Microbrews/Beers of the Month.

Merchant du Vin featuring Samuel Smith Brewery.

The Old Brewery at Tadcaster was founded in 1758 and is Yorkshire's oldest brewery. Samuel Smith is one of the few remaining independent breweries in England, and further is the last to utilize the classic Yorkshire Square system of fermentation solely in stone squares.

The rich Samuel Smith strain of yeast at The Old Brewery dates from the early 1900s. Hops are hand-weighed by the master hop blender, and the brewing water is drawn from a well sunk over 200 years ago.

First introduced to the U.S. market in 1978 by Merchant du Vin, Samuel Smith beers quickly became the benchmark ales for the emerging craft beer movement. To this day, they remain among the most awarded.

All Samuel Smith beers are vegan products, registered with The Vegan Society, as seen here.

Tadcaster is a market town dating back many hundreds of years. During the Roman period, its quarries supplied stone for the great military fortress at York. Today, ale is its principal export, brewed by three nationally famous local companies in a centuries old tradition. Samuel Smith is much the smallest of these breweries and alone retains its copper vessels, wooden casks and stone Yorkshire squares. Samuel Smith keeps grey Shire horses stabled at the brewery for local beer deliveries. Next to the brewery are the offices, the Little Delicatessen (selling the full range of Samuel Smith's bottled beers) and the Angel and White Horse inn.

Midway between York, Selby and Wetherby, Tadcaster lies just off the A64 road, which bypasses it to the south, leading to the A1. You can access Tadcaster via public transportation(it is approximately a two-hour train ride from London's King's Cross Station to York; then via rented car or public transportation to Tadcaster.