House of Trembling Madness

“No trip to York is complete without a visit to the House of the Trembling Madness. The pub is a bastion of craft beer in the North, though its national reputation transcends regions,” says Tim Ward, Northern Monk’s communications manager. We can’t disagree, even if Northern Monk’s long-standing relationship with the venue makes it biased. Famed, as Tim puts it, for its “unbelievably small kitchen, impressively huge collection of beers, and its rich and varied history, this medieval ale house will always be associated with its quirky taxidermy animal collection, and the staff who truly embody the spirit of ‘madness’.” 

“We fell into retailing beer in 2005 as part of an addition to our other business Forever Changes, which sold cool global fashion and hip giftware,” says Trembling Madness owner, Ian Loftus. “Then Forever Changes was turned into a spirit bar and beer shop in 2010 called Evil Eye. We loved beer so much that we moved the store into a nearby medieval property dating from 1180AD and called it the House of the Trembling Madness. In medieval times the Trembling Madness or Delirium Tremens (the DT's for short) was rife due to beer consumption being safer than the polluted water, so the name seemed appropriate.”