Hook Norton

The brewery was founded in 1849 in the Oxfordshire village of Hook Norton. It is a Victorian tower brewery, in which the process runs downward from floor to floor, and a steam engine of 1899, said to be the last commercially working one of its kind in the UK, drove most of its machinery until 2006 and still runs some of it. Beer is still delivered in the village by horse-drawn dray. The family company has about 47 pubs, and its best-known beer is Old Hooky, first brewed in 1977.