Samuel Smith

Samuel Smith

Samuel Smith is the oldest brewery in the county of Yorkshire in northern England, and within the venerable halls of the Old Brewery in Tadcaster, founded in 1758, the outstanding beers of Samuel Smith are brewed to this day. The brewing water is still drawn from the same 26-metre-deep well sunk at the brewery's founding, and the Yorkshire Squares remain constructed of stone with the same special yeast strain used for over 200 years, while hops are added as whole cone hops to give the beer its particularly rich and distinctive character.

Samuel Smith is one of the last remaining independent exporting breweries in England and the last to employ the classic Yorkshire Square fermentation system exclusively in stone squares, with the rich Samuel Smith yeast strain in continuous use since the early 1900s and hops hand-weighed by the master hop blender. The diverse range spans classic pale ales, porters, creamy stouts and oatmeal stouts through to handcrafted organic fruit beers and lager, which served as a defining inspiration for American craft brewers in the 1980s and 1990s and helped bring classic British beer styles to worldwide recognition.

Samuel Smith takes particular pride in its magnificent white Shire horses, stabled in generous stalls behind the brewery and still harnessed to the dray for deliveries around Tadcaster on special occasions, a living symbol of the brewery's uncompromising dedication to tradition, craftsmanship and eccentricity that makes Samuel Smith one of the most fascinating and utterly distinctive breweries in the world.