The Home of Proper Beer
Welcome to Teme Valley Brewery, Worcester’s finest craft ale brewery. We brew some of the UK’s best traditional ale. Crafted with care and produced with pride for over 25 years, from the heart of the Worcestershire countryside. All of our beers are winners of either the coverted Great Taste or SIBA Awards.
MEET THE
TEME VALLEY
BREWERS
Chris
Mark
Nationwide Deliveries
Wholesale & Trade
Pub & Taproom
Where Beer Tastes Like Beer
We are an independent craft producer of cask and bottle-conditioned beers. Brewing behind the legendary & historic pub, The Talbot at Knightwick in Worcestershire (www.the-talbot.co.uk).
Beacuse of the brewery’s origins in farming, we are proud that all the hops we use are grown in Worcestershire & Herefordshire and all the barley used to make our malt is domestically grown here in the UK. All of our beers use “Burton” bitters – the style widely recognised as “real ale”.
The brewery is a member of SIBA, The Society of Independent Brewers (www.siba.co.uk). In 2015 the brewery achieved SALSA Standard accreditation which recognises all of our beers are produced under the industry best practice for safe and legal food production.
‘THIS’ won its category in the SIBA regional beer competition and came 3rd overall, whilst our ‘TALBOT BLONDE’ has been awarded a Great Taste award. With steady growth, we now have a portfolio of pubs we produce for, as well as supermarkets, independent off-licences and wholesale businesses across our local counties.
Please visit www.thehopshires.co.uk to find out more about local hops and http://www.britishhops.org.uk/ for growing in the UK.
Our History
The brewery was first opened in 1997 by the Clift family. Annie and Wiz Clift ran The Talbot at Knightwick, Worcestershire while their brother Philip ran the family farm at Lulsley Court nearby. The Clifts had been growing hops since the 19th century and a logical progression of the farm and pub businesses was to brew beer from their own hops to sell in their own pub.
In August 1997 the brewery equipment was installed behind the pub and in September 1997 Chris Gooch joined as brewer. Initially, beer was brewed once a week, in 5 barrel batches (a brewer’s barrel is 36 gallons so 5bbls = 180 gallons). By the time September 1998 arrived, some beer was being sold to beer festivals and select local pubs as well as The Talbot.
To celebrate the 1st anniversary, we brewed 5 green hop beers in September 1998. Hops are harvested in September and are dried in kilns to preserve them for the rest of the year. Because the brewery is in the heart of Worcestershire’s hop growing region, we are able to use hops as they are picked. Just as using fresh herbs in cooking gives more flavour and aroma to food, fresh hops make very distinctive beers.
Lulsley Court in 1998 was growing 5 varieties of English hops so we brewed a beer using each – Fuggles, Earlybird Goldings, Northdown, Mathon Goldings and Challenger. All 5 were put on the bar together one weekend in October to give the public a unique opportunity to taste the different characteristics of each variety. This was the origin of the Green Hop Beer Festival, which we still run in October every year and which now features more than 20 beers.
