News

We're delighted to share the news that our best-selling beer festival has reached the final of the Event of the Year award in the Yorkshire Post Tourism Awards.    “The Big Sky Beer Festival has gone from strength to strength over the years and is a great platform to showcase great beer from all over the UK plus local musicians and food producers. We’re very excited to have won a place in the final and look forward to the dinner next month,” said director, Kate Balchin. We face stiff competition from HERD, ‘A Night Under the Stars’ - Yorkshire Children’s Charity and Grantley Hall,...

The teams at both Wold Top and Spirit of Yorkshire are celebrating after being announced as finalists in the 9th annual Scarborough News Excellence in Business awards. We have been shortlisted in the new Rural Business category that celebrates businesses based in a rural community, and sister company, Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery has reached the final of the Best Independent Business Award. Interestingly, both of us have been shortlisted for the Sustainability award - may the best business win! Co-founder of both Wold Top and Spirit of Yorkshire, Tom Mellor said: “Both businesses have shown great resilience during the last two years and it’s...

Come and join us onboard the Southern Star, home to the SeaGrown Centre, on 8th November to hear us talk about the unique beers we produce from kelp harvested by the SeaGrown team, taste some beer and sample some tasty snacks. Brand Ambassador, Jo and Michelle from our events team will talk about the beers we’re brewing from Yorkshire seaweed, Alice from SeaGrown will share information about their unique large-scale seaweed farm and the SeaGrown Centre chef, Chris will prepare a selection of snacks to accompany the beer-tasting.  “Since 2018, SeaGrown has been sustainably growing and harvesting seaweed right here on the Yorkshire Coast....

History: Today, the words beer and ale mean much the same, but the word ‘ale’ was originally reserved for brews produced from malt without hops.  This was the original drink of the Anglo-Saxons and English, whereas ‘beer’, a brew using hops, probably originated in Germany. The cultivation of hops was probably introduced from Europe to Kent at the end of the 15th century.  Our national drink until then had been ale, unhopped and sometimes flavoured with herbs such as wormwood. In those early days, the sole reason for using hops was to preserve the beer in good condition: the bittering...

We’re in a fortunate position here at Wold Top to be surrounded by beautiful countryside and nature, and it’s something we strive to maintain and help if we can. From a floral perspective, we’re lucky to benefit from a large variety of wildflowers and plants, from daisies and dandelions to clover and cowslips and lots more besides. We’re also very proud of our wild orchids, which appear in May time, and sit, like little purple towers amongst the buttercups and grasses on our chalk grassland bank. Alongside the smaller insects and animals we also have the more elusive and harder...