Went in to the North York Moors today. Ended up in Cropton, which has a lovely pub with a brewery next to it. The Cropton Brewery. They have somewhere around 16 beers of their own, plus a few more they brew for super-chain store Marks and Spencer. They are well known for their “Two Pints” English Bitter, which, sadly was not available on tap at the time.
In the pub I had their steak pie made with Cropton’s ‘Scoresby Stout.’ Steak pie is quite possibly one of my favourite dishes of all time. Its sad that its impossible to find a steak pie in Canada, and if you do its very disappointing. They’re always a total slap in the face to pies in general. So this steak pie was a real treat. Hands down the second best steak pie I’ve ever had. The only better ones are the ones made by my mother. Quite possibly because she usually uses moose instead of beef. You can’t beat moose meat.
As far as the beer goes I had the Monkmans Slaughter and Yorkshire Warrior. Monkmans Slaughter is a Strong English Bitter. Very dark, very delicous. Best beer I’ve had so far in my five days in this country. Yorkshire warrior is another English Bitter. A darker ruby colour, and tastes quite good. Its sitting in second place right now. Next time I’m in Marks and Spencer I will be picking up some more Monkmans Slaughter and will try out a couple of the other brews from Cropton Brewery.
The tour was very informative. Our tour guide was a gentleman named Mick. Who, claiming to not be an employee of the brewery, certainly knew his stuff. The fermentation tanks above, while not actually made of copper, are Canadian made. The only disappointing thing to the whole trip was that the brewery tour did not include samples.
