A York area brewery is enjoying success making ‘own label’ beer for some of the city’s most well-known pubs and restaurants.

Ainsty Ales of Acaster Malbis has announced its first such collaboration with La Vecchia Scoula in Low Petergate.

The arrangement was instigated by the brewery’s sales manager Claire Green sees the Italian restaurant ‘brand up’ a bottled lager for the restaurant.

The bottled lager ‘Jewel of York’ will be available in 330ml bottles and also draught in 50l kegs.

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La Vecchia Scoula, which opened up in 2013, in a 300-year-old former girl’s school, also plans to sell Ainsty Ales’ keg lager at its sister venue at 31 Castlegate, L’Osteria Italiana.

Its general manager Cipriano Martinez-Gomez said: “working with Ainsty Ales was an obvious choice. They’re an established, award-winning York-based brewery. But the fantastic difference was being able to meet Claire and Andy face-to-face, which is very important to me.”

“I love the design of our new bottled Lager and look forward to seeing our guests drinking the Lager.”

The second collaboration is with the Golden Ball public House on Bishophill, also in central York.

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The Grade II-listed pub at 2 Cromwell Road dates back over 200 years and is the first community co-operative pub in the city.

The free-of-tie pub has regularly stocked Ainsty Ales for the past five years and when Andy asked general manager Hannah Hutchinson if she would consider using Ainsty Ales for their permanent house beer, Andy was delighted when she said he would.

Hannah said: “Getting Ainsty back on the bar as a permanent pale ale is a great way to celebrate my 10th year working at the Golden Ball! We're all about supporting local breweries and Andy at Ainsty has certainly supported us over the years too.  We're lucky to have such a thriving pub.”

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Andy told the Press: “We’re very appreciative with the strong sales we’re currently seeing in the York / Greater York area from pubs and restaurants. “
He continued: “It’s been widely reported about how difficult running a small brewery is just now, having battled through COVID, we now face increased Cost of Production and are working hard to catch up on arrears forced upon us. 

“What we’ve found though is a big increase in the support-local movement towards Ainsty Ales. This has come from pubs based in York, which means we can be much more productive where delivering is concerned and also from our eshop customers and of course our very loyal Taproom Locals!”

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Andy added: “I’m very confident for the future with the way sales are currently going and what we have in the pipeline for 2023 …. please continue to support local and independent!”

For more details about Ainsty Ales Brewery and Taproom, go to https://ainstyales.co.uk/