WOOL done to the Black Sheep - named Brewery Of The Year in the Good Pub Guide 2006.

"Good value can mean exceptional quality, even if the price is not rock bottom. One brewery which stands out for this is Black Sheep," write the guide's editors Alisdair Aird and Fiona Stapley. "We found their excellent beers sold regularly by nearly a hundred of the main entries - and in three of these, it was the cheapest beer on sale.

"They also have a splendid brewery centre (in Masham, Yorkshire), with a caf-bar which serves well as a substitute pub - for the first time included as a main entry."

Praise indeed, and well deserved. The Black Sheep Brewery has never sacrificed quality in the pursuit of quantity. Thirteen years after starting up, the brewery supplies around 700 outlets in Northern England, and sells its cask beers nationally through wholesalers and larger pub chains.

Popular demand has seen new fermenting vessels and conditioning tanks joining the recently-installed second brewhouse in Masham.

Black Sheep's sales and marketing director Pat Green described the award as "a wonderful achievement for us".

He said: "Our commitment to brewing quality beer for people to enjoy in good pubs has meant that demand continues to grow each year and an award such as this will really help raise our profile nationally."

He also points out that the winners of the Beer Pub of the Year Award (The Watermill Inn at Ings near Staveley in Cumbria), and the Inn of the Year Award (Charles Bathurst Inn, Langthwaite, North Yorkshire) also sell Black Sheep.

The Good Pub Guide 2006 is published by Random House, priced £14.99. It's pick of the York pubs? The Maltings, Tanner's Moat, where gaffer Shaun Collinge is described as the "jovial landlord" - a description first used in the guide in 2002.

BAR Talk is indebted to the British Dental Health Foundation for drawing our attention to NicoShot lager. This lager has added nicotine to try to help smokers quit; but at 6.3 per cent ABV, it may look after your lungs, but it gives your liver quite a kicking.

Not surprisingly the foundation is against the product. Drinkers would need to consume three cans of the stuff to take in the same nicotine as a packet of cigarettes.

You can imagine the scenario: "I've kicked the ciggies, but I'm up to 40 pints a day."

We would prefer someone to invent an alcoholic cigarette. That would make fag breaks far more fun.

Updated: 16:05 Friday, October 14, 2005