25 Febrary 2010
Stow-on-the-Wold-based Donnington Brewery named ‘ Brewery of the Year’

Donnington Brewery, probably the prettiest brewery in England, has been named the UK’s Brewery of the Year by the Good Pub Guide.

According to the guide’s editors, Alisdair Aird and Fiona Stapley, the 145-year old Donnington Brewery near Stow on the Wold “beats the bargain prices of pubs brewing their own beer”. They go on to say: “Special praise to Donnington, based at a picturesque ancient watermill, which operates in Gloucestershire, not a particularly cheap area, and has some delightful pubs - no less than ten of them in the 2010 edition, including two splendid main entries.”

Brewery owner James Arkell is thrilled. “The Arkell family has been brewing here since 1865 and I took over from my cousin, Claude Arkell, who died in 2007. I learned the art of brewing at Donnington in the 1970s so when I took over from Claude it felt like coming home. I am delighted that Donnington Brewery has been recognised by The Good Pub Guide, for all of us working at the brewery and for all our landlords too.”

The High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, Anne Chambers, visited the brewery today, and presented James Arkell with the certificate.

Donnington Brewery’s 15 pubs are located mainly in Gloucestershire, with four just over the borders into Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. Ten of these pubs also appear in the 2010 Good Pub Guide.

The picturesque brewery, almost hidden away in beautiful Cotswold valley with a lake which is home to a flock of black swans, is still powered by the original millwheel which drives the pumps and machinery. A hillside spring gives the beer its unique flavor.

The black swans originate from Australia and were introduced to the lake by Claude Arkell who took an interest in the birds. Now they live amiably alongside the flocks of white swans.

The brewery still produces real ale in the traditional way, brewing 20 barrels once or twice a week, or perhaps three times during the busy times. The brewery currently produces two cask ales: SBA and BB and one bottled ale, ‘Double Donn’, brewed especially in 2007 to celebrate the life of the late Claude Arkell and meant as a special, but which proved so popular that the brewery now produces it regularly.

Until the mid 1960s, the brewery grew its own barley and malted it on a special malting floor which is still exists. Today the maris otter malt is bought from trusted growers in Norfolk and is still milled at the brewery. The hops come from Herefordshire and Worcestershire and the water is drawn from the natural spring beside the millpond.

Now in its 28th year, The Good Pub Guide 2010 (Ebury Press, £14.99), edited by Alisdair Aird and Fiona Stapley, has over 5,000 independently chosen favourite pubs, is seen as the pub-goers’ bible and is the UK’s No 1 bestselling guide book.

Whilst acknowledging the difficult time the industry is experiencing, editor Fiona Stapley is keen to put it in perspective with the national economy: “Around 4% to 5% of pubs have closed in this last year. Though this is grim news, it isn’t in fact far out of line with the 3% rate of job losses in the private sector as a whole – bearing in mind that a failing pub is likely to have had fewer staff than a thriving one. And the closure rate certainly doesn’t compare badly with the 5-6% contraction in the national economy.”