Kirkstall Brewery

Steve Holt founded Kirkstall Brewery in 2011, reviving the brewing that once went on beside Kirkstall Abbey, and has since become an unusual figure in the trade: rather than selling up, he has bought failing Leeds breweries — the Leeds Brewery brand in 2022, North Brewing out of administration in 2024 — to keep them out of private-equity hands and save the jobs. The brewery's Taproom and Kitchen on Kirkstall Road is where to drink it, by the river on the way to the abbey. A genuinely independent brewery run by someone who keeps buying independence back. Go for the beer and the story both.