Welcome to The Hook Norton Brewery!
Old Hooky 8 pack only £10
Get your self an Old Hooky bargain!
Old Hooky 4.6% ABV A beautifully balanced beer, fruity by nature, with a well-rounded body and the suggestive echo of Crystal Malt.
Order your Old Hooky HERE
Beer of the Month
Haymaker Bottles at £17.00 For 12 bottles
Our beer of the month this monthis Haymaker
A premium pale ale with distinctive fruity taste. The beer is light in colour, and has a refreshing clean flavour, which belies its strength.
Order your Haymaker HERE
Are you on the Hooky Ale Trail?
Can you trail the Hooky way? Hook Norton has designed six ale trails across Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Your challenge is to see if you can complete one or indeed or six.
From Cirencester to Worcester, Thame to Witney or Chipping Norton to Banbury the trails are designed to help the fans of Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds explore the area and visit some great pubs. The Hooky Ale Trail is a simple scheme and customers should enjoy the challenge of trying to finish each of the six routes and visit every one of Hooky’s 47 pubs.
Hooky Ale Trail participants don’t have to finish a route in one day - you can have as much time as you want. The trails will encourage people from a wide area to visit a Hook Norton pub and find out how wonderful the towns, village and countryside in our region are – and they will get rewards too.
The Ale Trail leaflet is available from Hook Norton pubs and at the Hook Norton Visitor Centre at the brewery in the village of Hook Norton. To register for a trail and receive a free Hooky Ale Trail badge and be in line to receive awards including a brewery tour for two, a ceramic tankard and a beer variety pack when you complete a complete trail contact Elizabeth Holmes at the brewery on
Phone: 01608 737210
email: elizabethh@hook-norton-brewery.co.uk
Drivers must remember not to drink and drive.
All Hook Norton pubs stock a wide range of soft drinks.
Brewery Visitors Centre
The Brewery Visitors centre is now open on Saturdays from 9.30am to 4.30pm. Brewery tours run Monday to Saturday and last approximately 2 hours and must be booked in advance. All tours are followed by a sampling of our beer in the visitors centre. For our mature guests only.
Tours are available for educational parties and are free of charge. To book a tour or for more information please visit the brewery visitors page HERE.
Brewery History
The brewery at Hook Norton is rooted in an age when most towns and even large villages boasted their own brewery.
Approach the village of Hook Norton from any direction and the first thing you see is the Church tower. The second is the flag waving proudly over the brewery. The Hook Norton Brewery was started over 150 years ago by farmer and maltster John Harris. Today it is run by his great great grandson James Clarke. John Harris' brewery has now achieved a reputation he could have never imagined and the beer it produces today is enjoyed not only in the UK but in many other countries.
Hook Norton Brewery sits on the North side of the Cotswold Hills, an area of rural lushness so pivotal to the ebb and flow of English history, the locals decided long ago that a good, fresh pint should always be within easy reach. A natural spring provided the ideal site for a brewery, and one thing led to another.
1849 was a milestone year. The young Queen Victoria ruled - the 35th monarch since William the Conqueror - the country had endured Magna Carta, the Wars of the Roses, The Reformation, Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians, the Restoration of the Monarchy and was well into the Industrial Revolution when John Harris set up his brewery at Hook Norton. After Centuries of tempestuous history the locals were ready for a few beers. After a short while the sales of this fledgling brewery began to improve. And before long, the brewery John Harris started in a local farmhouse became the seed for the Hook Norton Brewery Company Ltd, and things evolved rapidly.
Hook Norton Brewery remains one of only 32 independent family-run breweries; and you won’t find a finer example of a Victorian tower brewery anywhere.
On the ground floor of the brewery is a fine 25 horsepower steam engine. Installed in 1899 to supply through a series of belts, cogs and shafts the motive power the brewery needed to produce it's beer. It is no longer in daily use for its original purpose, but it is still a fully functioning steam engine and will occasionally provide power for the brewing process.
Hook Norton is still "a real local brewery" and this is a rarity these days; awesome commercial pressures brought about change, but the brewers at Hook Norton became adept at keeping a restless World at arm’s length.
Brewery research shows most of us are more familiar with the drinking process than the skilled preparation that leads up to it. But every pint produced by Hook Norton brewery that you raise to your lips has a story to tell. Beer is very much a natural product; and the brewery puts a lot of effort into the whole brewing process to provide you with a refreshing pint. The traditional methods employed to make traditional beers, and that's what counts at Hook Norton.
The Shire Horse at Work in the Brewery
The shire horse drawn dray at Hook Norton ceased deliveries in 1950, but was revitalised in 1985, mainly for public relation purposes. The shire horses now only deliver locally within 5 miles of the brewery, but attend many public functions such as fetes, pub openings and on the odd occasion, weddings. It should be noted that out of all of the breweries that own horse drawn drays, only two still actually deliver their products by dray and shire horse. At present the Brewery has three shire horses (Consul, Major and Nelson), who are looked after by their two draymen Roger Hughes and Philip White.
