A York tap room is reopening tomorrow (Friday) after a £50K refurbishment.
Brew York, on Walmgate, will reopen the doors to its Tap Room after a refurb that’s transformed the bar and brewery area.
The York-based craft beer brewery, which will soon be celebrating its 10th birthday, started work on one part of their Walmgate location last weekend to carry out some works to their flagship venue.
After an incredibly quick turnaround, they’re nearly ready to show the public what they’ve been up to this week.
Wayne Smith, Brew York’s co-founder and managing director, told YorkMix: “We’re really excited to be reopening this Friday.
“The refurbishment’s been a long time coming. We’ve been planning on doing it for over a year, but a few hiccups along the way – mainly utilities, electricity and water – have been a bit of a constant issue for us in this building.
“But now we can start improving the Tap Room to where we really want it to be, and the customer engagement is a big part of that.”
One of the main features of the refurbishment was to move the bar itself in front of the brewery. A new purpose 30ft bar with 22 taps has been built, with an 8ft high glass screen installed which allows visitors to see the brewery in action.
“It’s going to be much more visual,” said Wayne. “It’s a great seat to enjoy your pint, but it’s going to be much more engaging with the team who work at Brew York.
“You possibly might even be able to see Jack, our brewer, in the background, brewing beer while you have a pint. So, I think it’s going to be a really fun time to come and visit the tap room.”
Wayne, along with his business partner and Brew York co-founder Lee Grabham, were hugely influenced by what’s happening in the American beer scene.
In a recent trip to the States, they were inspired by the “engaging” customer experience over there. “We wanted people to sit at the bar and talk to customers and the bar team – that’s what we led with.”
The Tap Room at Brew York temporarily closed for the refurb, but the Beer Hall stayed open for the duration. “Hopefully going forwards, once these improvement works are underway, we can open both parts of the business seven days a week.”
Another new feature is the installation of four fresh beer tanks of the most highly-selling beers – Golden Eagle (Pilsner), Coney (Hazy Pale Ale), Time Travelling Taxi (Hazy IPA), and Juice Forsyth (IPA) – which holds over 3,500 pints of freshly brewed beer.
“We wanted to make that beer as fresh as possible and actually serve it from a tank to both the downstairs bar and the upstairs.”
The next stage of the refurbishment – cosmetic changes like new furniture – is to come in early January.
Wayne hopes that the refurb will “reinvigorate the love for the tap room again.
“For me, the tap room is the home of Brew York. It’s where we started ten years ago, and I want everyone to have that same love for it as I do.
“I think this will make a big difference in that customer experience, and hopefully make the tap room just as popular as the Beer Hall.”
It’s been a hugely successful year for Brew York so far, with a packed list of achievements for 2025. One of Wayne’s personal highlights was reopening the Old Grey Mare back in February.
“That venue is exactly the type of thing that I had in mind when we started a brewery. We wanted a traditional inn with all the fun of a tap room, but also the association you have with pub.”
Among their successes, Brew York have exported to China for the first time, gained new supermarket contracts such as with Co-op, and launched of their Brew+ concept, with three thriving Brew+Bao locations in Scarborough, Chapel Allerton, and Knaresborough.
One of their “really big projects” coming up around March 2026 is to open its largest site to date at Goole Market Hall.
Though the brand is growing and expanding both nationally and internationally, Wayne and the team isn’t done with York yet. “We’d love to have even more venues in and around York.
“The Old Grey Mare has massively convinced us that people do still want more choice from us, not just one venue in the city centre. They like to enjoy our beers in the suburbs where they live, and then come into the city centre on occasion.
“So yeah, we’re keeping our eyes peeled all the time.”
Wayne is keen to keep growing Brew York as a business, but never at the expense of what he’s passionate about – the beer and where patrons are drinking it.
“If you’d asked me ten years ago if I’d think we’d be at the scale we are now, the answer would definitely have been no,” said Wayne. “Every year, we reassess what was possible – we don’t want to stretch ourselves too thin.
“We want to make sure that customer experience is the same first class experience wherever you go. That’s the caution we always want to do, is make sure that our standards are maintained while trying to expand.
“So we definitely would like to keep growing as a brewery, but we don’t want to get to a scale where it’s all about spreadsheets and ticking boxes. It has to be about the beer first and then the environment to drink the beer in.
“Making sure that the customer experience is as similar as possible, or hopefully better than when we first set out to do this 10 years ago, is a really key thing for us.”
The Brew York Tap Room will reopen from this Friday at 5pm.
“I want people to come out and enjoy it and see it for themselves – and bear with us! It is a incremental upgrade: this is the stage one.
“Stage two will be January, and then we’ll start looking at the Beer Hall early next year.”
Take a look at what to expect in our gallery below.
Gallery
