It was a case of “beer today, gone tomorrow”, according to organisers of the Falmouth Beer Festival as they surveyed the remains of 12,500 pints of beer and 2,000 pints of cider late on Saturday evening in the Princess Pavilion. The festival, organised by the Cornwall branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA Kernow), saw several records broken in terms of attendance and amount of beer and cider consumed over the Friday and Saturday of 20-21 October.
In spite of backing-up nearly 11,000 pints of 135 different types of beer with double orders to bring the total up to 12,500 pints, most of it was consumed by a record 3,000 happy samplers, with the result that the advertised Sunday opening had to be cancelled. “We didn’t have sufficient variety of beer left to make it worthwhile”, explained Festival Chairman Gerry Wills. “In view of the wet weather and the fact that Sunday is usually our quietest day, we were able to direct the disappointed few who did turn out to the Skinner’s Brewery bar at the Oyster Festival, a suggestion which seemed to satisfy most of them”. Many of the festivalgoers were young people, with Tremough students much in evidence, and some of these were groups celebrating birthdays or stag/hen nights which contributed to a relaxed party atmosphere. “We like to see young people coming here and drinking real ale”, added Mr. Wills. “It shows they have some taste after all, and disproves the story that it is an ‘old man’s drink’ as some would have us believe”.
The
beers were brewed in a variety of styles from small breweries all over the
country, although this year there were separate Cornwall and Devon beer
bars as a symbolic celebration of the linking of the two counties by the
Royal Albert Bridge, I.K. Brunel’s iconic masterpiece over the Tamar.
Brunel would have been 200 years old this year.
In the event, the Devon bar with 20 different ales, and manned by
volunteers from the Exeter branch of CAMRA, was the first to sell out
completely.
In
addition to the beers, October being CAMRA’s National Cider Month,
organisers laid on some 25 different ‘real’ ciders and perries (pear
ciders) to the tune of around 2,000 pints all told, and all made by small
craft producers from around the south of England.
Interestingly enough this also proved a great draw, especially
among the large numbers of younger drinkers at the festival, and itself
went ‘dry’ during the Saturday evening.
“CAMRA promotes ciders as well as ales because as a species real
cider, or ‘scrumpy’ to its many friends, is endangered by the
heavily-advertised mass produced ‘keg’ and bottled versions of the
drink. “The real stuff is
made with whole apples and not apple juice concentrate, and doesn’t have
the dubious additives in it which are known to help cause the drunken
aggression we see on our streets at night”, said CAMRA Kernow Chairman
Rod Davis. “This applies
just as much to cider as to real ale, and the results are obvious at CAMRA
beer festivals, which always have a relaxed party atmosphere in spite of
the numbers of people enjoying a drink”.
Visitor Sarah Newsom, who is a member of CAMRA’s national cider
and perry campaigning group, added, “This line-up of cider and perry is
impressive – it would hold its own at one of CAMRA’s national
festivals”.
One
surprise came in the results of the blind tasting of all the beers on
offer, in which Cornish ales performed very well, walking off with several
awards. Overall Champion Beer
of the Festival was Pete’s Porter, brewed at the tiny Bathtub Brewery
behind the Seven Stars Inn in Stithians by head brewer Peter Martin.
It was also named Cornish Beer of the Festival, and takes the Pat
Skinner Cup which is awarded each year to the best Cornish ale at the
Falmouth festival. The cup was presented to CAMRA Kernow by another local
brewer, Steve Skinner of Skinner’s Brewery in Truro, in honour of his
mum who also attended the event on the Friday.
The
festival always supports a local charity, which this year was the Cornwall
Blind Association who collected an impressive £900 as a result of the
generosity of the festivalgoers.
STUNNING WIN BY CORNWALL'S SMALLEST BREWERY
Brewer
Pete Martin of the tiny Bathtub Brewery in Stithians confessed to the
Chairman of the Cornwall branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA Kernow)
that “I will probably piss myself” if he should win any awards at the blind
tasting of 135 beers at Falmouth Beer Festival last weekend.
