AN ale named after the first witnessed UK meteorite fall is to be brewed by two farmers - close to where it hit the earth more than 200 years ago.

Friends and neighbours, Tom Mellor and Derek Gray, have set up a brewery in a converted 19th Century granary at Mr Mellor's home at Hunmanby Grange, Wold Newton, North Yorkshire.

With the help of a £48,000 Rural Enterprise Scheme grant from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, they will be brewing two Yorkshire real ales.

Both Falling Stone and Wold Top Bitter, brewed at the men's Wold Top Brewery, will use the partners' own barley, and water drawn from a bore hole on the farm.

"I have been a real ale fan since my student days and one day it occurred to me that we have 95 per cent of the ingredients - water and barley - available here on the farm," said Mr Mellor.

"Derek was very enthusiastic about the project and we thought we could definitely make a success of it.

"My grandfather bought this farm in 1945, but before the war he ran a large coaching inn on the edge of the Pennines, so I guess I am following a family tradition."

Falling Stone is so called after the spot, commemorated by a monument on Mr Gray's land, where the first witnessed meteorite fell to earth, on December 13, 1795.

While the original Falling Stone has pride of place in the British Museum's collections, its liquid namesake, together with its companion ale Wold Top Bitter, will be available locally by the cask or bottle.