Yorkshire’s Wold Top Brewery Create Unique Beer

The teams at Wold Top Brewery and Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery have collaborated to launch Yorkshire’s first barrel-aged beer.

The sibling businesses from the Yorkshire coast have launched Swell. A limited edition dark beer that has been matured for 11 months in casks that held spirit at Yorkshire’s first single malt whisky distillery.

“Swell has been brewed specifically for barrel-aging, the recipe developed to hold the flavours from the casks without being overwhelmed. It’s rich, fruity and full of flavour. With an ABV of 12%, it’s a beer to be savoured,” said Wold Top’s Brewery Manager, Alex Balchin. “When in the cask, the beer picks up flavours from the spirit that’s been in there before. As well as some of the ‘woody’ flavours from the cask itself. In our case, we’re using ex-maturing malt casks which had also held bourbon and sherry and wine. So this means the beer is picking up lots of the whisky and wood flavours, making it taste really different.

“By spending 11 months in the wooden casks – most barrel-aged beers spend at least 6 months in casks – a really rounded flavour is achieved.”

“Different styles of beer”

Swell is available online at the Wold Top Brewery website. It can also be bought from independent local retailers including Sewell on the go convenience stores. It’s also limited to 6,000 330ml bottles and is the first in the Ebb and Flow series of their barrel-aged beers. And future releases will explore different styles of beer, matured in different whisky cask types, all coming from the Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery.

Wold Top Brewery was founded in 2003, and located on the Mellor family farm at Hunmanby Grange near Filey. The team use home grown barley and water from the farm’s borehole. They produce a range of cask, keg and bottled beers that are available throughout Yorkshire and nationwide.

Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery is a collaboration between farmer and brewer, Tom Mellor from Wold Top Brewery and David Thompson. Yorkshire’s first single malt whisky distillery is a true field to bottle setup, with barley grown on, and water sourced from, the Wold Top farm at Hunmanby Grange.