38 ratings for me and one cider, which surprised was so high reading some peoples totals. No place ratings, apart from touching a little bit of the county on the A419 when I drive to my Theale office, I think I’ve only visited the County once, to do a bmx competition in Trowbridge back in 2008. No beer really sticks out, although I seem to remember enjoying Hop Back stout.
So a few stats from me…
I have tried 82 beers from Wiltshire
Top Rated Beers
Downton Roman Imperial Stout
Dark Revolution Voodoo
Dark Revolution Velveteen
Dark Revolution Deviant - Cascade, Citra, Galaxy
Moles Mole Catcher
Dark Revolution ViPA
Hop Back Citra
Three Castles Wilder & Milder
Three Daggers Daggers Edge
Hop Kettle Red Star
Most Rated Breweries
Wadworth - 18
Box Steam - 8
Hop Back - 7
Three Castles - 7
Revolution - 5
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On RB I have rated a mere 9 beers from 5 breweries. Nothing outstanding - highest rating is 3.4 (Hop Back Entire Stout). If you go back to my personal records (since 2013) the total is 56 beers from 14 breweries.
Amazingly in 45 years of drinking, I don’t think I have ever drunk in Wiltshire ! Nor have I ever drunk Hop Back Summer Lightning.
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Just the 6 for me. 5 from Wadworth and 1 from Hop Back. Also 1 from Yeastie Boys which of course doesn’t count for Wiltshire but was apparently brewed at Dark Revolution, who I could’ve sworn I’d had a couple of beers from - must be confusing them with another brewery.
Ought to have a few more rates given it’s a neighbouring county to me, but again it’s one of those counties which doesn’t really have much appeal to me as I don’t tend to drink much trad stuff.
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129 beers (15th place in Wiltshire)
7 place ratings
22 different Breweries incl: 5 closed
Breweries with most ratings
Wadworth 19
Dark Revolution 14
Downton 12
Box Steam 12
Hopback 9
Ramsbury 9
Top five beers
Downtown Chimera IPA 4 1
Dark Revolution Bone Idol 4.1
Dark Revolution Delerious 4.1
Hopback Summer Lightning 4.0
Downtown Moonstruck 3.9
As Glen says Wiltshire is an awkward place to get to even when living in a neighbouring county Oxfordshire in our case. Pre Rate Beer and many, many years ago I worked and stayed there a few times in Salisbury and Devizes and back then the GBG was my bible and I fondly remember one of us would be the designated driver and we’d head off in search of highly rated pubs. I seemed to recall Moles Brewery had their own pub on a steep hill somewhere, there was a great Wadworth pub called The Raven at Poulshot nr Devizes where the beers were all gravity dispense from wooden casks and the landlord took snuff constantly do much so that his septum was pretty much worn away. We stayed in Salisbury and visited the winter beer festival with friends, the Wyndham Arms was always a great pub, I remember it fondly but hsve never rated it.
Hopback Summer Lightning as has already been mentioned really was one of the first breakthrough golden beers, launched around 1988 it was a game changer beer, I loved it and whilst my tastes have certainly changed over the years it would be interesting to try it again. I am very fond of Downton Chimera IPA it’s one of those beers I really remember where I first had it, laid outside a tent at a campsite near Wareham. I was so pleased to see Dark Revolution come through they are a great outfit, we used to get some of their beers for Merton Beer Festival and they never disappointed.
In recent years before leaving the UK, I used to visit two patient wards in Wiltshire that our NHS Trust managed, an adolescent ward in Swindon and a Eating Disorder Unit at Savernake Hospital, Marlborough, these trips helped me to pickup a few more bottles and the odd place rate but like others say it’s a county that is easily overlooked. I would recommend a short break in Salisbury though, it’s a lovely place.
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I would give Dark Revolution a try, they are closer to a new wave type Brewery than any other in the County and as Fin says in his piece, they never let you down.
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Looking back, I picked up 3 of my Dark Revolution ratings at Merton Beer Festival, how we miss that now!, all of them I have rated highly. Very good Brewery.
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This is one of the best and most interesting threads for a very long while and it is passing on really, really good and useful information about places and beers, great work whoever thought this one up. Looking forward to when we get to Bavaria, I might end up writing an essay.
