Darren Norbury, editor of Beer Today, CAMRA Kernow and ale-drinking colleague at the Star Inn, adds:

'I think I can speak for all Star (Crowlas) regulars when I say that Saturday afternoons are not the 
same. On Saturday afternoons, Bert held court. He and Margaret would return from Penzance 
having invariably won a joint of meat at the weekly British Legion draw, and while Mrs H packed the 
shopping away Bert was trying whatever new brew had arrived since he was last in. A hearty slap 
on the back told you Bert had arrived - if you were a lady, a peck on the cheek was not unusual. His 
East London tones were unmistakable, but I'm sure he'd worked his way up to Honorary 
Cornishman level. The Mexico Inn at Long Rock and Penzance's London Inn, on Causewayhead, 
were other famous haunts, and in the spirit of not drink-driving he would often thumb a lift into town 
from outside the Star. Looking much younger than his 74 years, he was an effervescent character 
who would strike up a conversation with anyone, local or stranger - never happier than when 
nattering 18 to the dozen with a pint in his hand. He especially enjoyed his beer "fests", as he 
would always call them, and was a regular particularly at the St Ives CAMRA event - he enjoyed the 
atmosphere at the St Austell December festival too. Let's raise a glass to him.'

Cornish Pub News

West Cornwall

Locals in Cadgwith are up in arms about plans to turn their village pub, the Cadgwith Cove Inn, into a restaurant.  The pub acts as the social centre for the community, and is where local groups, societies and clubs frequently hold their meetings - there is no village hall.  Now the landlord claims that the premises are no longer financially viable as a pub and wants to go the whole hog and convert it into a full-on eating house.  Plans include building an extension, which is not seen as much of a problem by the villagers, but what has really upset them is the intention to strip out the inside to make it more open plan.  It seems the building is listed, both inside and out (it is 300 years old, has two separate rooms, rare enough in pubs these days, and is 'unspoilt'), so the licensee might have a battle with the planners on his hands.  He certainly will if the locals have anything to do with it - they are already preparing for the fight and have sought CAMRA advice (which has included using the new Public House Viability Test - see story above).  Unfortunately, with the law as it stands, the definition of Change of Use as considered by planning inspectors does not include a change from a pub to a restaurant, as they are considered as similar types of premises.  The locals will have to fight on other grounds, such as loss of amenity and preservation of a listed building, possibly citing the Cornwall County Plan.  An interesting development on the Lizard Peninsula - watch this space for further news.... 
UPDATE: A public meeting called for Thursday 17 March was held in the Gig Shed, to which representatives of Kerrier District Council and the pub owning company were invited.  The plans for redevelopment of the pub were subsequently rejected by the council planners, but of course the promoters have announced their intention to appeal.  Unfortunately, planning appeal decisions have an unhappy history as far as pub customers are concerned - the Admiral Nelson in Falmouth is one recent famous case in point.  We shall have to wait and see.

Shorts....... One of the county's more obscure pubs, the former Pendarves Arms at Gwithian (near Hayle), was been sold recently.  Re-christened the Red River Inn, it is a free house and seems to specialise in Sharp's ales at present although this has not always been the case.  Word is, it is about to be sold yet again in May, to the current barman whoi has promised to buy it when he has sold his house...... The oddly-named Flanagan's in Penzance is up for sale, as a leasehold property but advertised as 'free of tie', in other words it is a free house in pub terms.  It was once a Courage pub called the One & All, but the landlord changed it as he always wanted to run an Irish pub - so he said at the time!....  A pub which went the other way, converting back from an Irish theme bar two or three years back, is also on the market.  Now named the Clipper Bar, it started to sell real ale when it reverted, although availability is reported to have been sporadic. A free house, it's yours for £400,000.  Fancy a Camborne town centre pub, anyone?......  A familiar old pub on the Penzance-Helston road, the Lion & Lamb at Ashton, is also up for grabs as a £140,000 lease.  One of the many Devenish pubs asset-stripped away from the brewery by the Cannon revolution, it has been acquiring a name for a good selection of real ales of late.... In Devoran, the Old Quay is on the market again.  Owned by a pub chain and therefore limited in what it can buy, it nevertheless has a reputation for a decent pint and food.  Its sale follows after the sad death of the landlord last year...... The under-rated and undervisited (at least by CAMRA members) pub high over the north coast at Towan Cross near Porthtowan, the Victory Inn, is to be disposed of.  One of the precious stock of Cornish free houses, the asking price is £400,000.... Down in Falmouth, a relatively new establishment, the Waterfront Bar, is for sale.  Opened only a couple of years ago, it is as its name implies a seaside town bar rather than a pub, and attracts the younger element with its sometimes lively programme of entertainment.  Real ale is available, albeit a bit on the cold side in Lizard's experience..... The New Inn at Wendron has at last reopened having been taken by local people from the Falmouth area. This free house, which for some time has offered at least three decent real ales, has suffered several landlord changes in recent years, so making only sporadic appearances in the Good Beer Guide. It appears in the new 2005 edition, but the local CAMRA branch have decided to wait and see what happens before possibly removing it through an amendment.  There has been a fairly promising start, though; on the first night it was offering Tribute, Cornish Knocker and Betty Stogs, with a fourth handpump unused but waiting to see what the demand for real ale might be in the coming weeks.... The Mount's Bay Hotel in Mullion apparently suffered a sudden closure recently when, as a result it is thought of confusion caused by its proposed sale, the liquor licence ran out of date. It has been on the market for several months, as has another peninsula pub the Top House at The Lizard itself. They join a seemingly growing list of pubs for sale but apparently refusing to shift..... The well-known venue for jazz, the Smugglers' Inn at St. Erth Praze, is on the market again.  A free house, it underwent recent large scale refurbishment which at one time led to real ale being dispensed from polypins on the bar!  With two bars, a restaurant, function room and letting accommodation, it seems a bargain at £1 million.  Doesn't it?  Perhaps not...... 

