Bayeux Lager, a Pilsner-style beer brewed by Battle Brewery, becomes the British Museum's leading beer when the tapestry exhibition opens 10 September 2026.
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Battle Brewery will produce a limited-edition Bayeux Lager for the British Museum, timed to the unveiling of the Bayeux Tapestry Exhibition on 10 September 2026, the partners said in a statement. The beer becomes the museum's leading beer across its food and beverage outlets, and a bespoke souvenir gift box goes into its retail shops.
The co-branded lager is a classic Pilsner-style beer brewed with Saaz, Tettnang and Mittelfrüh hops, traditional noble varieties that give the style its elegant, aromatic character. Battle Brewery describes it as "clean, crisp and refreshing," balanced by low bitterness and a smooth Pilsner malt finish. Pilsner and dextrin malts give the beer body and balance. The style sits apart from the brewery's core range of award-winning cask ales and craft keg beers. The brewery's own summary is blunter: the beer is "designed to make history go down particularly well."
An original illustration inspired by the tapestry's visual language carries the label, reimagined through the brewery's own style. Historical references sit alongside "playful and unexpected modern details," the brewery said, a design meant to reward a closer look and make the events of 1066 feel alive rather than confined to the past.
The tapestry tells the story of the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings. Battle Brewery operates from the East Sussex town of Battle, which grew around the battlefield itself. More than 950 years after the events depicted in the tapestry changed the course of British history, the brewery's beers are made in the landscape the embroidery shows. The brewery's tagline for the launch is "A beer inspired by history, brewed where history happened." The museum says the beer offers visitors "a direct and delicious connection between the tapestry and the landscape it depicts."
Battle Abbey, the battlefield and the town that grew around them remain part of everyday life in Battle, the brewery said. The brewery is surrounded by the landscapes and landmarks the tapestry records, and these have shaped its identity since the beginning. The launch, in the brewery's telling, brings together two places "intrinsically linked by the events of 1066."
Darren Edmonstone, owner and managing director of Battle Brewery, said in the statement that creating the exclusive beer for the British Museum at the moment the exhibition is unveiled is "enormously exciting" for the company.
"This is one of the most important surviving accounts of the events that shaped Battle, Britain and the town our brewery calls home. Our brewery was born from a love of Battle, its history and the people who make the town what it is, so this collaboration feels like a genuine coming together of place, story and craftsmanship. There could not be a more fitting beer to accompany this moment. We hope visitors to The British Museum will enjoy discovering the Bayeux Tapestry in all its detail and then raise a glass of Bayeux Lager to the extraordinary story behind it."
Benugo operates every café and restaurant in the museum, so the rollout covers the whole estate. Ben Warner, Benugo's founder, said in the statement the tapestry is "one of the world's great cultural treasures" and the beer lets the museum "bring its story to life in a different way." He called the partnership "a wonderful coming together of history, craftsmanship and hospitality." The Great Court Restaurant will serve Bayeux Lager with French and Norman-inspired dishes, a menu that brings both sides of the 1066 story together. The museum's afternoon tea stays on the menu alongside it.
The arrangement is a single-venue deal. Exclusive to the museum, the beer will not be sold anywhere else. It will be poured in all of the museum's food and beverage outlets, sold as a take-home gift box in its shops, and the museum will also stock other Battle Brewery beers. The brewery positions the lager for the visit itself, a celebratory drink after encountering "one of history's greatest surviving works of storytelling." The launch date is fixed to the exhibition's opening, so the product reaches visitors at the moment the tapestry goes on display.
Battle Brewery said the launch marks its most significant chapter yet, "carrying the story of Battle beyond East Sussex and into one of the world's most iconic museums" at an extraordinary moment in British cultural history. The gift box turns the beer into a souvenir item as well as a drink. The brewery, which uses locally sourced ingredients where possible, said its approach is hands-on and rooted in place, drawing constant inspiration from the history and community around it. Its stated ambition is to create beers the people of Battle are proud to call their own, while giving drinkers farther afield a genuine taste of where they come from.
Bayeux Lager launches exclusively at the British Museum in September 2026, coinciding with the unveiling of the Bayeux Tapestry Exhibition on 10 September.
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