To know beer is to love beer and to know it more is to love it more.
Through videos and infographics, our Love Beer series takes you through the history of beer, the brewing process and the different ingredients and techniques that make different styles of beers.
Enjoy all this 'Love Beer' content by following us on social media, or explore some of the content below.
Behind the scenes at the brewery
Did you know that each year we brew 225,000 barrels of beer, or that just one of our fermentation vessels can contain more pint of beer than you could drink in a lifetime?!
Come and see for yourself! We run tours of the brewery all year round
How many bottles can a bottle filler fill...? Well, our state of the art bottling plant can fill up to 600 bottles per minute – that’s over 250,000 bottles in an 8 hour shift!
History
Did you know that beer has been brewed for at least 10,000 years, that the oldest beer recipe is almost 4,000 years old? Or why in the middle ages, beer was safer than water?
Want to know more? Explore the brewery's history with our archivist John Owen
Shepherd Neame is Britain's Oldest Brewer. While our official founding date is 1698, we can trace our origins back to the 1500s And we've always been right here, in Faversham.
Ingredients
Where does the water we use come from, and what on Earth IS yeast? Discover how malted barley contributes to the complex flavours of your beer, and take a deep dive into hops, their history, how they’re grown and which ones we like to use.
Malt, Yeast & Water
Malted barley provides the sugars needed for fermentation, and contributes to the beer's colour and flavour, from sweet and nutty pale malts to the toasted, coffee taste of dark malts.
Yeast is used in fermentation, to convert sugars in hopped wort into alcohol, giving us beer. We don't like to waste anything here, so even the yeast gets recycled.
All of the water we use is drawn from the brewery’s own artesian well, deep beneath the brewery. We have implemented a water recovery system, making our water usage among the lowest in the industry.
Hops
Hops weren't always used in beer, but today they're an essential ingredient, giving beer its bitterness, flavours and aromas.
Hops are very important to us at Shepherd Neame. While some of our hops are imported, we are proud that around 80% of the hops in our ales are Kentish.
Visit our YouTube channel for more videos on hops, including our 'HOPS 360' 4k virtual reality experience.
“One of the things that makes working for Shepherd Neame so special, is brewing beer in the heart of hop country.” - Richard Frost
“Hops get in your blood. And I’ve just been so wrapped up in them over the years that I cannot imagine life without being able to walk through a hop garden” Tony Redsell, Hop Grower
You can find out more about our ingredients on our YouTube channel and our ingredients page:
Well, we hope that you now Love Beer more than ever. If you like what you've seen so far, head over to our YouTube channel, where you can watch all of our Love Beer videos as we add them.
View our YouTube channel
Come and see us
You see behind the scenes at the brewery and learn more about how we brew our beers on our brewery tour.