Wychwood Brewery is a brewery in

Witney Witney is a market town on the River Windrush in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is west of Oxford. The place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is as ...

, Oxfordshire, England, owned by

Marston's Marston's plc is a British pub and hotel operator. Founded by John Marston in 1834, it is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Marston's disposed of its brewing operations in 2020, selling the assets to a newly formed joint venture with the Ca ...

. The company's

flagship brand A core product or flagship product is a company's primary promotion, service or product that can be purchased by a consumer. Core products may be integrated into end products, either by the company producing the core product or by other companies ...

is Hobgoblin, a 5.2%

abv Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

brown ale Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown colour. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe their products, such as mild ale, though the term has a rather different meaning today. 18th century br ...

. Wychwood Brewery produces around 50,000

barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...

() of

cask ale Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) for beer that is "brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous ca ...

each year, and is the United Kingdom's largest brewer of

organic Organic may refer to: * Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity * Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ Chemistry * Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...

ales. Wychwood filtered and bottled beers are exported all over the world, including North America, Germany, Sweden, France, Australia, Russia, Japan, Israel and Singapore. The brewery is known for its

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

-based label artwork, inspired by the myths and legends surrounding the ancient

Wychwood Wychwood or Wychwood Forest is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Witney in Oxfordshire. It is also a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 1, and an area of is a national nature reserve The site contains a long barro ...

Forest.

History

David Cameron and Barack Obama at the G20 Summit in Toronto

The brewery is sited at the old Eagle Maltings, built in 1841 to

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, w ...

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley p ...

for Clinch's brewery which had an estate of seventy-one pubs in

Southern England Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes ...

. In 1961,

Courage Courage (also called bravery or valor) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in battle. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, ...

bought Clinch's for its pub estate and closed down the brewery. In 1983, part of the original Clinch's Eagle Brewery site was rented by Paddy Kenny, but named the brewing company Kenny Brewery. Chris Moss took his interest in exchange for a debt from Paddy and took over after Paddy Kenny moved away. In 1990, the Eagle was renamed the Wychwood Brewery after the ancient

Wychwood Forest Wychwood or Wychwood Forest is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Witney in Oxfordshire. It is also a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 1, and an area of is a national nature reserve The site contains a long barro ...

which borders Witney, at the same time the brewery moved to the Two Rivers Industrial estate still in Witney. In 1994 the brewery was moved back to the site taking on more of the old site. The brewery was taken over in 2002 by Refresh UK, a subsidiary of Marston's. Marston's then bought Refresh and Wychwood Brewery outright in 2008.

Beers

Hobgoblin

Hobgoblin is the best-known and most popular beer brewed at Wychwood Brewery and was created by Chris Moss. It is 5.2%

in bottles, 4.5% in cans and 4.5% (previously 5.0%, and before that 5.6%, and originally 6.5%) on

cask A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...

, and is described by Wychwood as a "Ruby beer". Jeremy Moss, Wychwood's head brewer, describes the drink as "full bodied and well balanced with a chocolate toffee malt flavour, moderate bitterness and a distinctive fruity character with a ruby red glow". It was the first bottled beer in the UK to feature an illustrated label, as opposed to a simple text-based one, and it is currently the second best-selling bottled ale in the UK. During a meeting at the

2010 G-20 Toronto summit The 2010 G20 Toronto summit was the fourth meeting of the G20 heads of state/government, to discuss the global financial system and the world economy, which took place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during ...

, Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

and President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

gave each other bottles of beer from their respective home towns/cities, with Cameron presenting Obama with twelve bottles of Hobgoblin, which is brewed in his

constituency. In return Obama gave Cameron 24 bottles of Goose Island beer, from

Goose Island Brewery Goose Island Beer Company is a brewery in Chicago, Illinois, that began as a single brewpub opened in 1988 in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and named after a nearby island. The larger production brewery opened in 1995, and a second brewpub, in Wrigle ...

. The President remarked that he would drink his beer chilled, as opposed to the optimal room temperature (15.5 °C/59.9 °F) at which strong ale should be drunk, prompting Wychwood to create a T-shirt in their online store reading ''"What's the matter Obama, afraid you might taste something?"''.Wychwood Online Gift Shop

King Goblin

King Goblin, essentially a stronger and more flavourful variety of Hobgoblin, is a 6.6%

"Special Reserve"

ale Ale is a type of beer brewed using a warm fermentation method, resulting in a sweet, full-bodied and fruity taste. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops. As with most beers, ale typically has a bittering agent to bala ...

.King Goblin Beer – Beer profile at Wychwood.co.uk
/ref> To date it is available bottled in

Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of Yorks ...

Sainsburys J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

Morrisons Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar. The company is headq ...

and

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues an ...

supermarkets, Draeger's supermarkets in the US, in "Broken English" shops in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, and on draught during "real ale" festivals at

Wetherspoons J D Wetherspoon plc (branded variously as Wetherspoon or Wetherspoons, and colloquially known as Spoons) is a pub company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company was founded in 1979 by Tim Martin and is based in Watford. It ...

pubs.

Brakspear

Wychwood took over the brewing of the newly acquired

Brakspear W.H. Brakspear & Sons Ltd. is a brewer in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Since the closure of its original brewery in Henley-on-Thames in 2002, most of its beers have been brewed by Wychwood Brewery in West Oxfordshire. In 1993, beer writer Mi ...

beers in October 2002. The new Brakspear brewery was integrated into an expansion of the Wychwood plant, and includes parts of the

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

(boiling vessel), as well as some of the fermenting vessels which themselves had been refurbished at Henley. There is only one brewhouse at Witney but two separate fermenting rooms for the separate Wychwood and Brakspear beers. The Brakspear beers are still brewed in Witney by Wychwood and not in Henley, where the original brewery site has been converted into a boutique hotel.

Hatherwood

Using the name Hatherwood Brewery, Wychwood brews beers exclusively for the supermarket

Lidl Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (; ) is a German international discount retailer chain that operates over 11,000 stores across Europe and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, the company belongs to the Schwarz Group, whi ...

. These include: * Golden Goose * Ruby Rooster * Green Gecko * Amber Adder * Purple Panther (porter, 5% ABV) * Gnarly Fox * Total Legend (golden ale, 4.5% ABV)

References

{{reflist

External links

Official Wychwood Brewery Website

Quaffale

Refresh UK website

Opening Times Supermarkets
Companies based in Oxfordshire Witney Food and drink companies established in 1983 Breweries in England British companies established in 1983 1983 establishments in England