Skinner's take inaugural Herefordshire crown

July 4, 2005: Skinner's Brewery has claimed the champion beer title at an inaugural Herefordshire event.

Davy Jones Knocker (5%), the new summer ale, topped the poll at the first CAMRA Beer and Cider Festival to be held in Herefordshire.

It was voted best out of 72 beers, the latest in a growing list of festival successes for Skinner's, which was the first brewery to win supreme champion for two years running at the prestigious Tucker’s Maltings Beer Festival in Newton Abbot.

Since opening in 1997, it has won more awards than any other West Country brewery. These have also included first prize at the National Hop Association’s Beauty of Hops Awards and national reserve champion ale of Great Britain for the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA).

For the Herefordshire festival, held in a riverside marquee next to Hereford Rowing Club, more than 1,500 people drank some 6,000 pints of beer, cider and perry over three days.

The 5% Davy Jones Knocker was officially launched at last month’s Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival. Five per cent of each pint sold throughout the summer is being donated to RNLI Crew and Beach Lifeguard training.

l The Cornwall Surf Team is set to compete in an international tournament in Spain this month thanks to a sponsorship deal with Skinner's new Cornish Storm lager.

The team won the 2003 surf championship in the Inter-Celtic Water Sports Festival in Brittany, but could not defend their title in Galicia, Spain, last year because of failure to attract a sponsor. Now they will fly the Cornish Storm flag at Gijon in northern Spain during this year’s festival from July 24 to 31.

l Bound for Spain: pictured with brewer Steve Skinner (centre) are Cornwall surfers (left to right) Chris Thompson, Minnow Green. Dom Kent and Adam Griffith.

If they win, they will be able to defend the title on home territory next year, when the festival’s surfing championship will be held at Perranporth. This event – the first to be staged in Cornwall since Bude in 1998, when the Princess Royal was among its visitors – is sure to attract thousands of spectators and Skinners are hoping to be involved in that as well.

“For the moment we are just over the moon at being able to go to Spain for this year’s championship,” said Cornwall surf team manager Minnow Green. “It is notoriously difficult to get sponsorship for participation in overseas events, and so we are absolutely delighted that Cornish Storm has come to our rescue.”

The Cornish Storm sponsorship will cover all travel costs. The team will compete against the Isle of Man, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, the Basque, Asturias and Galicia regions of Spain, north Portugal and the Canary Islands.

“We are absolutely delighted to be able to support the Cornish team in this way,” said Skinner's Brewery managing director Steve Skinner. “I have long been an admirer of their achievements and Minnow and I actually go back a long way, as good friends and former surfing rivals.”

The brewery’s support for the Cornwall team is its biggest-ever sponsorship deal for surfing and the first big sponsorship linked to the new Cornish Storm lager. It is Cornwall’s first home-brewed lager since the disappearance of Newquay Steam some 15 years ago.