Beer in the blood

Jim Helsby worked as a pathology technician in a local hospital before his passion for beer got the better of him. Richard Jones finds his York Wine and Beer Shop in rude health

It’s probably best not to know what happens to your bloodstream after a healthy (unhealthy?) session of beer drinking, but Jim Helsby probably has more idea than most.

Jim worked in the pathology laboratory of a local hospital for a number of years before he decided that beer, unlike water, was indeed thicker than blood.

“I originally wanted to start my own microbrewery,” Jim explains. “But in the late 1970s this was a particularly shaky business.” Instead he founded The York Beer Shop (the ‘wine’ in the title came later) with fellow pathologist Eric Boyd in 1985. Not that beer retailing at the time came without undue risk.

“When we started there were only a handful of specialist beer shops in the country,” Jim observes.

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, the beer industry 21 years ago in the United Kingdom was very different to the one we see today.

“Takeaway draught beer was the mainstay of our business then,” Jim continues. “Before the Guest Beer legislation was introduced you could probably only find around six traditional ales in the whole of York. So our six takeaway guest beers on handpump were particularly popular.” And it was not easy to sell bottled beer.

“The regional breweries were very much regional at the time and, with a few notable exceptions, weren’t particularly interested in bottled beers. So instead we stocked a number of exotic beers from all over the world. Many weren’t actually very exciting beers but they came from exciting sounding p.....

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By Richard Jones

Section : Spotlight

Page number : 43