Wychwood Brewery
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| Founded | 1983 |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Paddy Glenny |
| Industry | Alcoholic beverage |
| Products | Beer |
| Production output | 50,000 UK barrels (8,200,000 L) |
| Owner(s) | Refresh UK |
Wychwood Brewery is an English brewery founded by Paddy Glenny in 1983, and located in the town of Witney, Oxfordshire.[1] It is owned by Refresh UK, a subsidiary of Marstons plc.[2] The company's flagship brand is Hobgoblin, a 4.5% abv premium bitter.[3]
Wychwood Brewery produces around 50,000 barrels (8,200,000 L) of cask ale each year, and is the UK's largest brewer of organic ales. Wychwood filtered and bottled beers are exported all over the world including the United States, Canada, Sweden, France, Australia and Japan.
The brewery is noted for its intricate, fantasy-inspired label artwork.
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[edit] History
The brewery is sited at the old Eagle Maltings, built in 1841 to malt barley for John William Clinch's brewery.
Clinch & Co Brewery was respected in Southern England with an estate of seventy one pubs. In 1961 Courage bought Clinch's for its pub estate and closed down the brewery.
In 1983, the original Clinch's Brewery site was purchased by Paddy Glenny who christened the building The Eagle Brewery, but named the brewing company Glenny Brewery.
In 1990, the Eagle was re-named the Wychwood Brewery after the ancient Wychwood Forest which borders Witney. The brewery was taken over in the spring of 2002 by Refresh UK.
[edit] Brands
Wychwood Hobgoblin is the best-known and most popular beer brewed at Wychwood Brewery. It is 5.2 percent alcohol by volume in bottles and cans, 4.5% (previously 5.0%, and before that 5.6%) on cask, and is described by Wychwood as a "strong dark ale." 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."
The current motto for Hobgoblin is "What's the matter Lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?", challenging drinkers of pale lager, a more popular style of beer in Britain, to consume a more prominently-flavoured drink. In October 2004 and 2005, Wychwood used a variation of this motto for Halloween, "Afraid of the dark, Lagerboy?". A 2006 complaint against Wychwood to the Advertising Standards Authority that the Halloween campaign was "aggressive" and "offensive" was not upheld.[2]
Circle Master is a golden pale ale made organically at 4.7 percent strength. It combines Target hops with Plumage Archer barley malt. It is sold as Scarecrow in the USA. When it was launched in the UK it was called Corn Circle beer, but the name was changed after a dispute with the Hop Back Brewery who produce a beer called Crop Circle. The new name Circle Master is a reference to CircleMakers, the UK arts collective founded by John Lundberg who have been creating crop circles since the early 1990s;[4] the label depicts a scarecrow standing in the middle of a crop circle. Recently Wychwood began selling an oak aged hard cider called Green Goblin. The cider is produced by Thatchers.
[edit] Wychwood and Brakspear
Wychwood took over the brewing of the newly-acquired Brakspear beers in October 2002. The new Brakspear brewery was integrated into an expansion of the Wychwood plant, and includes parts of the copper (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.
[edit] References
- ^ "Wychwood Brewery history". www.wychwood.co.uk. http://www.wychwood.co.uk/wychwood_history1.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
- ^ "Marston's buys Refresh UK - Brands News - Morning Advertiser". www.morningadvertiser.co.uk. http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news.ma/article/59404. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
- ^ "Wychwood Hobgoblin (Pasteurised) from Wychwood Refresh (Marstons plc) - Ratebeer". www.ratebeer.com. http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/wychwood-hobgoblin-pasteurised/5107/. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
- ^ [1]
