THE North Yorkshire Brewing Company was founded in 1989 in Middlesborough. Ten years later it relocated to old dairy buildings at Pinchinthorpe Hall, a moated house in the North York Moors National Park near Guisborough.
The hall was the home of the Lee family for many centuries until 1957 and is now a privately owned country house hotel. A wide range of cask and bottle-conditioned beers is produced, all made from organic ingredients and water from the house’s own spring.
This week’s beer includes ginseng as an ingredient, used for centuries in Chinese and Oriental medicine.
The colour is very pale yellow, almost lager-like, and there is a brief, effervescent head, subsiding quickly to a scanty covering of bubbles. The aroma is dry and grainy, with a prominent floral hoppiness and some yeast. In the mouth, it is quite light-bodied, dry with a slightly earthy back taste. Is this the ginseng? I don’t know since I’ve never tasted ginseng!
There are hints of caramel and biscuity malt too, with elderflower and lemony hops appearing towards the finish, which is dry, clean and bitter.
A pleasant, crisp, refreshing beer with all the added benefits of ginseng… whatever they might be.
• Recommended by Jim Helsby, of the York Beer And Wine Shop, Sandringham Street, York
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