Hawkstone, the Gloucestershire brewery whose largest shareholder is Jeremy Clarkson, is the South West’s fastest-growing private company, according to the fifth annual Sunday Times 100 rankings.
The list is published today online at thesundaytimes.com/100 and will be available as a supplement with the print edition of the newspaper on Sunday. The annual ranking identifies and celebrates Britain’s 100 leading entrepreneurial businesses, and showcases the people behind the private companies.
Hawkstone made £44.9 million in sales in the year to March, a 128.19% average annual growth in the last three years. The company features on the list for a third consecutive year.
“I know even less about brewing than I do about farming,” Clarkson recently admitted to The Sunday Times. “But there are plenty of competent people who do, and mercifully, some of them work here,” he added of the Hawkstone brand he launched in 2021 with business partner Johnny Hornby.
Led by managing director Owen Jenkins, the brewery now exports beer to 10 European countries, as well as supplying more than 2,000 UK retail outlets and over 4,000 pubs — Clarkson’s own Cotswolds venue, the Farmer’s Dog, among them.
