Jeremy Clarkson reveals how he avoids ‘financial ruin’ at his Farmer’s Dog pub
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that the only thing saving him from financial ruin at his new pub is selling his own Hawkstone beer and cider.
The former Top Gear presenter paid less than £1m for the pub, formerly known as The Windmill, in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire.
He opened the new venture last summer following the success of his Diddy Squat farm and accompanying farm shop, which are at the centre of his Amazon farming series Clarkson’s Farm.
Clarkson has previously revealed fears over making profit at the farm, and also faced backlash for the prices of food and drink available at the pub, with mains ranging from £15 to £19 and pints for £5.50.
But Clarkson has revealed in a new Instagram post that the “only thing” saving him from financial ruin is serving his own beer and cider, from his brewery Hawkstone.
“Welcome to The Farmer’s Dog, it’s a pub I’ve had for about six months now, and I’ve worked out it is a brilliant way of turning £100 into about £94 using nothing but costings,” he told followers.
“The only thing that is saving me from financial ruin is the fact that we serve Hawkstone lager and Hawkstone cider.”
He then cheekily offered for other pubs to start stocking Hawkstone, by offering 1000 free kegs of beers to any pub landlords who get in touch with him.
“If you’ve got a pub and if you want to see if this strategy works for you as well, get in touch with us at our website, and if we like the sound of your pub, if it is the kind of place we want to be in, we’ll send you a free keg,” he said. “88 pints of Hawkstone lager or cider for nothing.”
Clarkson has been no stranger to voicing the financial hardship that farming and brewery businesses face, since he delved into the world of hospitality and agriculture when he took over the Diddly Squat farm in 2019.
Clarkson launched his brewery company Hawkstone Lager in 2021 – so opening seemed like the natural next move.
Despite being warned about the high number of pub closures in the UK, how hard it would be to make money by having only a British food menu and finding staff post-Brexit, he believed “it’d all be fine”.
However, Clarkson admitted in a column published in The Times was hit with a different reality – owning a pub required hiring a whole kitchen of workers, serving staff and dealing with an accident one costumer had in the
“It is galling to see how much effort is required to make so little money on the farm,” he said. “It’s worse at the pub. The customers are coming. There’s no problem there. But turning their visits into a profit is nigh-on impossible.”
Last year, the presenter described the whole process of becoming a pub landlord as “terribly stressful” and said there are many inconveniences that “you don’t think about”.
