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2023 WILL SEE A LANDMARK BIRTHDAY FOR OAKHAM ALES.

AND TO CELEBRATE OUR 30TH ANNIVERSARY, THE 2023 OAKHAM CASK AGED AND SEASONAL LINE-UPS WILL FEATURE A MIXTURE OF EXCITING NEW BEERS AND REVISITED OAKHAM CLASSICS.

We reckon to have brewed just shy of 300 different beers since the first batch of JHB was brewed in September 1993 and to have won around 250 major awards over the period.

So it was no easy task to select the very best of them.

But we think that we’ve come up with a fantastic 2023 list – one that pays tribute to the foresight of our founder John Wood and celebrates the pioneering spirit of Oakham legend John Bryan and his brewing teams.

Click here for more info on the 2023 Cask Aged Range.

2023 WILL SEE A LANDMARK BIRTHDAY FOR OAKHAM ALES.

AND TO CELEBRATE OUR 30TH ANNIVERSARY, THE 2023 OAKHAM CASK AGED AND SEASONAL LINE-UPS WILL FEATURE A MIXTURE OF EXCITING NEW BEERS AND REVISITED OAKHAM CLASSICS.

We reckon to have brewed just shy of 300 different beers since the first batch of JHB was brewed in September 1993 and to have won around 250 major awards over the period.

So it was no easy task to select the very best of them.

But we think that we’ve come up with a fantastic 2023 list – one that pays tribute to the foresight of our founder John Wood and celebrates the pioneering spirit of Oakham legend John Bryan and his brewing teams.

Click here for more info on the 2023 Seasonals Range.

Ed Sharman and his brewing team were delighted to welcome Jon Stringer of hop factors Charles Faram to the brewery on 13 October.

Their mission?

To brew a brand new Oakham Cask Aged IPA using the best of UK sourced hops.

We’ll be ageing the beer in cask for at least 2 months prior to release in January 2023.

Which gives us time to come up with a name for it!

Keep an eye out for further details but in the meantime, have a look at Jon’s video of the day’s brewing for further info.

Click here to view the excellent Charles Faram video record of the day’s brewing

Three more awards for our beers at the recent SIBA East Beers Competition!

GOLD for Black Magic in the  “Cask Amber to Dark Speciality Beer” Category

GOLD for Green Devil IPA in the “Cask IPA” Category

SILVER for Citra in the “Cask Session IPA” Category

Oakham Lead Brewer Ed Sharman is a great lover of dark beers, Hawse Buckler being a personal favourite, so winning this category was particularly special.

“We’re legendary for our pale ales,” Ed said. “and I wanted to show that we can make fantastic beers in a range of styles. So I’m glad that my journey to the dark side hit the spot for the SIBA judges!”

Originally intended to be Oakham’s 4.5% ABV seasonal offering for October 2020, the pandemic meant that Black Magic was adapted into a 5% cask aged beer with unfiltered cans and kegs also produced.

Well received back in late 2020 despite the lockdowns, Ed brought Black Magic back this year as a cask aged beer with a revised recipe to emphasise the chocolate notes. He removed the lactose, changed the type of chocolate used and tweaked the malt and hop line-up to bring the recipe into balance.

Black Magic is aged in the cask for at least 3 months to allow the flavours to develop and to give a smooth mouthfeel.

Dark and decadent, balanced with a clean bitterness – a sumptuous autumn treat!

Oakham beers took a clean sweep 1-2-3 in the CAMRA East Anglia Region Session Pale, Blond and Golden Ales Competition held recently at the Hitchin Beer Festival!

GOLD – Oakham Inferno

SILVER – Oakham JHB

BRONZE – Oakham Citra

GOLD MEDAL WINNER – SIBA EAST BEER COMPETITION SEPTEMBER 2022!

Oakham Lead Brewer Ed Sharman is a great lover of dark beers, Hawse Buckler being a personal favourite, so winning this category was particularly special.

“We’re legendary for our pale ales,” Ed said. “and I wanted to show that we can make fantastic beers in a range of styles. So I’m glad that my journey to the dark side hit the spot for the SIBA judges!”

