Hook Norton Brewery Tour
No Dry Jan for us hardcore foodies when we have Hook Norton tour vouchers to cash-in from Adam’s and Mike’s recent birthdays. If you’re anything like us, you simply can’t have an opportunity like that stuck on the pinboard for long!
Tours at Hook Norton Brewery (near Stow-on-the-Wold) are only £12.50 per person and the whole experience takes 1.5 – 2 hours. For that you get a free branded glass and as much beer as you can consume within 30 mins at the end. Sounds pretty good value to us! Contrary to the popular phrase exit through the gift shop, we began in the gift shop, met our friendly, engaging guide, Andrew and climbed up to the exhibit in the loft (free to visit even without a tour voucher). Here you’ll find a vast array of historic examples of brewing machinery, ancient photos, artefacts and curios. We were astonished to learn that Hook Norton has been a working brewery since 1856 and to this day, still owned and run by the same family!
Our next stop was to see the famous Shire horses. All four of the stunning creatures live at the brewery and every week they’re treated to a pint of ale! Hook Norton is one of only a couple of breweries in the UK who still deliver their grog via Shire horse to local pubs. Marston’s fulfils the rest of their national and international shipping requirements. A bottle of Flagship goes down particularly well in New Zealand apparently!
The Brewery has managed to retain a charming, traditional feel. Over the years not much had been thrown away, which is how they have so much to display in their museum. Even the original wooden chairs remain in the Brewery Office (love this fact). It was still beggars belief though to hear they still have paper archives of history ale recipes that haven’t been converted to digital format. Get those scanned in, team!
Climbing to the very top of the brewery, we were taken to the old, unused cooling tank where the mixture reduced in temperature by the natural air flowing through the shutters. If the air could get through, then so could the pigeons. Andrew told tales of how the odd splatter of pigeon poo landed in the mixture back in the olden days and how the edges of the tanks were especially designed to stop mice climbing in. It may not have stopped the rats though.
Amongst the original equipment, pulleys and steam systems from bygone days, more modern brewing touches now appear. They’ve recently invested in a micro brewing system, enabling them to test and create ales on a smaller scale. This assists innovation and enables the brewery to become more lean and adaptable. All four of us are married, but if we weren’t, we’d find a way to pay the £600 to brew our own small batch custom ale for the occasion. Crafted, bottled, labelled and all! Yes please!
We didn’t know this but Yeastie Boys don’t have their own brewery as such, they hire or partner up with existing brewers and use their micro brewing facilities. Here’s an example of their output in collaboration with Hook Norton Brewery.
Andrew told us about the recent surge in keg popularity over cask. The reason behind this, in the simplest terms, is that cask ales will only last a couple of days once opened, but keg will continue to keep the contents fresh for up to 2 years, even when you’ve pumped a couple of pints out. Cask will still firmly have its place though because a brew will condition more in cask, therefore taste different to a keg version. There’s much more to it than that, but Google it if you want to know more. Cask is the choice of traditionalists.
For the last 30-40 mins of our experience we drank as much as we wanted in the tasting room! We tried nine different beers, got to pump them ourselves and took home a half pint glass (included in the tour price)! While we sipped all the ales, Andrew continued to answer questions and chatted to us about Hooky history, Hooky future and his favourite pubs. He was absolutely brilliant! All we needed was a log fire and a couple of wing back chairs and we’d have settled in for the rest of the day listening to him. Turns out you can easily make a half day at Hook Norton as they’ve got the Malthouse Kitchen serving a wonderful breakfast, lunch and snacks.
After necking three rounds of each beer (not full pints I will add), we posed for a team photo and then raided the gift shop for all sorts of lovely goodies and locally made produce. We’ve been to a few events at Hook Norton and they’ve always topped any event we’ve been to at a brewery. Their Apple Pressing Day and Christmas Craft fair 2018 were brilliant, so we urge you to go. When we came over for this tour we picked a day when the brewery wasn’t brewing, so perhaps in the summer we’ll come back when there’s more going on and then spend the afternoon at The Pear Tree’s beer garden. Bliss.
