BAR Talk has been meaning to feature Wold Top Brewery in this column for some time. But there was one problem. It's in the middle of nowhere.

Nowhere is Wold Newton, a village closer to Filey than to Driffield, Bridlington or Malton, but not particularly near any of them.

As luck would have it, this week Wold Top came to us. Their stall at the York Festival of Food and Drink provided Bar Talk with the perfect opportunity to catch up with one of Yorkshire's newest brewers.

It was 2003 when two farming families in Wold Newton, the Mellors and the Grays, decided to get into beer. Now that's what we call diversification.

They had almost everything to hand. Both farms have long produced high-class malting barley and one of them had its own supply of water, filtered through chalk.

The only major ingredient they had to buy in was hops, which they source from Kent.

So they rolled up their sleeves, installed a mash tun and copper, and started to brew.

It has been a hectic two years, says partner Katrina Gray, who was serving thirsty punters at the Wold Top Brewery stall. And they've learned a lot.

"Definitely. It's gone from buying tractors to buying bottles and beercodes.

"Both families are still farming. Everybody's still involved with the brewery but we try to delegate now."

The brewery has been successful enough to employ two full-time staff and five part timers.

They brew four different beers with very distinctive flavours. In order of strength, they are Wold Top Bitter (3.7 per cent ABV); Falling Stone (4.2 per cent); the darker Mars Magic (4.6 per cent); and Katrina's favourite, Wold Gold (4.8 per cent).

Remarkably for such a young brewery they have already notched up awards. The beers have won gongs from the Small Independent Brewers Association and at two beer festivals.

Despite the quality, finding outlets for their beer is not always easy in a licensed trade largely tied into supply agreements.

Wold Top is a ten-barrel plant brewing 120 casks a week, and sends draught supplies to London, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire as well as across Yorkshire.

The Golden Ball, Bishophill, and the Sun Inn, Acomb, are two York venues that regularly walk on the Wold side, as do the four York Brewery pubs. Bottles can be bought at both the York Beer And Wine Shop and Beer Ritz in the city. Check out www.woldtopbrewery.co.uk for more outlets.

One place you are guaranteed to find the beer is at the brewery's first pub, based in Thwing and also called the Falling Stone (the name is inspired by the first recorded meteorite in Britain, which fell on the Gray family farm in 1795 and now resides in the British Museum).

What of the future? Katrina says they would like to expand and eventually take on more pubs. And that's good news for anyone who likes Wold fashioned ales.

FINALLY, an apology. Bar Talk was erroneously informed about the Ale Trail at York Food and Drink Festival: there were no T-shirts available to drinkers who visited every pub this year. Just a sense of satisfaction.

Updated: 09:29 Saturday, September 24, 2005