Hawkstone Lager Review: Is Jeremy Clarkson’s Beer Any Good?

When is a beer not a beer? When it’s a lager, the lousy joke Ben Griffin just made up goes. Yet it’s an attitude still held by some beer enthusiasts. It’s no coincidence that Hobgoblin ale had a campaign slogan that remarked: “What’s the matter lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?”

Is lager that bad, though? Sure, without naming names (Fosters), some are to flavour what Russia is to neighbourly relations, but some give IPAs, pale ales, session beers and so on a run for their money – does Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone Lager (recently followed up by a cider) do the same?

Being globally famous thanks to the original BBC Top Gear TV show’s success, Hawkstone Lager can trade on name recognition and witty, social media-based marketing that utilises Clarkson’s style of humour. Had I been duped into buying a sub-par beer?

The thought had crossed my mind. But then the Amazon Prime series Clarkson’s Farm revealed that not only are few people as good at making any subject accessible and watchable, but he also showed genuine passion and staying power despite many setbacks and much red tape.

And that makes it hard to imagine the barley grown in unforgiving Cotswold soil at Diddly Squat Farm is anything but quality. That the ‘master brewer’ mentioned on the bottle is infinitely better at making beer than Clarkson is at ploughing fields and that the water it uses as a base is as pure as a lily is reassuring.

In reality, Hawkstone Lager — named after a local Neolithic stone — tastes like it has more weight and body than your average Carlsberg or Kronenbourg and boasts a darker amber colour. It sits closer to a lighter IPA, with maltiness, fragrance and fruitiness included. Yet despite those things, it retains that essential thirst-quenching quality of a good lager.

While some beers linger too long or try to fool you with overly harsh, hoppy bitterness, Hawkstone Lager gets your palate and mindset ready for just one more. Which, of course, it rarely is.

Some beer bros have criticised Clarkson’s 4.8% brew for not having enough head. However, it avoids tasting flat, and anyway, I don’t want to spend three hours waiting for it to settle so I can finish pouring. Bubbles bubbling away help with crispness, and that is what you get.

Given that the lager tastes excellent, it’s strange that Jeremy Clarkson (and his farm sidekick, Kaleb Cooper) is so absent from the packaging even though he does the marketing. As he jokes on Instagram, the UK’s “44 best pubs” all coincidentally serve Hawkstone Lager.

Not that I was expecting a picture of his face on the label — and in some ways, given that some of the population will be anti-Clarkson and pro-beer, it is probably tactical. However, even Diddly Squat Farm gets diddly squat of a mention, which seems odd, even though it was partly brewed by the Cotswold Brewing Co.

I cannot imagine the writer of the laughably biased one-star Clarkson’s Farm review over at The Guardian will be picking up a crate anytime soon. Or anyone else he has offended along his prolific writing and presenting career.

And there is an argument to be made for buying other beers. Mainly because when you factor in the delivery charge of £8.50, six beers work out at more than £4 a pop. Four for £6 is still a thing in supermarkets, and there are plenty of thirst-quenching alternatives to choose from.

That makes Hawkstone Lager harder to justify. Truthfully, I would probably be more inclined to order it by the pint in a pub for a fiver (to support local businesses, obviously) than buy another batch of six, as much as I enjoyed the six I paid for.

However, part of me thinks that paying a little extra for a quality local product is not the worst idea, where possible. Clarkson’s Farm was, after all, about showing just how badly Britain’s farming industry needs help. Four for six can’t leave much in the way of profit.

Of course, maybe you just want a nice lager to get shit-faced on. Or ease the self-induced flaming misery of a vindaloo. In this case, Hawkstone Lager does the job nicely. Cheers to that.

What: Hawkstone Lager
How much: 12 for £32
Where: Amazon.co.uk