THE latest addition to York's beer scene has thrown open its doors for the first time.

Brew York, which is housed in the Enterprise Centre off Walmgate, hosted a launch event on Saturday. Owners Lee Grabham and Wayne Smith say they were overwhelmed by the number of people who came down to support them.

Their brewery also aims to appeal to people with a family-friendly cafe bar just yards from the brewing equipment, a small gift shop and a small riverside garden.

Lee added: "Saturday was a totally unexpected success. If we had had half the amount of people there, it would have been a roaring success.

"Our capacity is 110, and we were full all day, so I estimate we had between 500 and 600 people there."

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They hosted eight different live bands and ran brewery tours, as well as serving street food to the crowds of beer lovers throughout the afternoon.

The event proved so popular that the brewery was in danger of running out of beer, Lee said, even though they had prepared much more than they ever expected to sell.

At one point they considered closing early, as the beer stocks did not look like they would last, but in the end the party drew to a close at 11pm.

Lee said: "We just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who came down and supported us, and to the musicians who played on the day.

"We need to thank the people who volunteered to help on the day as well, as the brewery only has two full time members of staff - Wayne and I."

He added: "We do want to apologise to our neighbours though, as we had some complaints about the noise. For future events we will have a better control of the noise levels."

From now on, the brewery bar will be open on Fridays and Saturdays from 12pm to 11pm, and Lee and Wayne hope to run monthly events with music or street food.

The premises are just feet from the River Foss and flooded after Christmas, but the building was empty at the time.