Hobsons Brewery

One of Shropshire’s strengths are its wonderful pubs and locally produced beer. There are four working independent breweries, one of which is Hobsons brewery, based in Cleobury Mortimer, South Shropshire and a long-standing Shropshire Slow Food member. They produce cask, keg and bottled beers, using locally grown hops and an exclusive and unique Hobsons House yeast.

Founded by Nick Davis and his parents back in 1993, Nick took charge of the brewery in 2000 and today employs a team of 22 people. The name ‘Hobsons’ came to Nick while out walking on Clee Hill and is connected to a local amateur dramatic society, who were performing their version of the 1954 romantic comedy, Hobsons Choice. Hence Hobsons, “The Only Choice”. He explained that the Bowler hat logo was created as the Hobsons strapline (or Hat Trick!) is ‘People, Pints, Planet’, run by local people, producing pints from locally sourced hops, and working sustainably to help the planet.

Now, after 30 years of brewing, Hobsons has become one of the county’s leading brewers. In 2007 Hobsons won the CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain with their Champion Mild, recognised by beer aficionados outside of Shropshire and putting Hobsons on the British beer map

Hobsons currently produce 5 Cask Beers, 4 Keg beers and 8 Bottled Beers plus a monthly special in cask. Two beers, Old Henry and Plum Porter are only produced in bottles. From June 2024 Hobsons also added a Best Bitter in bottle. The bottled beers are conditioned with remains of yeast sediment left in the bottle, giving a depth of character and flavour to the finished beer. Hobsons bottled beers have a great presence on retail shelves, with bright coloured labels and intriguing names such as Shropstar, Twisted Spire, Old Prickly, Town Crier, Old Henry, Dhustone Stout and Postman’s Knock.

There are 12 Cask specials, one per month, with new beers created for 10 months and two produced the same every year, Green Hop and Postman’s Plum Porter, as these two beers have become so popular with Hobsons customers.

People, pints and planet

The hops used in Hobsons beers are mainly locally grown in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, however on occasions for the monthly specials, hops from around the world are sourced and used, this helps to bridge traditional beers and drinkers, with the younger craft beer aficionados, showcasing fragrant IPAs.

Whilst Hobsons don’t have their own pubs, the brewery supplies many local pubs (especially in Bridgnorth) and they work closely with wholesalers to help get their beers further-a-field. On a recent local Historic Pub Tour just recently, in a Ludlow pub I was very pleased to taste, from cask, the Champion Mild with an ABV of only 3.2%. It was absolutely delicious, chocolatey caramel, quite complex, and for me a super autumn come winter ale. Hobsons brewery does have a Taproom on site, which when I visited was just about to be refurbished, this will re-open to the public soon and can be hired for private events.

Collaborating with other Shropshire based Slow Food members, Hobsons work with Shropshire Salumi to produce a Chilli and Ale Salumi and Mr T’s pies, for his Shropshire beef and ale pie.

Nick Davis’s vision to sustainability is, local beer, produced by local people, using local ingredients. With green energy, a wind turbine and solar panels generates one third of the electricity required, and a ground source heat pump has been installed for the heating and cooling of the mashing, boiling, hopping and fermentation processes.

All of this effort for sustainability has been recognised by SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers), winning SIBA Best Green Business in 2010 and again in 2021. They have also been awarded the Blue Marches Water Efficiency Award 2020 for their commitment to being Green.

The Hobsons team are continually working towards efficient and greener ways to run the business, these include the bottle labels and boxes, all being printed with Water based inks and the labels are made from waste wood pulp. Also, all spent (used) malt is collected by a farmer to use in cattle feed, so there’s some very happy cattle in Shropshire!

Throughout the year the Hobson’s team attend local Shropshire events such as music, food and beer festivals. If you attend these events, you’ll see Sylvia, Hobsons Airstream mobile Bar, a wonderful vehicle, with a great team on board selling and marketing Hobsons cask and bottled beers.

As with the other Shropshire Slow Food producers I have visited, it’s wonderful and inspiring to see local companies producing with passion and stamping their mark on the county’s food and drink map with fabulous beers.

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