HE may be small by name, but his ideas are anything but.

In fact, little by little, he is building something potentially rather grand.

Stu Small, owner of Little Brew brewery, has moved north from London, recycled a champion brewery kit from Edinburgh, and settled right here in York, opening an exciting new chapter in the city’s beer scene.

His first beer, Gold, has already been available in York Tap, The Maltings, the Rook and Gaskill and Micklegate 127. It’s a tangy pale ale, brewed with Endeavour hop and with an ABV of 4.2 per cent, and it seems to have gone down well, but some drinkers have also been given feedback forms to help Stu and his brewer Billy Taylor, formerly of Cross Bay Brewery in Morecambe, refine the recipe.

Further beers will soon follow it out of the brewery, a ten-barrel plant in an industrial unit in Auster Road at Clifton Moor. Drinkers can look forward to Porter (five per cent ABV), Ruby (5.4 per cent), IPA (5.6 per cent) and a strong ale called Extra Tusks, which weighs in at six per cent and is named in honour of the brewery’s elephant emblem. Little Brew, but certainly no small beer, it seems.

Stu’s story is an unusual one in York’s beer scene. Several new breweries have been born in recent years in the city, but this is only the second existing operation to relocate here from elsewhere.

Stu was based in Camden but wanted a move away from the crowded London scene, and identified York as the ideal new home. He then set up a crowd-funding investment website, which raised more than £100,000 from 161 investors, and set about finding premises and a kit.

The former came at Clifton Moor; the latter 200 miles north, just outside Edinburgh. Stewart’s Brewery in Loanhead have won numerous awards in recent years, notably for their Holyrood and Embra beers, but they were expanding and needed a bigger outfit. If Stu and Billy can delivery similar success on their old kit, then York’s pub-goers are in for a treat.

“It was a no-brainer,” says Stu. “We know it makes good beer so it’s up to the skills of the brewer to make sure it works.”

It’s a year since Stu decided to up sticks from the capital and move to York, and he seems delighted with the move.

“I try not to look at London too much, with either regret or pleasure,” he says. “But there are 70-plus breweries there now and it seemed the right thing to do, to relocate the business.

“I had been to York as a tourist and as a child, going here, there and everywhere, but I did not appreciate the personality of York until I came here. I have been pleasantly surprised by the reception from the general public and the business community. People have been extremely welcoming and massively positive.”

Stu says he has been pleased with the feedback from the first customers and is glad to be dealing already with some of York’s best landlords, ensuring the beer is looked after well, and says he has been buoyed by the enthusiasm.

“It can seem brewing is a bit old-hat these days, with a lot of breweries around York,” he says. “But I think people have been excited about having another brewery, and we are talking to people about doing some collaborations as well.”