Cheddar Ales

Cheddar Ales began its artisan brewing activities in October 2006 and is based at Winchester Farm on the edge of Cheddar village, near the famous Cheddar Gorge.

We currently have five fermenting vessels, each one capable of holding 21.5 brewery barrels of beer, or around 6,150 pints. This gives us a weekly brewing capacity of around 30,000 pints, which may sound a lot but is certainly 'micro' in terms of the brewing industry. By hand-crafting such relatively small volumes, Cheddar Ales can ensure that character, consistency and quality lie at the heart of all our beers.

Alongside all the other vessels and machinery making up the brewery`s production process, we have a bottling line capable of producing 1200 bottles per hour. This enables us to undertake brewing and bottling work for other small breweries in need or to produce bespoke brews and bottles for other clients.

Jem Ham is Cheddar Ales' Head Brewer and Managing Director. Jem has lived in Somerset all of his life and after a brief career in banking and a year in Australia spent the next 15 years working as a brewer for another local brewery. Another year working as a stand-in Head Brewer for a Wiltshire brewery gave Jem the confidence to go it alone and in 2006 he started Cheddar Ales with the intention of making the best real ales in the local area. Our customers say he is succeeding. When he's not working, Jem enjoys playing golf and spending time with his family, but it's never long before he's back, hard at work in his local pub, keeping up our strict quality control procedures.