24 August 2022

Hogs Back celebrates 30 years as it prepares for hop harvest

Hogs Back Brewery marked its 30^thbirthday with a special '30 at 30' celebration, inviting 30 local loyal drinkers to join them for a celebratory pint of its flagship beer, Tongham TEA, with a younger family member or friend.

The event, held at the brewery in Tongham, brought back happy memories from guests, as they recalled where they had enjoyed their first pint of Tongham TEA.  For Nigel, his first pint at the King William IV at Mickleham, was ‘love at first taste and it has been an enduring love story!'.  Martin was‘lucky to taste the first brew of TEA, with the original Hogs Back brewer'and John remembered drinking it "with my father, explaining to me what real beer tastes like."  Several guests had enjoyed Tongham TEA at weddings and birthday parties.

Hogs Back Brewery managing director Rupert Thompson said: "We wanted to celebrate our 30^thbirthday with thanks to loyal customers who have supported us for 30 years - as without them, we wouldn't be here today.

"Over the years, TEA has been requested as the beer at many weddings and other celebrations, so for a whole generation of local people, it has a special place in their lives. 

"Many also spoke about coming here with their parents to collect a barrel of Tongham TEA and are now doing the same with their own adult children. We're of course delighted to see this tradition continue, and by inviting some of these younger drinkers to join our celebrations, we hope that they too become lifelong Tongham TEA drinkers!"

Ready for hop harvest

The '30 at 30' gathering was one of the last to be held in the Hogs Back hangar this summer before it switches from being a bar and event space to become the hub of the hop harvest, which starts at the end of August. Hop bines cut in the hop garden just yards away are brought back to the hangar where they are sorted, then dried and vacuum packed that they can add flavour and aroma to the brewer's beers all year.

Bringing in the hops from the 8.5 acre field is expected to take several weeks and will be celebrated at the Hogs Back Hop Harvest weekend on 24^thand 25^thSeptember. The Hop Harvest Festival on the Saturday offers a fantastic musical line up including top Queen tribute band Majesty, while the TEA Party on the Sunday is more family-focused with a range of children's entertainment. The full range of Hogs Back's beers, including Green TEA, brewed with hops freshly-picked in the hop garden, will be available on both days:https://hogsback.co.uk/products/hop-harvest-party-2022

Thompson said: "The Hop Harvest festivities are the biggest event on our calendar and were attended by 2,500 people last year. And as we're the only brewer of any size to have our own hop garden, it is a uniquely Hogs Back celebration.

"Hops, like all crops, need water to thrive and the recent drought will have an impact on this year's harvest.  We're not expecting to repeat last year's bumper crop, but we will still harvest a good quantity of our own home-grown hops, which contribute to the distinctive flavour of our beers. And, as they are grown just yards from the brewery rather than imported from afar, they are reducing our food miles and helping us achieve our goal of being an ever more sustainable brewer."  

Hogs Back will harvest three hop varieties this year: Fuggles, used in Tongham TEA; English Cascade, used in its Hogstar lager and Surrey Nirvana Session IPA and Farnham White Bine, a traditional local variety that the brewer saved from near-extinction.

Captions to images:

1. Some of the '30 at 30' guests at Hogs Back Brewery
2. A group of '30 at 30' guests enjoy a beer near the hop garden

3+4: The 2021 hop harvest

Hogs Back Hop Garden - key points

• Hogs Back will harvest 6, 000 hop plants this year, from its garden occupying 8.5 acres of prime farmland next to the brewery.
• The hop plants are supported with over 100 large posts and ten miles of high tensile steel wire, strung 18ft above the plants.
• Hogs Back planted its original, 3.5-acre hop garden in 2014, and completed four harvests before moving to the larger site in spring 2019. 
• Hogs Back cultivates three hop varieties: Fuggles - used in its flagship Togham TEA; Cascade - used in Hogstar lager and Surrey Nirvana Session IPA and Farnham White Bine.
• Farnham was historically one of the most important hop farming regions in the UK. The Farnham area is ideal for hop growing with a rich, loamy top soil over a chalky subsoil. 
• The Farnham White Bine hop was originally developed in the early 1700s just a mile and a half from the current Hogs Back brewery. It was highly prized for its aromas and was the precursor variety to the better-known Kent Goldings.
• Hop farming in Farnham started to wane at the end of the 19th century in the face of growing competition from the Kent hops, which were preferred by London's brewers, and the rising cost of agricultural labour. The industry declined and finally died out in the mid-1970s.

Hogs Back Brewery

• Hogs Back Brewery was founded in 1992 in Tongham, in the heart of the traditional Surrey hop growing area.
• Its flagship brand Tongham TEA (Traditional English Ale), is one of the leading regional ales in the South East. The first beer brewed by Hogs Back in 1992, TEA has won multiple awards including runner-up in CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain in 2000.
• Other awards include CAMRA's Champion Bottled Beer of Britain 2020 for its A over T (Aromas over Tongham)9% ABV bottle conditioned barley wineand a Bronze medal in the International Cider Challenge 2019 for its traditional cloudy cider, Hazy Hog.
• The Hogs Back Brewery range includes a number of award-winning draught, bottled and canned beers, demonstrating its ability to combine brewing expertise and tradition with product innovation to create distinctive, memorable beers.
• As part of its drive to become an ever more sustainable brewer, Hogs Back is aiming to eliminate single use plastic. They have introduced refillable glass Snorters (3.5 pints) and Snifters (1 ¾ pints), and to date have removed 12,000 PETs, earning them Plastic Free Champion status from Surfers Against Sewage.
• www.hogsback.co.uk.

-ends-

Issued on behalf of: Hogs Back Brewery

By: ShielPorter Communications

Further information:

ros@shielporter.com/ 07841 694137

john@shielporter.com/ 07734 054389