Hawkstone Lager

Jeremy Clarkson is a British television personality who owns Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire and has been running it since 2019 for the purposes of the Amazon Prime Video documentary Clarkson's Farm.[2] Due to a lowering of government farm subsidies,[3] in 2021 he decided to make a lager beer using barley grown on his farm.[4] After consulting with his farm workers, he decided it should have a 4.8 ABV.[5] Clarkson had to have the beer rebrewed after an initial attempt due to it failing a blind taste test against a nearby local beer.[5] It was originally planned to only be sold at Clarkson's farm shop, but was later sold on Amazon as well.[6] The beer was criticised for competing with local brewers and potentially drawing business away from them.[7]

Hawkstone Lager is distributed by the Craft Drink Co.[8] It has the same barcode as the former Cotswold IPA 5.2% which "was born out of our brewer’s love for big tasting American keg IPAs".[9]

Clarkson claimed that he intended to call the beer "Lager McLagerface", but this was vetoed by the advertising agency for not conveying a premium image.[3][5][10] It was named Hawkstone Lager after a prehistoric stone near Diddly Squat Farm.[11] He produced a number of adverts for the beer to be broadcast on national television in the United Kingdom, but these were banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, reportedly on the grounds that the first contained Clarkson saying the phrase "fuck me, that's good",[4] the second for Clarkson saying the beer was better than Birmingham, and the third because it promoted alcohol being served irresponsibly as it featured Clarkson drinking the lager in the morning before going to work.[12] When Hawkstone Lager was released, it became the top selling beer on Amazon.[13] In January 2022, Clarkson announced that the beer would be sold on tap in pubs in Oxfordshire.[14]