As part of our Things to do series we bring you The Hogs Back Brewery Tour in Tongham Surrey, if you’re camping or walking nearby it’s well worth a visit. Brewery Tours are run at selected times 5 days a week for £10, booking is highly recommended. The Brewery is a small craft brewery in Tongham Surrey. It was formed in 1992 and today produces 57,600 pints each week. The Hogs Back are most known for their Beer “TEA” “Traditional English Ale” an award-winning English Ale with a deep gold colour.
The Brewery Tour starts in the Hogs Back Brewery Shop where you are presented with a half pint Hogs Back Brewery Glass for your tasting. The glass is also yours to keep. The first beer we sampled was HBB Hogs Back Bitter, while we drank this our guide for the afternoon explained to us the ingredients of beer, we sniffed the malt and hops and heard about the process. There was no shortage of sampling with 5 large jugs between 20 of us, this meant at least a pint, maybe 2 of each beer.
The tour continued around the rest of the small Brewery, stopping off in the Mash room, the fermentation tanks, the boardroom and the cask room. In total across the tour we tasted 4 different beers, for us this was Hogs Back Bitter, TEA Traditional English Ale, Hop Garden Gold and Rip Snorter.
Our visit was in mid November as the Brewery went through a rebranding, so it was especially interesting hearing about the new logos, changing trends with Ale drinkers and the fortunes of the Brewery.
As all good tours should the tour ends in the Brewery Shop, and what a shop it was! As well as a full range of Hogs Back Beer there is an impressive selection of both British and International Ales on offer, Brewery Fayre, clothing and other products like cakes, mustards, sausages all made with Hogs Back beer.
In all it was a fantastic tour lasting just under 2 hours, there was great beer, an informative, insightful and humorous guide, and a great shop. Even if you can’t get a booking on the Brewery Tour the shop alone is well worth a visit.
If you’ve been on the Hogs Back Brewery Tour leave a comment and let us know how you found it. If you have another suggestion for our Things to do series email us a writeup to [email protected]
