Hook Norton Brewery
collecting the beer for Silverstone

Hook Norton real ale and stilton have always been a welcome sight in the V8 Marquee at Silverstone and for over 25 years Victor Smith had collected the polypins from the cellar door. In 2003, as part of the V8 25th Anniversary Week of events, V8 members enjoyed a thorough two hour tour of the brewery and saw how such delicious beers are produced. This year Victor Smith will be collecting the beer as usual on Friday 22nd June just before noon and other members will be very welcome to join him at the Cellar Door or afterwards for lunch at the Pear Tree pub nearby. Another tour is not available this year but one is planned for the V8 30th Anniversary in 2008!

Hook Norton Brewery
The first thing you note is the height of the brewery building - over 80ft - and the beer making process goes up and down through the building, all powered by a steam engine! Yes steam power from a machine which is over 106 years old. It is distributed through the building by a series of gears and vertical shafts and belts which are just as you would imagine some of the early Victorian industries would have had. The engine starts up each day at around 11.30am whereupon the building is filled with the sound and vibration of the engine and gears. The teeth of the gears are in fact wedges of shaped timber - they use Hornbeam as it is a "quiet" hardwood - and should the gears or shafts malfunction or jam, the timber teeth shatter rather than the cast iron!

An old print of the Hook Norton Brewery

Lunch at the Pear Tree
Following a tour of the brewery as part of the V8 25th Anniversary tour in in 2003, the group walked up Brewery Lane for lunch at the Pear Tree Inn, one of the Hook Norton Brewery's pubs. The beer collection party will be there again this year at around 12.30pm after collecting the beer just down the lane.


From the left: John Targett (USA), Kai Knickmann (Germany), Eva Maas-Doyle (Germany), Al Riches (Canada), Allan Doyle (Germany) and Dana Moreland (USA). (Photo: Victor Smith)


Collecting the polypins at the cellar door - Victor Smith, John Targett and Kai Knickmann. (Photo: Dana Moreland)