Brewing: The Fundamentals, November 2025 Just a few of the great comments from people attending the latest course and we will be doing the same again in April and November next year. Please look for details and an application form on the training section of the Brewing Services web page. “This has been a truly […]

Steve Hobman meets David Smith, the low-profile brewing guru who has had a hand in creating some of the UK’s best-known beers and breweries’ Our very own unsung beer guru has recently been elected to the the CAMRA Real Ale Hero’s Hall of Fame as he celebrates fifty years in the brewing industry and during […]

The course designed by brewers for brewers. Join us in York for the next one in spring 2026! More information coming soon.

David Smith explains the success and longevity of Brewing Services in conversation with podcaster Chris Fordy at Northern Powerhouses.

Society of Independent Brewers National Beer Awards 2025. It’s so nice year on year to see brewers we have worked with do well in beer competitions at both regional and national level, and this year’s SIBA National competition was no exception. Just to make it to the finals is an accolade in itself and to […]

It’s so nice year on year to see brewers we have worked with (highlighted in bold below), do well in beer competitions at both regional and national level, and this year’s SIBA National competition was no exception. Just to make it to the finals is an accolade in itself and to know you are amongst […]

Plenty to celebrate this February: Last week we saw CAMRA hold their 2025 Winter Beer Festival at Magna Science Adventure Centre near Sheffield and it was pleasing to see two of our breweries come away with gongs in their respective categories; Acorn Brewery won a bronze medal for Gorlovka Imperial Stout, 6.5%Alc., in the Strong […]

This is the message from SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates, who have launched a new campaign which is seeking to make it easier for beer drinkers to identify beer from independent breweries in pubs, bars, and shops as demand for local beer rises across the UK. Whilst it’s pleasing to see brewery […]

“The understanding of the science of brewing should be a fundamental part of the skills of the brewing team, to optimise efficiency, consistency and, above all, quality.” Rob Smith Back in October 1989, we wrote and ran the first “Fundamentals of Mini-Brewing” course in Malton, and this has now become what we believe is the […]

We are always pleased to see one of the breweries we help set up doing well, and even better when it’s with one of the beers we helped create. It might have been 20 years ago but a good clear beer, well brewed, will always shine through the haze.  

Well done to Wold Top for claiming first and second place overall in the keg competition!   Wold Top Brewery Overall SIBA NE Keg Champion Wold Top Brewery-Gold Headland Red Ale 4.3% Alc Wold Top Brewery-Silver Landmark Lager 4.2% Alc And a few more to add to the tally: Wold Top Brewery-Silver: Sun Drench Pale […]

How my entry into the SIBA survey prize draw led to a subsidised place on an excellent training course  

Just to show the older recipes can still produce award winning beers now as they have for many years; following on from Acorn’s Barnsley Bitter winning Gold and becoming SIBA Champion beer of the North East, we now have Cairngorm Brewery’s Black Gold sweet stout becoming the overall Champion Beer of Scotland. More recently we […]

Lune Brew Co. enlisted our ‘New Brewery Start-Up Package’ part of which, involved stripping and relocating a 20 BBL Moeschle kit in West Sussex to Lancashire for re-location at the Silk Mill in Galgate. We hope to be doing the first commissioning brews in the next few weeks with the new brewing team at Lune […]

Congratulations to Acorn Brewery on a well-deserved first place.  

  For anyone reading the wider press and brewing periodicals of late it may not be immediately apparent that we have witnessed a complete sea change in respect to the selection of styles of beer available on the bar. Recent press articles might suggest cask is doomed whilst others seem to suggest a revival of […]

Brewing – The Fundamentals November 2022 The end of another successful and very enjoyable brewing course in York with some very appreciative (if weary), attendees just about to head home. We had some very nice comments at the end of the course: ‘The theory was well explained and backs up the brewing process’ ‘Fawcett’s was […]

We’ve always enjoyed going to the SIBA Regional Beer competitions as it’s a great way of meeting brewers, other suppliers and having a bit of fun, and the SIBA Indie Beer Competition was no exception. We don’t often get involved with judging at beer competitions, preferring to stay in the background, helping out and chatting […]

  Coniston No.9:  the World’s best barleywine. It’s always good when we see one of our breweries do well in a competition, and even better when we’ve had a hand in creating the recipe. So to have one of our beers crowned best in the world in its category is a definite feather in the […]

Brewing Services congratulates client Old Farmhouse Brewery. See the details here: Old Farmhouse Brewery (@StDavidsBrewery) tweeted at 9:09 am on Sat, May 14, 2022: Oh wow!! Thank you @Food_DrinkWales for our highly commended award, for best start-up business. Out of over 250 business nominations in 13 categories, we are super proud to have been shortlisted […]

  We are seeing a gradual return to normality after the doldrums of 2020 and 2021, and the outlook is looking much brighter for the small brewer. There is certainly a much more positive buzz around the industry at present and demonstrated by the attendance of brewers at SIBA BeerX this year.   Things in […]

                  November 2021 Now re-named ‘Brewing – The Fundamentals’ we ran the first of our new, updated, brewing course face to face for the first time in two years. Although we have been restricted to Zoom only teaching for the last two years, it has allowed us […]

We’ve really missed  being able to run the Fundamentals course in person (Zoom is never quite the same). So It’s really great to be back running the course in person again,  and able to get out and about to visit breweries like Treboom to get some hands on experience. Lectures continue this week with visits planned […]

In this Brewers Journal podcast Rob Smith talks extensively about why quality and consistency should be at the top of every brewer’s agenda.    

Brewing Services Ltd having working with Drop Bear for the last twelve months, developing the double gold award-winning New World Lager recipe, as well as reformulating their Yuzu, Tropical and Bonfire Stout recipes. So fingers crossed that they are are all double gold winners, or perhaps even platinum, in next year’s awards. More here: http://https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sarah-mcnena-aa2ab0166_bringing-the-awards-home-european-beer-challenge-activity-6816681121607122944-zHz6 […]

  Our latest start-up project is Bier Edinburgh, which is now finally underway, after a bit of a delay, thanks to covid.  The Keller forms part of a complex of buildings just off Picardy Place in Edinburgh, with the Bier Edinburgh Brewery situated in a specially designed brewing area just off the main bar and […]

Drop Bear Beer Co has succeeded in securing a £1.8million equity investment to build a dedicated alcohol-free brewery. The development of its brewery will allow Drop Bear to increase production and market share and fuel the company’s drive to establish Drop Bear as a key national and international player in the burgeoning alcohol-free market. Founded […]

It’s no surprise to us that our longtime client, Ayr Brewery has been chosen to supply beer for the Six Nations Championships Virtual Rugby events. We’ve been involved in the recipes for many of their Champion Beers of Scotland and this latest accolade is well deserved. Further details courtesy of the Ayr Advertiser: A local […]

2020 has proved to be an eventful and difficult year to say the least (carefully avoiding the much overused ‘U’ word). I’d like to say 2021 will be better, but probably not for six months at least as we continue to grapple with the effects of Covid lockdowns, plus the effects of Brexit on beer […]