DIGITAL CAMRA
The On-line version of the Cornwall CAMRA Branch Newsletter ONE & ALE 
Spring 2008

News Headlines

Cornish Beers Shine Through at Maltings

Cornish brews fared well in a competition to find the champion beers of the 16th SIBA (South west) beer festival at Tucker's Maltings in Newton Abbot.

Beating a field of some 270 real ales to the title of Champion Beer was Skinner's flagship brew Cornish Knocker, which also came top of its class in the best bitter heats.  Not only that:  Keltek's 4K mild won a gold award as best of the mild ales with St Austell runner-up, winning a silver with their Black Prince.  A silver, too, for St Austell's Proper Job as runner-up to Knocker.  A third gold award went to Sharp's Brewery for Atlantic IPA in the Premium Bitter group, and yet another silver goes to Coastal for Golden Sands, a strong ale (over 5.6%abv) which was just pipped by Moor Beer's JJJ weighing in at a hefty 9.0%!  A seventh Cornish brew also carries away a prize : Organic Brewhouse's Charlie's Pride Lager also gained silver in the Speciality Beers class.  Finally. the bottled version of Proper Job, which at 5.5%abv is significantly stronger than its draught counterpart, won a bronze in the bottled section.

  “We were basically competing against all the brewers in the South West, so to be judged Overall Champion is a tremendous accolade,” declared Skinners Brewery managing director Steve Skinner.   “We have a fantastic brewing team and this reflects enormous credit on them and the quality of Cornish barley.  It demonstrates our continuing commitment to the highest quality, despite raw material prices doubling and even trebling in recent months.  We have shown we will not compromise on quality.  We will carry on brewing the best beer we can with the best quality raw materials.”

  Skinners was previous regional Overall Champion in 1998, also with Cornish Knocker, and a year later with Betty Stogs.  Mr Skinner added:  “The achievement is all the more notable for the beers having been blind-tasted by trained tasters.”

  The full results can be found of this year's Maltings competition can be found on the SIBA Southwest website.

What A Star!

The Cornwall branch of CAMRA have just announced their 2008 Pub of the Year. For the second year running it is the Star Inn at Crowlas, near Penzance, which tops a list of 8 finalists spread all over Cornwall. Branch Chairman Rod Davis said: “As ever, it was a difficult task choosing the best pub out of what has been a very strong field of runners, but we think the result is well-deserved”.  A team of inspectors – ‘mystery drinkers’ - had to go to each of the eight in turn, judging such things as the quality of the real ale (which must have been consistently top quality throughout the past 12 months), as well as other things such as the pub’s atmosphere, the interiorstyle and décor and whether they seem appropriate and sympathetic to the building. The quality of the service and the welcome given to customers are important, as is the mix of clientele to be found at the bar – do both sexes and all age groups feel comfortable in there, for instance? Finally, general sympathy with the overall aims of CAMRA obviously counts, as does value for money (not just price, but whether you feel the experience was worth what you eventually spent there). On all these counts, landlord Peter Elvin has an impeccable record.  A native Scillonian, he came to the mainland many years ago and among other things spent a while as brewer at Somerset’s Cotleigh Brewery before taking the Star Inn with a view to building his own brewery there, a project which is near completion and should see the first brew emerging ‘dreckly’, according to Peter.  Eloquent as ever, Peter on hearing he had won the award for the second time in a row, commented "I'm surprised".  The award is likely to be presented to Peter during May.

The Star now goes forward to the south west regional competition, with a chance of further progress towards the coveted title of National Pub of the Year.  The last Cornish pub to gain that accolade was the Blisland Inn in 2001, also one of this year's finalists. ST IVES BEER FESTIVAL Concert hall, St Ives Friday - Saturday 30-31 May 2008

Cornish Pub News

Among noteworthy changes on the Cornish pub scene of late, some Good Beer Guide 'regulars' have been disposed of.  After about a year on the market, the Pirate Inn in Penzance is planned to change hands on the 5 May.  As reported in the previous edition of this page, the lease has been on the market for some time and landlords Paul & Erica Hornsby, who want to go into 'semi-retirement', have been frustrated several times by sales which fell through at a late stage.  The situation has not been helped by Paul being taken ill recently; now well on the road to recovery he and Erica will no doubt be mightily relieved to find time to relax.  They got this Enterprise Inns establishment into the Good Beer Guide several years ago, offering - despite 'approved beer' lists in usual pub chain fashion - an imaginative selection of beers (including usually an offering from Ales of Scilly).  Still in Penzance, it seems the Alexandra Inn, another one-time GBG regular and one of Cornwall's diminishing stock of free houses, is apparently doomed to close.  On a valuable site for development, it seems the deal is to sell it for demolition so that residential property can be erected on the area of land provided the developer finds - or erects - a similar pub facility somewhere else in the town.  We shall see!  At any rate, it looks as if such a development will be quite a while yet anyway.  We hear that landlord Paul Gooding is having the whole place refurbished, re-painted outside and redecorated inside. The next thing, he says, will be new carpet for the back bar.  He won't be able to have a beer festival this year but is thinking of starting again next year.

Meanwhile, Cornwall's stock of free houses continues to diminish as the pubcos and breweries slowly absorb them into their estates - usually reducing the choice of beers available for their locals as they do so.  The latest to come to our attention is the Old Success Inn at Sennen Cove, acquired by St Austell Brewery who took over in mid-April.

The numbers of pubs on the market remains high in the county, still at approaching 50 or so.  Not so long ago you might have expected to see perhaps half that number advertised in Cornwall, but this rapid rise has even affected some old-established CAMRA favourites including some that have been in the Good Beer Guide for years.  Whether this is coincidental or whether the recent smoking ban is worrying some landlords to the point of retirement is not clear, although quite a few of the pubs for sale have smoking licensees or seem dependent on a high number of regulars who partake of the weed while having a pint, so there would on the face of it seem to be some link between the change in law and number of sales.  The number of pubs is too great to go into detail for each of them; the main selling agents are Miller Commercial and Scott Burridge Chick if you want to see the full listings.