Mid-Cornwall

East Cornwall

The Punch Bowl Inn at Lanreath, not far from Looe, is up for sale, the asking price for the lease being £100,000.... And a rush of sales coming up in Liskeard: the Red Lion, a small town centre free house (although a leasehold property) is being advertised at £25,000 for the lease.  In the same town, the White Horse, the Albion and the Fountain are all reportedly being considered for sale, and even the Old Stag by the station is said to be on the list, although these last few are not yet confirmed.  We will update as more information comes to hand... A bit further west, the well-known real ale pub in Lostwithiel the Royal Oak is to be sold, at no less than £1,000,000.  Admittedly this is a large pub by anyone's standards having as it does 6 letting rooms, 2 bars, function room and all the rest of it.  It has over the years proved a staunch supporter of beers from the nearby Keltek Brewery.

North Cornwall

The Old Wainhouse Inn at Wainhouse Corner near Bude is on the market.  A frequent entry in the Good Beer Guide, the asking price for this free house is £700,000.... Also, the King Arthur's Arms at Tintagel has appeared on the lists, and is apparently already under offer....... The Maltsters Arms at Chapel Amble near Wadebridge is being advertised for sale, but is being promoted more as a restaurant than a pub.....

(Sources: CAMRA members, Beer Today, Packet Newspapers, the West Briton and allied publications, pub gossip, Scilly locals and Lizard's beer-stained notebook).  And One & Ale!

Cornish Brewery News

In Stithians, the newly-installed tiny Bathtub Brewery ('nano-brewery' according to its head brewer) has started regular brewing on site.  Some experimental brews have already appeared over the bar in the village pub, and following the success of Pete's Porter a premium bitter called Stithians Special has been developed.  Based on an earlier trial version called Wasted which made its debut at the pub in September, it has been through several iterations (via, recently, a 'Wasted Version 2.2'), to its current incarnation, slightly weaker, at 4.7% abv.

The newly-revivified Wooden Hand Brewery at Grampound Road goes from strength to strength, has added a fourth beer to their portfolio.  Called Cornish Buccaneer,  it is a 4.3% abv brew .  The other three beers produced by ex-Redruth Brewery employees Kevin Frantham and Mel Hill are Cornish Mutiny (4.8%abv, their first brew), Smugglers' Gold, a lighter beer at 3.6%abv that has sold well in spite of limited fine weather; and Black Pearl (4.3%), not a dark beer as its name implies but a best bitter aimed at the likes of Doom Bar and Betty Stogs drinkers.  The brewery's premises, the original Ventonwyn Brewery site, was too cramped for everything that Kev and Mel want to do, so they recently acquired another industrial unit close by where they can store the beer for maturing.

Sharp's Brewery has been going all out recently to expand its operation both within the county and beyond.  Sales have gone up 30% during the autumn quarter of 2004 compared with the same period in 2003, presumably as a result of their new sales team operating all over the south-west, as far up as Swindon  so far.  The brewery has installed 6 new fermenters, and plan to have doubled plant capacity to 100 barrels by this time next year with further work planned for the winter months.

Skinner's Brewery in Truro are now looking to take forward plans to instal two more fermenters in the brewhouse.  This will be the first stage in a move into keg lager to satisfy the demands of the surfing fraternity.  It has made the occasional appearance in cask form as Cornish Storm, but the plant looks likely to handle a keg version of Pennycomequick Stout as well, which may rival Guinness in some of the local pubs.

