Hawkstone Lager is a

lager Lager (; ) is a Type of beer, style of beer brewed and Brewing#Conditioning, conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be Pale lager, pale, Amber lager, amber, or Dark lager, dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially availab ...

created by television presenter and farmer

Jeremy Clarkson Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English television presenter, journalist, farmer, and author who specialises in Driving, motoring. He is best known for hosting the television programmes ''Top Gear (2002 TV series), T ...

using barley grown at his Diddly Squat Farm in

Chipping Norton Chipping Norton is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cotswolds in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Banbury and north-west of Oxford. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 201 ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

, England. It is brewed by

Hawkstone Brewery Hawkstone Brewery, formerly known as Cotswolds Brewing Company, is a microbrewery in Cheltenham, England in the United Kingdom. Aside from beer, they also produce cider, vodka and gin. History Cotswolds Brewing Co. was founded in 2005 by Emma ...

near

Bourton-on-the-Water Bourton-on-the-Water is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, that lies on a wide flat vale within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village had a population of 3,296 at the 2011 census. Much of the village ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

History

Jeremy Clarkson is a British television presenter who owns Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire and has been running it since 2019 for the purposes of the

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

documentary '' Clarkson's Farm''. Due to a lowering of government farm subsidies, in 2021 he decided to make a lager beer using barley grown on his farm. After consulting with his farm workers, he decided it should have a 4.8 ABV. Clarkson had to have the beer rebrewed after an initial attempt due to it failing a blind taste test against a nearby local brand of beer. It was originally planned to only be sold at Clarkson's Farm Shop, but was later sold online as well. The beer was criticised for competing with local brewers and potentially drawing business away from them. Hawkstone Lager is distributed by the Craft Drink Co.

Advertising

Clarkson claimed that he intended to call the beer "Lager McLagerface", but this was vetoed by the advertising agency for not conveying a premium image. It was named Hawkstone Lager after a prehistoric stone near Diddly Squat Farm. He produced a number of adverts for the beer to be advertised on television in the United Kingdom, but these were banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, reportedly on the grounds that the first contained Clarkson saying the phrase "fuck me, that's good", the second for Clarkson saying the beer was better than

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, and the third because it promoted alcohol being served irresponsibly as it featured Clarkson drinking the lager in the morning before going to work. When Hawkstone Lager was released, it became the top-selling beer on

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. In January 2022, Clarkson announced that the beer would be sold on draught in pubs in Oxfordshire. In 2024,

Waitrose Waitrose Limited, trading as Waitrose & Partners, is a British supermarket chain, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. In 1937, it was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, the UK's largest employee-owned b ...

became the first supermarket chain to sell Hawkstone.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Hawkstone Lager home page
Beer brands of the United Kingdom 2021 establishments in England