A BREWERY is launching a special beer to fund brain tumour research after a York bistro’s assistant manager developed an aggressive form of the cancer.

Jon’s Blonde will be sold at the Walmgate Ale House in Walmgate, where Jon Moss worked until he fell ill last August with grade four glioma.

Fifty pence from every pint bought will go to the Brain Tumour Charity to fund research into the illness, which is currently incurable and life-limiting.

The pale session ale, made by the Half Moon Brewery at Ellerton in East Yorkshire, may also be sold at several York pubs where Jon is a regular.

Jon, 39, from the Leeman Road area, said the support he had received from colleagues at the bistro and from the brewery was a ‘fantastic’ help at a difficult time.

He said that while the research would not help him, he hoped it would soon ensure effective treatment for patients with such a condition in the future.

Jon said he had been apparently fit and well until one day last August when he noticed he had a headache.

He thought little of it, even when it continued for several days. “I thought it must be a migraine,” he said. “Then the next thing I knew I was waking up in hospital.”

His partner Avril King said the pain in his head became extreme and his speech became jumbled, and at one stage he suffered a seizure so severe it fractured his spine. She said he was rushed from York Hospital with a blue light to Hull Royal Infirmary’s neurology department for an MRI and the ‘bombshell’ diagnosis was then made.

Jon said doctors were able to remove one of three tumours but it was too dangerous to operate on the other two, and he had since been treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy in an effort to slow down the cancer’s development.

However, it had affected his peripheral vision and he had not been able to return to work - "although they’ve kept me on in an honorary capacity!"

Jon said the form of tumour was so rare that the average GP would see only two cases in their careers, and it could not currently be cured, but said he wanted to praise staff at York Hospital A & E, HRI’s neurology unit, the Queens Centre at Castle Hill Hospital, who had all been ‘unbelievable,’ and also McMillan nurse and York Against Cancer for their ‘outstanding’ support.

He said: “I want people to know that when you get this sort of condition, and you’re scared, there is help available if you ask for it.”

Jackie and Tony Rogers, who run the micro-brewery, invited ale house staff along yesterday as they began making the limited edition ale, which is set to have a strength of 3.8 ABV.

The beer will be fermented for about a week before being put into casks, and is set to go on sale in early March - at the start of Brain Tumour Awareness Month. Tony said it would be sold as a cask ale but with a possibility of a bottled version also being sold later.