Meet the champion beer maker now running two Yorkshire breweries

In amid the casks and general clutter are three reliable friends: Tom, Dick and Harry.

Between them, these three fermenting vessels have brought joy to thousands, responsible for the vast and enjoyable output from Stu's nano-brewery beneath the North Riding Hotel.

Now though, they face competition. Not from another brew pub, nor from a rival brewery. But from Stu himself. For he now has not one brewery, but two.

A few months ago, Stu moved into modern new premises on a small industrial unit just outside Scarborough.

Business was booming and demand was outstripping supply. He had outgrown the small kit he had in his pub cellar, with its low ceilings, and nooks and crannies. But he didn't want to tear up his labour of love.

The North Riding BrewPub in Scarborough

So the pub kit remains, under the control of Stu's stepson John. And Stu has taken day-to-day charge of the new brewery, four miles away in East Ayton. Beers from the latter will be badged up under the name North Riding Brewery Ltd. Beers from the former will be sold under the name North Riding BrewPub.

"I always saw myself getting a bigger brewery," says Stu. "The pub is doing really well and still growing year on year, but we had a two-barrel kit in the pub, we have a ten-barrel kit here. We were running out of our core beers. You cannot rush beer, you cannot rack it off a few days early. You can never tell yeast what to do, so the fermenting gave some challenges."

There are no such problems at the new brewery, which is large enough to meet demand, and spacious with it. No need to duck to clear the ceilings here.

Stu Neilson in his new brewery

It's doesn't yet feel as homely - the fermenters remain un-named, unlike Tom, Dick and Harry back at the pub, for instance. But Stu is enjoying being free of the constraints that were quaint for a visitor but severely limiting for business.

"It's brilliant here," he says. "I absolutely love it. And then if I've had a busy day here, it's really nice to go back to the pub and have a pint at tea time. There's nothing better than doing a good day's graft then sitting among your friends having a good chinwag."

The pub recently took on a new full-time member of staff, the first outside the family for 15 years, and continues to thrive.

Stu began brewing at the pub in 2011, and made his name with excellent pale, hoppy beers, such as Citra, Nelson Sauvin (or Neilson Sauvin, as he first called it) and Mosaic. They were popular with his customers - not to mention himself - but in recent years he has gained a reputation for speciality beers as well.

Christmas Kitty, which be brews each winter with Brass Castle brewery, is a superb dark beer, oozing Christmas pudding flavours. Life's A Beach, another collaboration with Brass Castle, combined pineapple, mango and coconut and was well received when it hit the bars this summer.

And then Raspberry Red Ale, its self-explanatory collaboration with Bad Seed Brewery in Malton, wowed the crowd and won the top award at the York Beer and Cider Festival on Knavesmire in September.

The brewery's own beers do reach York semi-regularly, though not as often as many other breweries, which is a shame. So you could do much worse than head out to the coast, to the North Riding BrewPub itself in North Marine Road .

It's pretty inconspicuous to look at but serves splendid ales and excellent food. More than 3,000 different beers have now been sold in the pub in the past decade, including those straight from the basement but a great many other guest ales as well.

When I popped in last Sunday, El Dorado and Magnum Opus were on from the pub, along with Red Citra from the new brewery, while guest ales included The Pokies by Blackjack, Espresso Logic by Bad Co, Timothy Taylor's Landlord and York Brewery's Guzzler.