The Hop, York

Good beer in an open plan large space. Nice inside opening up to large back space with small stage

An Easter Saturday afternoon visit with the wife for a couple of pints. As per previous visits, a good range of ales at this Ossett owned pub and pizzeria with 11 on, every single one from a Yorkshire based brewery. The pints of Fernandes Malt Shovel Mild @ 3.8% & Rat Breweries Verminator @ 4.8% were both excellent. Also a bonus that you are able to use your Camra card here for a discount on a pint, 15% from memory. Always busy when I visit this pub (it’s a personal fav) and on this occasion it was jam packed by 5.30pm. Mainly an older crowd in the bar area and a couple of families out the back enjoying the pizza’s. The pizza’s look good but I’ve never eaten here. As I say a personal favourite of mine that always gets a visit when I’m in the city.

Very pleasant newly opened Osset brewery pub that doubles up as a Pizzeria at the back so you can enjoy freshly baked pizza with your beer. There are a few tabels around the bar area but this is mostly used as standing room on weekends when the bar gets very busy, towards the back is long tabels with benches for drinkers to sit and enjoy pizza although pizza is not mandatory. There are many keg lines dispensing imported beer like Brooklyn and blue moon as well as local stuff from thornbridge. There is also a very good selection of real ales with the full Osset core range with a very nice drink of big Red coming inn at £3.30. the other beers are from the sister brewery Rat brewery as well as some beers from Fernandez. All beers sampled were in good nick, i just wish the rotation of guest beers was a bit more varied as the beers listed seem to not change much and steer away from pale hoppy types. a bit more variety would really improve things although the beer is still of good quality and I would defiantly return

The Hop is an Ossett brewery house. Once inside there is a fairly large room that runs to the rear,the bar is to the front left,there is a long bench seat to the front right,plus a few small tables and stools to the front,there is a lot more seating to the rear which looked more of a dining area. There was a very good choice of real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Ossett Blonde which went down very well,the other beers i noted were Ossett Big Red /Silver King and Excelsior,the only guest beer i noted was Acorn Edge. Background music was playing and the pub was quite busy with more people dining than drinking. Pub visited 23/5/2015

Following the success of sister venues in Wakefield, Leeds and Sheffield, this became the Ossett brewery’s fourth ‘Hop’ pub when it opened back in 2013. The pub maintains the brand’s winning combination of live music and a varied ale range, although this venue also advertises itself as a pizzeria and seems to place more of an emphasis on food than the three bars that preceded it. Entering from Fossgate, you find yourself in a bare boarded room with some attractive coloured floor tiles around the bar area. The rather grand looking servery is over to the left and has a decorative counter and comparatively plain dark wood bar back, although there are some fine white, green and blue tiles above and to the side. High banquette seating to the right serves some unusually tiny tables with large mirrors on the wall above, which has been covered with wallpaper depicting what appear to be pump clips. A large decorative urn and several statues have been put on display to lend the place a sense of history and a few huge barrels are stood on a ledge over the front entrance. The room narrows a little as you pass the bar, with the wall opposite painted with various quotes and decorated with a number of small mirrors. Once past the bar, you find yourself in a bare boarded dining room with a large sky-lit roof and plenty of seating. More impressive decorative items have been positioned around the room and further on there is access to the restaurant/pizzeria area, which I didn’t get around to exploring. The ale range was led, but not dominated, by Ossett beers. The full range comprised Ossett Yorkshire Blonde, Big Red, Silver King and Excelsior, Rat White Rat, Fernandes Night Jar, Great Heck Voodoo Mild, Exit 33 Thirst Aid, Half Moon Hull Moon, Shipyard APA and Thornbridge Bayern. Two real ciders rounded out the hand pulled options and there was a decent keg and bottled selection also available. I tried the Thirst Aid, which was in decent shape but maybe not quite the exciting beer I was expecting. I thought this was a very well presented city centre venue and an excellent contrast to the classic, traditional Blue Bell over the road. This is a venue with potential to attract a wide customer base and acts as a good example of how to create a modern venue which can appeal to the traditionalist as well. Well worth including on a city centre crawl and a good addition to the ‘Hop’ portfolio.

A new (2013) York city centre pub and pizzeria run by Ossett brewery in a very nice shop conversion. Enter to the main bar area with a lovely dark wood barback, high ceiling, hogsheads above the doorway and some original tiling. Beyond is an unexpectedly large airy extension with live music facilities and the pizzeria. This area houses tiled walls, large portraits and a nice glass ceiling which allows for plenty of light. Check out the large multi-coloured glass lightshades hanging from the ceiling. As to be expected, the ales were Ossett-heavy, I went for a guest - Great Heck Voodoo Mild - which was in excellent shape. Also a couple of real ciders available as well as some craft keg. Very impressive; not a traditional pub per se but certainly good fun and I imagine it would really come into its own on a live music night.

Behind the large windowed frontage of the Hop is a high ceilinged L shaped bar with seating that runs along the front windows and along the right hand wall. At the rear is a much larger area that houses a pizzeria and more seating. This area looks as though it used to be outside before a roof with a large skylight was added. There is a stage along the right hand wall that is used to host live music and comedy. There were no distractions such as gaming machines or televisions, but there was some low background music. The bar supports 11 hand pumps and many fonts for dispensing premium draught products. Stone baked pizzas are priced around £7.50 and are available at lunchtime and evening Monday to Thursday and all day Friday to Sunday. I was surprised how quiet it was during my visit on a recent Friday at lunchtime. During my visit there were no complaints about the beer choice or quality, but I found the atmosphere to be non-existent. In my opinion there are better options nearby so I do not plan to be rushing back anytime soon.

As others have mentioned easily mistaken for a Pizza restaurant from the outside rather than the quite decent bar it actually is. This is the fourth and most recent venue of the Yorkshire Hop concept which opened in 2013. Well described by previous reviewers I liked the light and airy high ceilinged main bar area with its tiled surroundings and dark wood serving area and then the separate Pizza restaurants at the back through an archway. But I can imagine it’s one of those venues that gets quite noisy when busy and it was getting quite loud and lively atmosphere with not a great deal of us in on this late Friday lunchtime. Impressive range of craft and cask beers are on offer detailed on the main board to the left as you enter and I ducked the available Ossett brews to go for the Great Heck Voodoo Mild which was in good condition.