In
the event, he didn’t need to rush off and change his trousers, despite his
dark brew Pete’s Porter being given the accolade of Champion Beer of the
Festival, much to the surprise and delight of the crowd who were present to
hear the results being announced. “I’m
walking on air,” said the euphoric Pete after the declaration of the
winning beers in the competition, before adding, “make sure I catch the
last bus home”.
The
brewery itself is Cornwall’s smallest, being tucked into a shed at the
Seven Stars Inn in Stithians. Not
much bigger than a home-brew plant, it is only capable of brewing 50 litres
(88 pints) at a time, which is just enough to fill the familiar standard
beer cask or firkin of 72 pints capacity.
Pete insists that his operation is too small to be called even a
micro-brewery. “More of a
nano-brewery”, he says. One
can see why, when by comparison St. Austell
Brewery produces the equivalent
of 600 firkins of real ale in a single brew-up.
The winning porter was brewed in early September and allowed to
mature quietly in its cask for 6 weeks before being racked up at the
(Above): Pete Martin's delight on hearing the news from branch Chairman Rod Davis (photo: Fran Brennan)
Princess Pavilion, which ensured it was on top form for the competition.
Pete’s other standard brew, Stithians Gold, also came close to an
award in the ‘golden ales’ section of the competition, being voted into
fourth place behind three of Skinner’s classic beers of the same style.
“Now
I’ll have to get brewing again”, added Pete, who as a sculptor spends
much of his time in his workshop at Four Lanes hewing stone into artistic
shapes to order. With less
than seven weeks to go before the winter beer festival at the pub in
Stithians, he needs to move fast to produce the same superb brew by then.
CORNISH
BEERS WIN AWARDS AT BEER FESTIVAL
Blind
tastings at the CAMRA beer festival at Falmouth’s Princess Pavilion came
up with good results for Cornish ales in a field of some 135 different
brews. In the event, the locals walked away with 5 gold awards out
of the six on offer for the various styles of beer, as well as taking
trophies as overall Champions of the Festival.
The Cornwall branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA Kernow), which organised the festival, invited landlord Brian Bazeley of the Ring O’Bells Inn, St. Columb Major to bring a team of independent tasters to the festival on the Friday morning to work through all of the beers, awarding points for such qualities as appearance, aroma, condition, taste and aftertaste. The beers were classified into six different groups according to style: ‘session’ beers of low alcoholic strength, best bitters, strong ales, golden ales, dark beers (such as milds, stouts and porters), and so-called speciality beers which often contain spices or may be made with wheat instead of the normal barley malt. The tasting panel had no idea which beers they were sampling, and were not even allowed to see the barrels before they started their work in a separate room.
Once
they had chosen the six winning ‘best of class’, they set about trying
to decide the overall champion from these six, and to everyone’s
surprise – not least that of the brewer himself, Peter Martin – the
Champion Beer of the Festival was declared to be Pete’s Porter, a dark
and sweetish brew made in the tiny brewhouse of the Bathtub Brewery in
Stithians, at the back of the Seven Stars Inn.
“It was”, said one of the tasting panel after the marathon
tasting session, “one of the few dark beers of the sixteen we tried that
had a good balance of tastes, being neither too hoppy nor too sweet, and
with the right amount of ‘body’.
A superb brew”. As
well as being declared Champion Beer of the Festival, Pete’s Porter was
also winner of the Pat Skinner Trophy as Champion Cornish Beer, having
seen off rival beers from bigger and well-established local competitors
St. Austell, Skinner’s and Sharp’s breweries.
