Greetings UK Brewers!
Norwegian brewer and beer lover here, looking for some travel tips for the UK. Have been loving craft beers since probably 2007/8, and brewing since 2009.
Since 2012 I have done annual beer-related trips with a group of friends, and I am scouting out England as a possible future destination. (Previous visits are Brussels/Mechelen, Aberdeen (Brew Dog and Whiskey in the highlands), Prague/Plzen and most recently Copenhagen.)
The itineraries have varied, but have typiccally been a variation of:
-Fly out early morning friday, arriving in time for lunch and a visit to a brewery close to our central location on friday afternoon.
-Go out of town on saturday to a somewhat more distant location, spend the day, have lunch, etc.
We have done a lot of visits to breweries, and while that is still always a lot of fun, it is also cool to try new things when the opportunities arise. (Like when we did a distillery tour in Scotland)
When considering England, I thought about cider and perry. Visiting a farm, learning about the process, and of course sampling the product would be a nice day out for the Saturday I would imagine.
I would also imagine that a large portion of our group would have little knowledge about Perry, making that a particularly interesting option.
Another thing we have talked about is to see other parts of the beer value-chain: a maltster or a hop-farm.
So i was wondering if anyone on here have any tips on any cideries or perry farms that accept visitors for tours? Or maltsters?
Location-wise it is absolutely easiest for us to fly in to London (we fly from various places in Norway, so logistics would be easier), but other UK airports are also worth considering if the payoff is worth it.
Time-wise we normally go the week before easter, so some time in March. I realise this might be off-season for cideries, but was hoping that some of them still would be open for tours. Hop farms are probably not worth visiting at this time I would have thought, but please inform me otherwise if this is a faulty assumption.
We are generally a large group, so that we are able to finance things like hiring a coach for a day without the cost per person being too terrifying. This means that we do have the opportunity to reach places that might be a bit off limits for
public transport without having to worry about a designated driver.
Any tips on perry-makers (what are they called?, pideries?), cider-presses, maltsters or hop-farms that would be worth a visit in the late winter/early spring would be very much appreciated. If you have any other tips for a group of beer-travellers, those would be kindly accepted as well of course. Always on the lookout for good suggestions on places to visit/eat/drink/sleep :)
Norwegian brewer and beer lover here, looking for some travel tips for the UK. Have been loving craft beers since probably 2007/8, and brewing since 2009.
Since 2012 I have done annual beer-related trips with a group of friends, and I am scouting out England as a possible future destination. (Previous visits are Brussels/Mechelen, Aberdeen (Brew Dog and Whiskey in the highlands), Prague/Plzen and most recently Copenhagen.)
The itineraries have varied, but have typiccally been a variation of:
-Fly out early morning friday, arriving in time for lunch and a visit to a brewery close to our central location on friday afternoon.
-Go out of town on saturday to a somewhat more distant location, spend the day, have lunch, etc.
We have done a lot of visits to breweries, and while that is still always a lot of fun, it is also cool to try new things when the opportunities arise. (Like when we did a distillery tour in Scotland)
When considering England, I thought about cider and perry. Visiting a farm, learning about the process, and of course sampling the product would be a nice day out for the Saturday I would imagine.
I would also imagine that a large portion of our group would have little knowledge about Perry, making that a particularly interesting option.
Another thing we have talked about is to see other parts of the beer value-chain: a maltster or a hop-farm.
So i was wondering if anyone on here have any tips on any cideries or perry farms that accept visitors for tours? Or maltsters?
Location-wise it is absolutely easiest for us to fly in to London (we fly from various places in Norway, so logistics would be easier), but other UK airports are also worth considering if the payoff is worth it.
Time-wise we normally go the week before easter, so some time in March. I realise this might be off-season for cideries, but was hoping that some of them still would be open for tours. Hop farms are probably not worth visiting at this time I would have thought, but please inform me otherwise if this is a faulty assumption.
We are generally a large group, so that we are able to finance things like hiring a coach for a day without the cost per person being too terrifying. This means that we do have the opportunity to reach places that might be a bit off limits for
public transport without having to worry about a designated driver.
Any tips on perry-makers (what are they called?, pideries?), cider-presses, maltsters or hop-farms that would be worth a visit in the late winter/early spring would be very much appreciated. If you have any other tips for a group of beer-travellers, those would be kindly accepted as well of course. Always on the lookout for good suggestions on places to visit/eat/drink/sleep :)
