Jeremy Clarkson has unveiled a notable new development for his fast-growing British alcohol brand, Hawkstone, marking yet another unexpected move beyond the ploughed fields of Clarkson’s Farm. The 65-year-old presenter, who has transformed himself from motoring journalist to full-time farmer in the Cotswolds, has already achieved remarkable success with his Amazon Prime series documenting life at his Diddly Squat estate. Alongside the show, he has launched his own pub, The Farmer’s Dog, which adheres to an unusually strict set of rules promoting local produce.
Now, Clarkson is expanding Hawkstone’s reach in a significant way. The brand, established in 2021 and known for its premium British beers and ciders, will soon be poured at Five Guys fast-food restaurants across the UK. Announcing the news on Instagram, Clarkson emphasised that customers choosing a pint of Hawkstone would, in turn, be supporting British farming. This message aligns closely with his ongoing “100% British” campaign, which dictates that everything connected to the brand and his pub must be sourced within a 16-mile radius.
That commitment, however, has come at a steep financial cost. Clarkson has admitted that his insistence on locally sourced ingredients means that The Farmer’s Dog loses around £10 for every customer who eats there. Even birthday cakes brought in by visitors must comply with the same rules; an email response to one hopeful customer stated that only “100% British” products could be brought into the venue, and that included celebratory cakes.
In his column for The Times, Clarkson has been candid about the challenges of maintaining these principles. He revealed that some ingredients — black pepper, for example — cost ten times more in Britain than imported alternatives. Yet despite the spiralling costs and arguably impractical logistics, Clarkson remains committed to running the establishment according to his own values. He joked that while a rational business owner might price a British-sourced hotdog at £45 to break even, he instead asked an AI system to identify the average lunch price in a local Cotswolds pub and charged that amount instead.
The result, he says, is a business that may not always make financial sense but stays true to his mission of championing British farming. And with Hawkstone now entering Five Guys locations nationwide, Clarkson’s ambition to push locally made products into mainstream spaces appears to be gaining real momentum.
