Beer: ‘Cornwall is now en vogue’

Cornwall’s newest brewery opened last week. The Harbour Brewing Company, based in Bodmin, joins a crowded market: England’s most westerly county may once have been regarded as something of a good beer desert, but times have changed. There are now more than 20 breweries in the county, and a handful of them are known nationwide. Harbour, whose stated desire to “create contemporary beers that deliver an uncompromising taste” betrays an understandable admiration for the American craft brewing scene, will hope to join them. They’ve every chance: new breweries with fresh ideas are quite the things these days.

But you don’t have to be barely out of nappies, at least in brewing terms, to have interesting ideas. Partisans of Cornwall’s oldest brewery – St Austell, founded when India Pale Ale was in the first flush of youth, in 1851 – would tell you that. Certainly head brewer Roger Ryman (above) would bristle at the idea that he was lacking, somehow, in terms of brewing bravado. And rightly so: St Austell may be one of Britain’s family brewers, but they’re far from typical. On the Cornish coast, tradition and modernity sit side by side.

That they do so owes much to Ryman, who, at the age of 32, became St Austell’s head brewer back in 1999. At that time the brewery was not much to write home about. “When I went in, it was such a huge opportunity,” he says. “It was a solid family firm – [but] on the beer side, it had not done any great shakes. The desire was there [to change], which was why I was brought in. It’s been a real journey for me. We’ve boosted our sales by nearly five times – and we’ve introduced a new generation of beers.

“I’ve used the brewery as a vehicle for my vision. When I arrived, there were no rules. The first day, it was ‘the brewery’s over there, if you wouldn’t mind brewing some beer that would nice.’ I know a lot of other brewers working for family brewers and they are told ‘you must not change this or that cherished product.’ I didn’t have that, they wanted change. I did what I thought was appropriate.”

One of the “new generation” of beers – Proper Job, an IPA – demonstrates Ryman’s open-mindedness. It is satisfyingly bitter – like an American IPA – but balanced in the best British tradition. “We buy a lot of hops from the north-west of the USA,” he says. “That was the origin of Proper Job – a lot of British IPAs of 10 years ago maybe weren’t quite up to where they should be. I’ve got a good friend who is the Brewmaster at BridgePort Brewing [in Portland, Oregon] and I’ve been out there a number of times. After a trip out there, I decided it was time to brew a ‘Proper Job’ IPA.”

Drinkers can now get their hands on Proper Black (a Black IPA), Proper Cool (a keg beer), and from this summer, Big Job, an imperial IPA (“Jeremy in marketing doesn’t like that name!” admits Ryman), which will be strictly limited edition and available in 75cl Champagne-style bottles. And his expansive approach does not begin and end with hoppy beers: there’s Korev, a Helles-style lager (it sounds vaguely Czech, but Korev means beer in Cornish), Admiral’s Ale (which demonstrates the high quality of Cornish malt), and Clouded Yellow, a wheat beer flavoured with cloves and coriander.

And then there’s Tribute, a classic session ale. It was the first beer Ryman produced for St Austell back in 1999, and understandably has a special place in his heart. “On cask, Tribute has to be the beer I’m most proud of, that I feel most connected to,” he says. “That beer has been the engine room of everything we’ve achieved, without it nothing else would have happened.

“It was originally called ‘Daylight Robbery’: the brewery wanted to produce a seasonal beer, and this was at the time of the solar eclipse. It was a bit of a pun, too, a bit of a joke because Cornwall was getting a ribbing because hotel prices were escalating at the time. To see it be a success like it has -you have to be pretty pleased. The recipe hasn’t changed that much.”

Tribute is one of perhaps two Cornish beers known around the UK; the other is Doom Bar, produced by local rivals Sharp’s, whose reputation has grown and grown since it was founded in 1994. Not that Ryman necessarily sees it as a rivalry; he welcomes the growth in Cornish brewers. “The scene down here has been transformed,” he says. “I’m often asked what I think about Skinner’s [another Cornish brewer] and Sharp’s – well, they’re the best thing that’s ever happened to our brewery.

“For two reasons: historically, if you go back to the 1980s, Cornwall was neatly divided up into St Austell and Devenish pubs. What that didn’t breed was competition. Competition breeds excellence. It was only when Sharp’s came onto the scene that the directors at St Austell sat up and said ‘hey, if we’re going to play this game we’d better so it properly.’ There was a determination to take the brewery forward.”

What all three benefit from (as do smaller operations like Driftwood, whose Alfie’s Revenge was recently named Camra’s Champion Winter Beer of Britain) is being in Cornwall. The county has perhaps never been held in such high affection, and this fond feeling can only help Cornish beer makers. “It has to help, being in Cornwall,” says Ryman. “Although historically it was a bit of a challenge – we had huge seasonal variations: we were always busy in the summer time and January, we’d brew once a week – Cornwall is now very much en vogue.

“There’s a whole scene in Cornish beer at the moment: it’s amazing, because historically Cornwall was never reckoned. You have to be careful: 10 or 15 years ago there were Irish pubs everywhere – Guinness marketing was all about Ireland. They’ve moved away from that now as it’s no longer the thing. When did you last see a pint of Caffrey’s? We’d be fools to believe that Cornwall will always be fashionable. The integrity of our beers is essential.”

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