Adnams run regular tours of the brewery. The tour takes approximately 1 hour followed by a tutored beer tasting in the Adnams Cellar & Kitchen café. The cost is £10 per person, which includes the tour, tasting, and a bottle of beer to take home. The tours are only available to over 18s and booking is essential as spaces are limited.

01502 727 225

Visit the Adnams Cellar & Kitchen Store in Victoria Street, Southwold (near the Brewery), to purchase all the beers and other fascinating items for your cellar and kitchen. Includes a café. Open Monday to Saturday 9am - 6pm, Sunday and Bank Holidays 10am - 4pm.

01502 727 244

Adnams Cellar & Kitchen Store

Southwold is home to the world famous Adnams Sole Bay Brewery. A sample of which, simply has to be tasted on any visit to this coastal resort.

The front of the brewery

The Adnams brewery was founded in 1872 by Ernest and George Adnams who bought the already established Sole Bay brewery; the Lotus family then joined in 1902. In 1880, George decided to leave Suffolk for South Africa, where he was later tragically killed and eaten alive by a crocodile!!

The company was incorporated in 1890 and it has remained an independent company ever since. The earliest recorded brewing on the Adnams site was by Johanna de Corby in 1396. However, it is rumoured that 18 wives had been charged with brewing ale on this site over 50 years before! Many of the locals no doubt probably wish their wives would attempt the same thing now!

The brewery as seen from the top of the lighthouse

Adnams is fast establishing itself as one of Britain’s premium producers of fine ales and the Adnams stamp can be found right across the town, county and region. Southwold is home to a number of great pubs where one can sample some Adnams, including Sole Bay Inn, Lord Nelson, King’s Head and The Crown Hotel, one of several Adnams-owned hostelries. Adnams remains committed to operating non themed pubs, so every outlet has its own unique character.

The Sole Bay Inn

From 2001 to 2003 new fermenting vessels were installed to cope with the growing demand and 4 years later the brew house was re-equipped, making it one of the most sustainable and energy efficient in Europe. Now one can savour the taste of fine Suffolk ale, and help protect the environment too!

Modern fermenting vessels

Adnams produces a wide range of regular beers such as its popular Broadside and Explorer bitters, as well as keg beers such as Spindrift. It also produces seasonal beers like the fabulous ‘Oyster Stout’ and the new ‘cold weather beer’ Old Ale. They also released for a limited time in December 2008, Tally Ho, a tasty and distinctive barley wine.

Adnams Broadside commemorates the fierce battle of Sole Bay fought against the Dutch Republic in 1672. The fullness of the beer makes it a good accompaniment for stews and steak or kidney and ale pies.

Southwold Jack is the name of the man with the sword and axe that can be found on all Adnams branding. He represents a Southwold solider who fought in the War of the Roses. The original Jack lives in the town’s beautiful Church of St Edmunds. He dates from the fourteen hundreds and is a mechanical figure made from oak. In his hand is his axe, which he uses to strike the church bell.

The original Southwold Jack

The brewery is located on East Green and some of the inner workings of the site can be seen through an external glass wall. It’s well worth a peek for all you beer lovers out there!

Inner workings of the brewery

A trip to Southwold couldn’t be complete without sampling some of Adnams’ various beers, so why not find a nice local and settle in for an evening of great conversation and fine local beer!

Beer ready to drink!

Our aim at Adnams is to produce quality beers each with its own character. All the barley we use is grown and malted locally in East Anglia, this saves on food miles but it is also one of the best regions in the world for growing malted barley. Most of the hops we use are grown in England, but we also use some hops from America and Slovenia. Different hop varieties deliver different flavours, but as well as variety, the growing conditions, the climate, and the soil also have a big effect on the flavour.

Like winemakers use sugars from the grape to make wine, we use sugars from the barley to make beer. In barley, those sugars are initially stored in the barley corns as starch so we need to get barley to break it down into sugars for us. We do this by crushing the barley and mixing it with hot water (known as liquor in brewing circles), this allows the barley to convert the starch to sugar. We steep the mixture for an hour and then separate the liquid (called wort) from the solid in a big sieve and the clear wort is then boiled. At various stages during the boil we add hops.

Hops are essentially a herb used to flavour beer, they add bitterness, lots of other flavours and aroma. After the boil we cool the wort down and put it into a fermentation vessel where we add our own in-house yeast which we have used since the 1940s. Our yeast uses the sugars from the barley and produces alcohol, carbon dioxide and lots of other flavours. Once the fermentation has reached the level we need for that beer, we cool the beer down and it's left to mature. At the end of maturation the beer for bottling will be filtered and bottled. The difference in flavours between the brews is all down to the different amounts and varieties of raw materials used and also to how we control the brewing process.

Fergus Fitzgerald, Adnams Brewer

Top - Home