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Arkells Brewery in the Kingsdown area of Swindon is fairly remarkable as it remains in the ownership of the same family, the Arkell family, since its establishment in 1843. 6 generations at the last count, it is also the oldest continuously running company in Swindon. It profited from the rapid success of the Great Western Railway and the Railway works in Swindon, it does remain a relatively local brewery, their tied pubs only really stretching to Oxford, Cheltenham and Thames Valley. A branch of the Arkells family established Donnington Brewery in Gloucestershire however, on the death of Claude Arkell at Donnington the breweries were merged together under the same ownership but both remaining in operation.
The beers are mostly casked but they also have a bottling operation, they have the franchise to sell bottled beers on Great Western Trains. There is a traditional range of regular beers 2B, 3B & Kingsdown Ale come to mind but also a range of seasonals and the odd special. a great deal of investment has gone into their stable of pubs recently with many becoming more food orientated.
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Great thread. Interesting content. Has even inspired me to participate.
42 Wiltshire beers in total
Wadworth 18
Hop Back 6
Downton 5
Stonehenge 3
Arkells, Box Steam and Moles 2 each
Dark Revolution, Hop Kettle, Plain and Three Castles 1 each
Highest score was Downton Roman Imperial Stout. 9 are in the RB top twenty for Wiltshire.
13 of the Wadworth were Spoons Beer Festival foreign brewer collaborations, 4 of which are in the Wiltshire top twenty.
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Welcome along for the ride John. It’s great that more people will take part.
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A mere 11 for me, but 2 of those were consumed at home in Canada which tickles me for some reason. (The government run liquor store here was bringing in Box Steam for a while.) Several Wadsworth consumed on a trip to Oxford in 2010.
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One of those very few counties where I’d struggle to name a brewery or cidery from, yet I have managed to rate 28 beers originating from there.
Wadworth is in pole position, with Box Steam, New Flying Monk, Dark Revolution, Hop Back taking 2 or 3 each. Have rated 3 that have closed.
Bit of a grey area for me this county, seems to be a part of the country I’ve always driven through to get somewhere else (I’m sure people say that about Shropshire) but there is a cracking car museum in Warminster I went to once. And of course Stonehenge / Avebury which I’ve been to countless times.
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I needed to tick off Kingsdown when I was going through the Protz 300 book and
discovered that they have have two pubs near me in Ascot. I did wonder why they have two pubs so far away from all their others. In fact there is a also a random Harvey’s pub in Sunningdale. Horse racing related?
Arkell’s beers are now also available on Ocado.
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I thought I would take a look at my highest rated breweries for Witshire. Ratebeer shows all breweries over 5 ratings. These are my top 5 for the county.
- Dark Revolution - Ave 3.55
- Hop Kettle - Ave 3.29
- Kettlesmith Brewing - Ave 3.28
- Hidden - Ave 3.25 (now closed)
- New Flying Monk - Ave 3.23
Dark Revolution head and shoulders above the others for me and the older breweries not getting a look in. Pretty much as I thought it would be.
If anyone fancies topping up their Wilts ticks this bottle shop in Swindon ships nationally and has beers from Hop Kettle, Ramsbury and Stealth.
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Had me fooled for a while, you had put Salisbury in the City box, it threw me, particularly when the map showed Swindon 
Do’h.
Wadworth Brewery still run one of the great sights that can be seen from any traditional brewery and that is the Brewery Dray. They have used drays for over 125 years, obviously initially as a necessity but more recently for shows and demonstrations but also, when the weather is good, to pubs within a 2 mile radius of the Brewery. They currently run 2 Shire Horses, Sam & Jac.
I personally love to see the Shires working, the brewery close to me, Hook Norton, still run shires and 2 tonnes of horse pulling a cart is quite a sight, particularly in amongst the traffic. I believe that Harvey’s continue to run a dray as well, but it’s a pretty rare thing these days. I wonder if, with the passing of Diesel eventually, we might see more of these lovely, gentle creatures?
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I remember Adnam’s retiring their last two horses, often saw them when in Southwold. People don’t mind being stuck in traffic behind a brewery dray, but hate it when it’s a lorry!
Would love to see them make a comeback.
<*))))))><
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