked? Caustic, said Andrew Whalley. It was detergent day at the brewery. Just our luck.

But Andrew, director of brewing, has recently overseen the creation of a couple of spectacular summer ales.

Chariot Of Fire is York Brewery's contribution to the Olympics, and is already a proven winner. Andrew only intended doing four Olympian brews, but demand has seen to it that he has completed seven so far, and more are to come.

It is an unusual combination: a clear, cask, wheat beer at session strength - 4.1 per cent. Andrew explained that the beer is fined to give it that see-through sparkle, contrasting with cloudy continental wheat beers such as Hoegaarden from Belgium.

Drinkers "may not be ready for unfined cask ale," he said. "Generally if you get a cloudy pint of ale from a cask you give it back."

Chariot Of Fire is the brewery's third wheat beer, and its weakest. "The cask ale market is funny in the UK. If you over-pitch something, if it's at the wrong strength, people might have a couple and not go back to it."

Hoegaarden is often served with a slice of lime or lemon. Similarly head brewer Mick Webster has added citrus flavours to the Chariot. Mick returned to York after a nine-month stint at Timothy Taylor's brewery to take up Andrew's previous post in May.

This summer has also seen the return of York IPA. Despite the picture of a Viking on the pump clip, the beer is in the style pioneered by 18th and 19th century brewers to supply the hot outposts of empire - hence Indian Pale Ale.

An altogether stronger pint, at five per cent, the brew is on sale into September, giving us an IPA for any Indian summer we might enjoy.

Both brews are on sale at various real ale pubs, and will represent York Brewery at the Great British Beer Festival in London's Olympia from Tuesday to Saturday next week.

Among the other North Yorkshire brewers taking part are Black Sheep, Brown Cow, Cropton, Daleside, Hambleton, Malton, Rooster's, Rudgate and Theakston.

York Brewery's summer beers will also be on sale at its three pubs, of course. But they are likely to have run out before the fourth opens.

The deal to open a new pub at 10 Stonegate has received planning permission and details are being finalised by the solicitors. Then the builders move in to turn the Mowbray Caf premises into a shop for York Brewery goodies at the front with a bar to the rear.

Andrew says a name has yet to be dreamt up for the new venture. If it follows the pattern set by the Last Drop Inn, Colliergate, the Three Legged Mare, High Petergate, and the Rook And Gaskill, Lawrence Street, its name will have charming overtones of State execution.

Trip to the Lethal Injection anyone..?

Updated: 16:13 Friday, July 30, 2004