The man who started it all

Ted Bruning talks to Martin Sykes from Selby, the Yorkshire brewer that kick started the microbrewing revolution

You might be in a brewpub anywhere in the world, sipping a beer freshly made on the premises. You might be at your local, ordering yet another tasty treat from its ever-changing guest-list. Or you might be at home in front of the television, uncapping a bottle-conditioned ale...

Wherever you are in the world, if you’re enjoying a beer from a microbrewery you have a quiet 60-year-old man from Yorkshire, England, to thank. For it was 35 years ago this month (November) that Martin Sykes refilled the long-dormant mash tun of his family’s defunct brewery and unwittingly kicked off a global revolution.

Selby Brewery was established in World War I by the Middlebrough family as an extension to its maltings, the huge and rather sombre brick building that still dominates the brewery yard.

In 1944, with the last of the Middlebroughs dying, the brewery along with its bottling business, wholesale delivery route, and three pubs were sold to Martin’s grandfather Lionel.

In the hard post-war years the brewery struggled, and in 1954 it was closed. Selby was operated as a wholesaler and bottler by Martin’s uncle until his death in the late 1960s, when the family considered selling. But Martin, then a law lecturer in Hull and living in the brewer’s house at Selby (where he still lives today), had other ideas and volunteered to take over the running of the firm.

Those were the days of keg, and there was a constant barrage of public and media criticism against the disappearance of traditiona.....

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By Ted Bruning

Section : Spotlight

Page number : 52