The
full results were:
Champion Beer of the Festival: Bathtub Pete’s Porter
(runners-up: St. Austell
HSD,
Skinner’s Ginger Tosser)
Champion
Cornish Beer: Bathtub Pete’s Porter
Best
of class winners:
Session Beers: Gold – Skinner’s Ginger Tosser
(runners-up: Great Orme Orme’s
Best, Bryn Golau)
Best Bitters: Gold – St. Austell Tribute
(runners-up: Great Orme Extravaganza
Ale, Teignworthy Spring Tide)
Strong Ales: Gold – St. Austell HSD
(runners-up: Wooden Hand Cornish Mutiny,
Barum Firing Squad)
Golden
Ales: Gold – Skinner’s Green Hop (runners-up: Skinner’s Cornish
Knocker, Skinner’s Spriggan Ale)
Dark Beers: Gold – Bathtub Pete’s Porter
(runners-up: Skinner’s
Pennycomequick, Vale Black Beauty)
Speciality Beers: Gold – Harviestoun Schiehallion
(runners-up: Hanby Golden Honey,
Skinner’s Cornish Blonde)
RING
O'BELLS BREWERY SABOTAGED
Staff
were shocked to find when they turned up for work at the Ring O'Bells
Brewery in Launceston on 6 September that intruders had entered during the
night and wrecked the place.
Severe damage was caused by the
brewery's fork lift truck being driven hard into the kettle, penetrating
the skin and punching a large hole through which all the contents
escaped. Meanwhile, hatches on the 7 conditioning tanks had been
opened to allow the resting beer to flood the floors, and a container of
diesel fuel had been thrown into the fermenter to ensure the brew that was
bubbling therein was completely destroyed. The head brewer and
former brewery proprietor, Adrian Carter, had apparently burst in on the
intruders and been attacked, being left unconscious on the floor. He
was taken to Derriford hospital in Plymouth, where his condition was said
to be comfortable.
This is not the first time that Ring O'Bells has been hit by mysterious attacks since it first opened in 1998. A break-in was apparently aimed at stealing the company computers, which held all the recipes, sales information and accounts. This was followed by a ram-raid in which property and vehicles were badly damaged.
Police questioned a 21-year old man about the September attack, and he was bailed to appear in court towards the end of October.
Keltek, which moved earlier this year to Cardrew industrial estate near Redruth, has apparently agreed to do this, and the first of the 'new' ales Dreckly is now appearing in local pubs. Interestingly, the name Ring O'Bells has now disappeared from the scene, to be replaced by the somewhat virtual 'Carn Brea Brewery' presumably in homage to the famous local landmark overlooking Redruth. The image on the resulting pumpclip (pictured left) is the same as before, though: see the original below it for comparison. This odd rebranding follows the recent habit of Jolly's of producing a range of experimental and seasonal brews in Launceston under a variety of brewery names, including Grey's, Lanson and Duchy, as well as retaining the real Ring O'Bells title to cover the original beer portfolio of Adrian Carter - Dreckly, Bodmin Boar, Porker's Pride, Surf Boar and the other piggy-themed brews he made famous in the county.
So far the new Dreckly has not had a joyous welcome back, as it is now a very dark, almost black, unremarkable beer, whereas the original was a deep copper-coloured bitter, and fans of the original who have tried it report that it is now a quite different brew and 'not as nice as it was'. Obviously there is more than a change of local water at play here.
An ambitious plan for holding a beer festival in the south-eastern corner of Cornwall was carried through by a CAMRA member and friends in the Cawsand area of the Rame Peninsula.
Dubbed the 'Forgotten Corner Beer Festival', it marked a radical departure from the format known and loved by followers of single-venue CAMRA festivals such as the ones at Falmouth and St. Ives, in that this one wwas spread around a number of small pubs in the area as well as at the main event on Maker Heights. The final plan included about 18 pubs, taking in Kingsand and Cawsand, Cremyll, Polbathic, St John and other villages in the area, as well as two or three near the Cremyll ferry on the Plymouth side for good measure. Two of the pubs do not normally sell real ale but
agreed to do
so during the event, which might encourage some of them to keep
selling it afterwards as well. The location of
Maker and the pubs gave an obvious transport problem of course, but this
was taken care of by the organisers who funded free buses to
transport people between the pubs, as well as an extra 2 late ferries back
to Plymouth (the last one normally leaves at 1800).
The festival was held over the weekend 22-24 September. Proceeds from the initiative
went towards the local charity, the Rame
Conservation Trust.
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.