Can you tour Hook Norton Brewery?

Yes. Guided tours run regularly and are booked in advance, taking about ninety minutes around the working Victorian tower brewery and ending with a tasting. The museum, shop and café are open without booking. The tour climbs over a hundred steps and is not suitable for under-twelves.

What is Hook Norton Brewery?

One of the finest surviving Victorian tower breweries in the country, established in the village in 1849 and run by the same family, the Clarkes, ever since. It still makes some of its local deliveries by horse-drawn dray.

Where is Hook Norton Brewery?

In the village of Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds between Banbury and Chipping Norton.

Visiting Hook Norton Brewery: Tours, Museum & How to Visit

Hook Norton is a Victorian tower brewery in its fifth family generation, brewing in the same village since the middle of the nineteenth century and still sending the dray out behind shire horses. Here is how to visit, what to see, and how the place works.

At a glance

How to visit: Open to the public; the visitor centre, museum, shop and café are walk-in, and guided brewery tours are booked ahead.
Where: Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds near Banbury and Chipping Norton.
Best time to visit: Open through the year; tours run regularly but are booked in advance.
How long to spend: Around ninety minutes for a tour; longer with the museum and café.
Parking: At the brewery, off Brewery Lane.
Getting there: Nearest stations Banbury and Kingham, each a drive away, then a taxi. By car, near the A361 in the village.
Dog friendly: Yes in the visitor centre, though not on the tour itself.
Family friendly: The visitor centre and museum yes; the tour is not for under-twelves and climbs over a hundred steps.

Visiting Hook Norton Brewery: parking, getting there, when to go

Hook Norton brews on the western edge of its village, in a six-storey Victorian tower where the grain goes in at the top and the beer comes off at the foot by gravity. The visitor centre, the free brewery museum, the shop and the Malthouse café are open to anyone; the guided tour, which takes about ninety minutes and climbs over a hundred steps, is booked ahead and not suited to anyone unsteady on stairs. Dogs are welcome in the visitor centre but not on the tour.

By car the brewery is signed in the village off the A361. There is no station in Hook Norton; the nearest are Banbury and Kingham, each a drive off, with a taxi for the last stretch.

Hook Norton Brewery questions, answered

Can you tour Hook Norton Brewery?: Yes. Guided tours run regularly and are booked in advance, taking about ninety minutes around the working Victorian tower brewery and ending with a tasting. The museum, shop and café are open without booking. The tour climbs over a hundred steps and is not suitable for under-twelves.
What is Hook Norton Brewery?: One of the finest surviving Victorian tower breweries in the country, established in the village in 1849 and run by the same family, the Clarkes, ever since. It still makes some of its local deliveries by horse-drawn dray.
Where is Hook Norton Brewery?: In the village of Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds between Banbury and Chipping Norton.

The shire horses still work. On certain mornings the dray goes out from the yard to the village pubs behind a pair of them, which is not a re-enactment but simply how the nearest deliveries have always been made.

It would be cheaper to do it another way. That is rather the point. Some things in these hills are kept because they are worth keeping, and the keeping is the whole of the value.

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