Record-breaking festival to celebrate milestone harvest in Tongham.

Hogs Back Brewery celebrated its 10th hop harvest with a record number of more than 4,200 visitors across the three days with hop-laden hats, beer and bands.

The festival began when the Hop hangar was turned into a party venue on September 13, following two weeks of harvesting in the hop garden.

The entertainment started with a sold-out ‘Roots’ concert of original music, headlined by Newton Faulkner. The weekend was filled with different entertainment from Brit Pop with Blurasis to blues from Wille and The Bandits.

Hogs Back harvested three hop varieties this year: Fuggles, English Cascade, and Farnham White Bine (a traditional local variety). Visitors also raised money for charity with more than £3,300 collected for the British Heart Foundation.

Rupert Thompson, Hogs Back managing director, said: “The Hop Harvest Party is always the highlight of our year and this year’s celebrations were extra special as we marked 10 years of hop growing. 

“Over that decade, our hop garden has gone from strength to strength. Although this year’s crop wasn’t our biggest ever, largely because of wet weather early in the growing cycle, the quality of the hops is excellent, and they will add a distinctive flavour to our beers.

“With more hops still to be harvested this week, we’re only down 10% on last year’s volumes across the Fuggles, Cascade and Farnham White Bine varieties. 

“As always, we are enormously grateful to our band of volunteer Hoppers who now number than 70, and who help us year-round in the hop garden. Thanks also go to estate manager Matthew King for his skilful and dedicated care of our hops.

“We’ve already set the dates for next year’s Hop Harvest celebrations, which will run on 12th, 13th and 14th September 2025.”