Originally intended to be Oakham’s 4.5% ABV seasonal offering for October 2020, the pandemic meant that Black Magic was adapted into a 5% cask aged beer with unfiltered cans and kegs also produced.

Well received back in late 2020 despite the lockdowns, Ed brought Black Magic back this year as a cask aged beer with a revised recipe to emphasise the chocolate notes. He removed the lactose, changed the type of chocolate used and tweaked the malt and hop line-up to bring the recipe into balance.

Black Magic is aged in the cask for at least 3 months to allow the flavours to develop and to give a smooth mouthfeel.

Flavoured with Cocoa and hopped with Centennial, Citra, Chinook and Amarillo on top of a complex base of no less than 8 different malts.

A sumptuous cask aged chocolate porter, robust and rich, dark and decadent and supernaturally smooth.

Click here for more info.

Friday 27th May saw the retirement of our legendary Brewing Director John Bryan after 27 years at Oakham Ales.

A hugely influential figure in UK brewing, John was the first UK brewer to travel to the USA to select hops direct from the growers, most famously in 2009 discovering a remarkable new hop variety – Citra!

John’s brewing intuition and knowledge have been inestimably important to Oakham’s development but he leaves the brewery in the very safe hands of newly appointed Head Brewer Mark Tetlow, Lead Brewer Ed Sharman, Quality Brewer Stewart Poulter and the rest of the brewing team.

And John won’t be stepping away completely – he remains a partner in the business and intends to continue with those annual hop sourcing visits to the USA for at least the next couple of harvests.

How did John sign off?

Well suitably enough for a man who has spent so much time flying in the face of brewing tradition, John took to the skies in a Spitfire recently and could be seen looping the loop above Cambridgeshire.

And of course completing a perfect barrel roll!

Click HERE for more about John’s USA Hop Adventures.

And HERE for a video of John Hop Diving.

Named after the Japanese term meaning “change for the better” or “continuous improvement.”

Kaizen features 4 great New World hop varieties on a complex base of 5 different malts.

Naturally slightly hazy.

Cask Aged Kaizen is now sold out but the beer is still available in Unfiltered Cans and Kegs.

Click here for more info on Kaizen Keg.

Click here for more info on Kaizen Cans.

Click here for more info on Kaizen Cask Aged.

Thanks to ITV News Anglia and reporter Stuart Leithes for their visit last week as we geared up for the pubs re-opening on 4 July.

Click here to view Stuart’s report.

The Cast:

Brewer: Stewart Poulter

Man on Fork Lift: Pete Agger

Man with Beard: Ed Sharman

Drayman: Mark Holroyd

Spokespersons: John Bryan (Brewing Director) and Ed Sharman (Brewer)

We’re proud to have been named “Brewery of the Year” in the Good Pub Guide.

A fantastic award from one of the best-respected publications in the industry and reward for the hard work of the Oakham team and our commitment to brewing great beers for our customers.

The 2020 edition of the prestigious Guide was published today and Fiona Stapley, Editor of Good Pub Guide, told us “Your prices are fair, your award-winning beers are excellent as well as interesting and you are constantly coming up with new ideas and branching out to reach new areas rather than just sticking to what you know. Your innovation and enthusiasm for the company really stands out. So we feel this is a well deserved accolade.”.

This is proving to be a very special year, with brewery expansion plans well underway and now another major accolade to follow on from our best selling Oakham Citra being awarded “Champion Golden Beer of Britain” and Bronze in the overall “Supreme Champion Beer” competition at this year’s Great British Beer Festival.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve appeared in the Good Pub Guide. In fact, over the last two decades, we’ve won their “Own Brew Pub of the Year” award three times for the Brewery Tap in Peterborough.

Fiona Stapley explained the process behind the award: “We have thousands of readers on our database who send us regular reports and letters and thoughts about pubs and beers in general, as well as specific details on pubs they visit. I always keep a careful check on reports over the year to see what highlights stand out and Oakham Ales have come in for particular praise – for your regular beers as well as your seasonal ones. And they love the Brewery Tap in Peterborough of course.”