St. Austell Brewery  are planning to brew Admiral's Ale again after a long period of absence and its successful appearance at Falmouth beer festival; the plan is to sell it in bottled form to be launched before Easter, but with a cask-conditioned draught version available on a seasonal basis, in the summer.  Its strength is 5.0%abv.

The Driftwood Spars Brewery recently stopped dry-hopping its Cuckoo Ale, which has reportedly improved the flavour.  Keltek Brewery continues to be very busy, selling everything it can brew as well as being kept busy bottling the Spingo range for the Blue Anchor in Helston and other brewers in the county and beyond.  Keltek have also initiated a serious expansion on their Lostwithiel site, with new fermenters installed to increase their brewing capacity to a massive 20 barrels from two and a half. Not all of this will be used immediately however, which will allow some capacity for experimental brewing.  Blackawton Brewery in Saltash is continuing production of the beers as before despite being sold to new owners in the autumn.  Last but not least, Doghouse Brewery reported brisk sales of Staffi Stout, competing well with Guinness since the prices of the latter in Cornwall started to reach near rip-off levels.  And - at last - a name has been decided for the long-awaited brew using the new Susan hops.  It is called Snoozy Suzy, and has been generating a strong demand.  Its strength is 4.3%abv.

Pubs Diary

Welcome to our feature, the Cornish Pubs Diary. The idea is that anything to do with the promotion of real ale by our local landlords will warrant an entry here. Events will mostly take the form of beer festivals no doubt, but with a growing fund of experience in this field and their growing popularity, we feel that some central listing is useful - which also helps landlords to avoid clashes! Do let us know of any planned real ale events at your local boozer. For further details of pub festivals, go to our beer festival page.

NB : The Smugglers' Den are laying on bus transport on Saturday 30 April as follows:

Falmouth (outside Argos store): 10.30 (return 19.00)
Truro (King William IV pub):    11.00 (return 18.30)
Newquay (Manor Rd bus station): 12.00 (return 18.00)

Cornish Ale Guide On Sale

This is the definitive guide to real ale in Cornwall - and it is on sale now, with recent updates included.

Members of Cornwall CAMRA spent no less than 12 months researching every one (we hope) of the county's pubs, sampling the ale, and writing about it in order to bring you the most comprehensive guide to date. Every known real ale pub has been listed in standard Good Beer Guide format, and the ones which don't have any also get a mention, so that you don't have to waste time going through the door (and in the hope that they may change their policy in future).  AND we are not standing still.  Research is continuous, so every so often we can bring the listings up to date, even if the cover still looks the same.

Because we are such a large county, the Guide has been divided into 5 geographical areas for convenience - north, east, mid-Cornwall, west, and Scilly. This keeps nearby pubs grouped together in the book and should make it easier to refer to. Street maps are provided for the bigger towns, and all of Cornwall's 13 breweries - including the newest on the Isles of Scilly - are listed with a description of the beers they produce.

Due to the lack of public transport in some areas, willing driving partners and the foot & mouth epidemic (one of our busiest researchers is a ministry vet!), as well as everyone being volunteers with other jobs to do, it took us longer than anticipated to get the thing published. However, the means are now in place to update it easily, and we are now able quickly to produce updated editions from time to time.

Want a copy? Of course you do. It is available by post to UK CAMRA members for £5.00 including the stamp (quote your membership number) or £5.80 to non-CAMRA members. Send cheques (made payable to Cornwall CAMRA) to editor Steve Willmott - see Contacts list for address details. Or we'll take €10.

One & Ale - the Cornwall CAMRA Newsletter

In common with the other branches of CAMRA, the Cornwall branch produces its own hard-copy newsletter, One & Ale. It appears about 5 times a year, at slightly irregular intervals because it may be timed to coincide with the major events such as the local beer festivals. It is aimed both at the branch membership, who are widely scattered around the county and each get a copy through the post, and non-members who may pick it up to read in selected pubs.

One & Ale contains news of breweries, brews and pubs in the county, as well as views and reports of pub crawls and the like written by the branch members. As a free publication, its only source of funding is its advertising income, which is of course to an extent dependent on how interesting the contents are. We are always looking for reports or articles from CAMRA members, and new contributors are especially welcome. Copy should be submitted to Steve Willmott, who is also the Editor and Distribution Manager (see Contacts page). If it is a word processor file and sent on a floppy disk, it's even more welcome!

Some earlier editions of One & Ale On-line can be seen in our archive. Just click on the one you want to see:

January-February 2004 
March-April 2004 
May-June 2004 
July-August 2004 
September-October 2004 
November-December 2004 
January-February 2005 

The views expressed in these pages are of course those of the authors, and not necessarily of CAMRA Ltd or the Cornwall Branch of CAMRA.