ANCHOR brewery are one of the big hitters of the American craft beer movement.

The brewery traces its history back to the late 19th century. Anchor is renowned for its California Common, or Steam, beer as well as their Liberty Ale, and Porter, for decades now, and are considered the leading light of the rise in craft brewing throughout America.

The Bock beer, brewed for release each spring, is brewed to be darker, stronger, and more complex overall than their Steam beer, just as a traditional German Bock stands in relation to a Pilsner or Kolsch.

Pouring walnut with tobacco highlights, and a tight tan head, an aroma of banana, pear drops, and treacle rises from the glass.

The flavour is not as sweet as some Bocks I've had, it is still sweet, but this is a slightly drier, crisp affair, with a welcome ashy, roasted malt acidity cutting through the mix to break apart this rich toffee lager.

Chocolate raisins and cinder toffee are brought into relief by a subtle lemon sharpness and a spritzy carbonation, ending with a treacle-y, sweet and sour finish revealing a touch of black pepper and lemon-zest bitterness.

Recommended by Michael Bates, Trembling Madness, 48 Stonegate, York

REVOLUTIONS Brewery, from Castleford, are in no way a new presence on our shelves or on cask in our bar; they've been putting out a range of delightful, musically-themed beers for a while now, and they are a brewery that does a good job of producing a wide range of styles to a high standard.

Go Go is the brewery's American pale ale, although it is brewed at a more Anglo-friendly 4.5 per cent, but what it lacks in weight it delivers in flavour.

Pouring strawberry-blonde with a loose white head, the initial aroma is pure American hops; we're talking that typical cascade grapefruit and nutty pine, a touch of hay from the malt, and some rough, prickly nettles off in the distance. Very light bodied, with just a touch of crystal malts and a slight wheat creaminess, the hops certainly lead the show.

Melons and grapefruit lead the proceedings, drying the palate, with some strawberries and thyme in there, before a bone-dry finish with the characteristic lemon zest and orange pith American hop finish.

Carbonation is a touch on the high side, providing a sharp carbonic bite, pushing this from 'refreshing' right into the 'summer beer' category.

Recommended by Michael Bates, Trembling Madness, 48 Stonegate, York

There's that switch every beer lover makes - they go from thinking that all proper beer is brown, twiggy bitters or stout, to drinking almost exclusively micro-brewed and regional beers.

This is a wonderful thing – it's the equivalent of eating potatoes all your life, then walking into a greengrocer's, you should do it if you haven't already.

The only downside to it is that quite often we'll find a customer who'll refuse to return to lager, even a fine Czech pilsner, having made the leap, assuming the swill they used to drink is actually representative of the style. It isn't, and Victory's Prima Pils proves that lagers can be just as exciting as any other style, in the right hands.

Pouring a hazy lemon yellow with a short-lived, loose head, the aroma is quince jelly, sweet and nutty, with a touch of cracked black pepper and cut grass in there for good measure.

The flavour is slightly sweet, with light toffee notes, giving way to a precise, robust bitterness; crisp and clean, lemon zest and grapefruit vie with cedar and petrichor for the palate's attention.

The finish is dry, refreshing, and clean, backed by lemon pith bitterness. All this coming exclusively from German and Czech hops.

Victory have done it by the book, and done it exceedingly well. So give lager another shot, provided it's the right sort of course.

Recommended by Michael Bates, Trembling Madness, 48 Stonegate, York

IF the concept of a jasmine green tea India pale ale sounds familiar, it might be because you had this beer in its previous incarnation.

Once upon a time, this beer was sold under the brewery's 'Outlaw' sub-label of experimental beers, but it clearly did well enough to enter the main stable.

If it sounds alien to you, well you should probably just give in and try it. Brewed with jasmine flowers, jasmine green tea from Taylor's of Harrogate, and in collaboration with the renowned beer writer Melissa Cole, this beer has 'promising' written all over it.

Pouring a hazy gold, and giving rise to a rich meringue-whip head, the aroma is unsurprisingly jasmine-lead with only the faintest suggestion of rich tea biscuit malts in the background. It's the first sip that's the most exciting; a sweet, perfumed beer, High Tea fills your entire head with notes of tangerine, parma violets, and yes... jasmine, before a surge of green tea adds a herbal, slightly acidic, bitterness.

Pungent, delicate, and reasonably balanced, the bitter finish of the IPA is taken further by the dry green tea tannins, and it is this flavours lack of abrasive quality that keeps this IPA from becoming hard to drink.

Obviously if you don't like jasmine tea, you might not like this one (or maybe you're brewing your tea improperly), but you should give this a try regardless. It's genuinely refreshing, and could be just the ticket for next time the sun comes out.

Recommended by Michael Bates, Trembling Madness, 48 Stonegate, York

BREWED at Brewdog’s new brewery in Ellon, this is a new beer from a ‘new’ brewery. Only it isn’t a brewery; Gypsy Inc. is a new collective of contract brewers headed by the infamous Mikkeller.

So this is a beer at least somewhat related to Mikkeller, brewed at Brewdog... but it’s not either of their beers. Or something.

According to Brewdog, Gypsy Inc. have launched “over 600” commercial beers, and yet only two are currently available, two more are due soon, and nobody has heard of the other 596.

Hopefully somewhere beyond the smoke and mirrors is a nice beer for me to drink, because my head hurts now.

Pale Trail is a 4.7 per cent hoppy pale ale brewed with Citra, Simcoe and Tettnanger hops, and the former two really show in the aroma; dripping wet pineapple and Um Bongo. The beer itself is a lovely bright copper, in part because it isn’t bottle conditioned, with a delicate white head.

Of course the taste is what matters, however it isn’t, as you might expect from the aroma, aggressively hoppy. Rather it tastes like raw, unfermented wort; caramel sweetness and dry toasted cereal play off against gentle hop aromatics, and yet it’s remarkably light bodied.

It might be made by nobody, but you know what? This is a lovely beer for a sunny Spring day.