Reviving a Rich Brewing Heritage

Established in 2004 by Robert Wicks, The Westerham Brewery Company is proud to bring brewing back to the historic town of Westerham. With a rich brewing heritage, Westerham can once again be proud of locally brewed, top quality real ales.

Producing exceptional real ales for the local market, we support the initiative to reduce food miles in the supply chain. Many ‘national brands’ are transported long distances and suffer from poor storage and handling.

Locally sourced, our malt and hops are chosen with skill and care to produce ales with a distinct yet traditional flavour. The local hard water, which percolates through the Lower Greensand Ridge to the south of Westerham, is excellent for brewing ales such as the IPA for which Westerham was once famous.

The Westerham Brewery Company will revive many of the much-loved flavours of the old Black Eagle Brewery, which closed in 1965 following the catastrophic consolidation by the ‘Big Brewers’ in the 1950’s.

We have recultured the yeast from the Black Eagle Brewery. Back in 1959, after the takeover by Taylor Walker, the Black Eagle Brewery deposited freeze dried samples of their yeasts with the National Collection of Yeast Cultures, no doubt sensing that it might be lost forever. Now, 50 years later, we have revived these yeast cultures. Combined with water from the same aquifer that served the old brewery, we hope to capture the essence of what made Westerham's ales famous.

Ethical and green issues are very important to us. To that end we have embarked on the following initiatives:

• Encouraging the planting of new hop varieties in a new organic hop garden at Scotney Castle
• Paying a significant proportion of the sales of the Little Scotney Ales to reinvest in the hop garden at Scotney Castle
• Launching one of the first Fairtrade beers on draught - William Wilberforce Freedom Ale
• Tithing 10% of the profits of the William Wilberforce Freedom Ale to Stop the Traffik
• Tithing 10% of the sales of Gods Wallop to a charity each Christmas
• Instigating land spreading of our effluent on the land to replace trucking it away
• Purchase of three LPG powered delivery vans and an LPG powered sales car
• Reducing water usage in the brewery to under 3.5 : 1 ratio
• Removing all plastic waste from our bottled beer products and replacing with recyclable items

Mission Statement

• To produce the finest ales we can
• To be as good a supplier to our customers as we can
• To be as good a customer to our suppliers as we can
• To be honest in all our dealings with our customers and suppliers
• To deal with all our customers without prejudice or discrimination
• To promote the health benefits of moderate beer consumption
• To educate visitors about the risks of alcohol abuse and to promote a culture of moderation
• To enable our staff to be the best version of themselves that they can
• To make our brewery the best that it can be

Read about Westerham's famous past brewery and the history here

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