CAMRA Good Beer Guide puts West Yorkshire first

Sep 11 2009 by Henryk Zientek, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WEST Yorkshire is Britain’s biggest region for real ale – and Huddersfield is one of its hotspots.

Figures from real ale campaign group Camra show that West Yorkshire has the most real ale breweries in the UK with 34 – many of them are in the Huddersfield area.

West Yorkshire is followed by Norfolk with 31 real ale breweries and Derbyshire and North Yorkshire, both with 28.

Devon has 27 with Cumbria on 26, Greater Manchester on 25 and Gloucestershire on 21.

The top 10 is completed by Cornwall with 20 and Staffordshire with 19 real ale breweries.

The survey, published to coincide with the launch of Camra’s 2010 Good Beer Guide, said more breweries were now operating in the UK than at any time since the Second World War – with 71 starting production in the last 12 months and taking the national total to 711.

New breweries in Huddersfield include The Nook Brewery set up by brother and sister Ian Roberts and Sheila Sutton, licensees at The Nook pub, Longwood.

They join existing micro-breweries such as Riverhead at Marsden, Linfit at Linthwaite, Mallinsons at Lindley, Summer Wine at Honley and Dewsbury’s Anglo Dutch Brewery.

John Broadbent, of Golcar Brewery, said: “Real ale seems to be doing something right. I have been saying so for a long time!”

Mr Broadbent, who launched his business at Swallow Lane, Golcar, in 2002, said: “I have never been so busy supplying local pubs and wholesalers.