It’s lucky Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t spend a heap on ads for his beer brand Hawkestone Lager after yet another effort got banned by the British watchdog.
The 62-year old TV personality and resident curmudgeon bought a farm, Diddly Squat, in Britain’s picturesque Costswalds in 2019, with Amazon also making a documentary on his agricultural adventures.
After discovering the farm’s soil was perfect for growing hops, Clarkson moved into brewing and selling his own beer.
The ad for Hawkestone was actually made at Christmas and quickly banned by Britain’s advertising standards after Clarkson declared at the end that the brew will make “everyone pissed”.
The banned ad’s just resurfaced on the former Top Gear host’s Instagram account to which he noted: “Irritatingly, this ad has been banned because it turns out, you aren’t allowed to say that drinking lots of lager will make you drunk.”
And it’s not the first time Clarkson and his Hawkestone Lager has fallen foul of advertising regulators.
In December, another one of his monologues got pulled because of the swearing.
In the spot, Clarkson said: “It’s watched Roman armies march past, and the Normans, and the plague, and the Luftwaffe, druids, new romantics and punks… And now it’s watching me standing in front of it, drinking some lager – lager that I’ve made in its honour.” He signed off with a sip of Hawkestone and, “Fuck me, that’s good!”
Another banned spot (below) saw Clarkson drinking a pint first thing in the morning. The Advertising Standards Agency – arguably, rightly – deeming the spot contravened rules around the responsible service of alcohol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMNRap8WJcY
Not, that it would appear, the brew needs too much promoting. Just prior to Christmas, Hawkestone Lager was named as the biggest selling beer on Amazon in the UK. It prompted Clarkson and the brewers to limit sales to one case per customer so it didn’t sell out.
Clarkson teamed up with the local Cotswold Brewery’s Rick and Emma Keene to create the “very highest quality premium lager”. The brew’s named after the Neolithic standing stone situated close to Diddly Squat Farm.
