Business profile: Brew York
Issue 10
Brew York state of mind Brew York’s Founders Lee Grabham and Wayne Smith were first introduced by a mutual friend at a stag do in Germany in 2014, where they bonded over a shared passion for craft beer. Later meeting up at a BBQ, the pair embarked on some serious homebrewing, before a chance train of events in 2016 led to both of them being oered voluntary redundancy from their respective jobs at the same time. The duo took the plunge into full time brewing, locating a great site in central York with a riverside space perfect for the taproom they had planned. They soon outgrew the original site, taking on the three-story building next door before searching for their first additional site outside York. This turned out to be in nearby market town Pocklington, after local brewery Hop Studio decided to sell its taproom. The sale also included the Hop Studio brewery site to the north of York city centre a larger operation than the original Brew York site and perfect for expanding the
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Summer 2022 | SIBA Independent Brewer | www.siba.co.uk
Summer 2022
Brew York state of mind
Cover Story
business. Another retail site in Leeds, opened during the pandemic, completes the current business model, although there are plans to expand the retail arm further when the opportunity arises. All this expansion a doubling of production volumes has meant that Brew York has achieved amazing commercial results over the last year, an accomplishment that has not gone unnoticed, with Lee and Wayne taking to the stage at BeerX in March to collect not one, but two SIBA Business Awards Commercial Achievement and overall SIBA Brewery Business of the Year for 2022. Independent Brewer’s Editor Caroline Nodder jumped on a Zoom with them both in May to find out more about the business, and the pair were characteristically modest about their awards success, although extremely proud of the incredible and rousing reception they received from their peers in the room on the night…
