Shottle Farm Brewery

The first thing that hits you at Shottle Farm Brewery is the smell - proper hoppy, honest brewery smell that tells you actual beer-making happens here. Just outside Belper in Derbyshire, this working farm brewery is exactly the sort of place you'd expect to find good local craft beer and not much faffing about with it.

You can tour the brewery and see how they do things, though it's worth checking ahead for opening times and whether tours need booking. They've got their own beers on tap - the kind you drink because someone's genuinely made them, not because a marketing team decided you should. The farm setting means it doesn't feel corporate or designed. It feels like someone's actual project.

This works best for beer enthusiasts and anyone who enjoys seeing how things are actually made. Kids might find it dull unless they're the type who get interested in the process. A proper visit takes a couple of hours at most - you're not clearing a whole afternoon here, but that's fine because you're nearby to Carsington Water and the Firs Caravan site is just two miles away, making it a decent pairing with a park-based holiday.

The Belper area has enough walking and water activities that you could easily spend a week in the region. Shottle Farm works as a rainy afternoon diversion or a Sunday morning task. Whether it's worth a specific trip depends entirely on whether you like beer and watching things being made. If you do, absolutely.