Shepherd Neame festive favourites

Shepherd Neame serves up some festive favourites, including seasonal special Christmas Ale

Independent family brewer, Shepherd Neame, is pulling out all the festive stops to ensure it’s a season to celebrate in its pubs and hotels – and also at home.

Festive favourite Christmas Ale (5% ABV on draught) has returned, and is now available at selected pubs across Kent, London and the South East.

The full-bodied beer, which boasts warming notes of mulled fruits and spices, combines pale and crystal malts with Target and Challenger hops for bitterness, and Goldings hops for aroma.

It is available on draught and in bottles (7% ABV) now, as well as on sale online and in Shepherd Neame’s Brewery shop in Faversham.

For firm fans of Christmas Ale, limited-edition miniature bottle tree decorations are also on sale now in the Brewery shop, priced £3.95.

The 8cm-high decoration is an exact replica of its big brother bottled version, down to the full ingredients list on its back.

Shepherd Neame’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Kathryn Tye, said:

“We unveiled our Christmas Ale decorations last year to hang on trees across our pub estate – and in customers’ homes too – and they proved a huge hit. So we thought we would bring them back for another year and they are already selling fast.”

And for those who want to get the full flavour of the brewer’s home, yuletide tours of the Brewery will run on selected dates. Tours still available to book are on Thursday, December 11, Wednesday, December 17, Monday December 22 and Tuesday, December 23.

The 80-minute tour includes a visit to the Old Brewery Store, which features displays of historic delivery vehicles and bygone pub signs and ends back in the Visitor Centre with a tutored tasting of three products, including Christmas Ale, followed by the chance to have a glass of Grants Morella Cherry Brandy, which carries the Royal warrant, and a homemade mince pie.

The experience was awarded a Hidden Gem accolade from VisitEngland last month. The yuletide tours cost £25 per person. Book yours now. 

Christmas booking is now available at Shepherd Neame’s pubs and hotels across the South East, where its chefs have been busy cooking up a seasonal storm with some of the finest local ingredients.  Book your festive feast or night out. 

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