The Farmers Mart Aug-Sep 2019 - Issue 64 | Page 39

GREAT NEWSOME FARM 39
• AUG/SEP 2019
don’t tend to get that when you’re simply
growing a crop of wheat.’
Great Newsome Brewery is now one of
Yorkshire’s best established small brew-
eries. Their Sleck Dust ale is even sold in
bars in Milan and Great Newsome beers
including Frothingham Best and many
others are sold in bars, through wholesal-
ers throughout the UK and in farm shops
such as Farmer Copley’s in Pontefract.
‘We rebranded three years ago,’ says
Matthew. ‘It was a big step and an impor-
tant decision for us. We now understand
about marketing spend, something we
struggled with as farmers originally. Such
has been the demand for our beers we
are now at the point of building a new
brewery on this same site as we meet
the demand. It’s great news for our team
too.’
‘We’ve found that it is the person you
employ who is the key, not what they
know initially. Leanne joined us last year
and when our head brewer was away
for a week Leanne took over the brewing
and did a wonderful job. We have a really
good team in the brewery and we want
to look after them. We were fortunate to
‘ Great Newsome Brewery
is now one of Yorkshire’s
best established
small breweries
’
get a rural development grant for the new
brewery through European funding.’
The Hodgsons also started a Beer &
Music festival five years ago that has grown
from attracting 40 people in their garden
with a few acts on to a ‘little festival in a
day’ that this year attracted over 800 with
pitches for camping, camper vans and
caravans. They raise thousands of pounds
for charity.
Their Little Otchan shepherd’s hut is
one of the most private, exclusive holiday
accommodation venues that also now
includes a log burning hot tub. Each year
since starting with it they have had over
50 per cent occupancy and have won
three REYTA awards (Rural East Yorkshire
Tourism).
Holderness Logs is their newest business.
‘These days it’s important to have a
diverse portfolio,’ says Jonathan. ‘Out of
the blue came the opportunity to buy this
business from neighbouring farmer Steve
Biglin. He’d developed it from scratch in
the past three years supplying buk bags
of logs to the public for log burning stoves,
firepits, pizza ovens and chimeneas. We
found he was producing a real quality
log, naturally seasoned rather than kiln
drying that makes it more environmentally
friendly, so we haven’t changed any of the
process.’
‘The log season is largely September to
April which fits well with our farm business,
so it slots in nicely. It is all hardwood from
North Yorkshire forests. When dry enough
the logs are processed into the desired
lengths. We are supplying different bag
sizes to suit customers from a sackbarrow/
wheelbarrow size to a 1 cubic metre bag.
We were already a customer so we knew
the product was good. We’re now looking
at how we can expand our market.’