Shepherd Naeme is a big brewery in the small, sort of run down town of Faversham. Just looking at it from the outside, it reminds me of the corporate breweries in the US. Very much just a factory like any other and lacking any of the charisma or style of many of the craft breweries I've visited.
The visitor center is not located at the brewery. It's in the town center and is basically just a pub and a gift shop. The bad thing is, even though it's the official visitor center, unless you take the tour (which are very few and booked out well in advance we discovered), you can't even have a beer there. I was told I could go to any of their "licensed pubs" to have a beer.
That kind of defeats the purpose of coming to the brewery doesn't it? I've visited a ton of breweries and they all have public tasting rooms at the brewery so you can drink the freshest beer and the newest recipes. I was amazed.
So I didn't get a tour. And I didn't even get a beer. So Shepherd Neame was a complete waste of time. read more