East Yorkshire Brewery defies weather to deliver bumper sales

A Wold Newton brewery is celebrating after recording its best Christmas sales ever despite the inclement weather.

Wold Top Brewery, based 110 metres above sea level at the top of the Yorkshire Wolds, battled against extreme weather conditions to reach its hundreds of customers throughout East, West and North Yorkshire in the run up to Christmas.

Commenting on the challenges that the weather posed, Mark Skinn, who is responsible for delivering Wold Top Brewery's award winning ales, said; "They were some of the worst driving conditions that I have ever known in all of my years delivering, but thanks to the winter tyres on all the vans, we didn't let anyone down. Not only that, but we did a fair bit of rescuing others too!"

Sales of the brewery's cask ales to hotels, pubs and restaurants have been buoyant as the popularity of cask ales has risen for the third successive year. Now accounting for 7.9% of all beer sales, the success of quality cask ales is attributed to the fact that people are going out less, but are looking for something special to drink when they do go out.

Wold Top Brewery owner Tom Mellor explained how a brewing calendar initiative has also helped to grow the brewery's sales; "At the beginning of 2010 we decided to brew a special cask ale every month and published a brewing calendar on our website. The feedback from publicans and hoteliers has been very positive and they really appreciate having a new ale every month to offer customers something different. We've also been able to have some fun with the names of the beers, our Easter ale was called Bunny's Revenge and our Halloween beer was called Worts n'ale for example."

Other notable events in 2010 for the family run farm diversification business include winning the title of Business that has done something special for Bridlington and the Wolds at the Bridlington and Wolds Business Awards 2010, Tom Mellor being awarded SME Director of the Year at the Institute of Directors Yorkshire Director Of The Year Awards, Gluten free beer Against the Grain winning Highly Commended in the Free From Food Awards and more gold stars at the Guild of Fine Food Great Taste awards.