Sharp's named best brewery in UK

October 16, 2007: Cornish brewery Sharp’s has been named the best in the UK in the Good Pub Guide 2008.

The brewery, based in Rock, North Cornwall, was commended for the quality of its cask-conditioned beers and outstanding customer service.

Now in its 26th year, the Good Pub Guide is a totally independent guide, based on recommendations from the public. Sharp’s beer is available at many of the pubs featured in this year’s publication. Public recommendation was particularly strong for its 4% Doom Bar session bitter.

Sharp's director Joe Keohane said: “This is a great coup for brewing in the South West. We are the first brewery in the region to win this prestigious award and it follows on from Doom Bar’s great win at the Great British Beer Festival last year.”

Sharp's produces a range of other beers, including Eden Ale, Atlantic IPA and Chalky’s Bite.

Chef and restaurateur Rick Stein, based at nearby Padstow, said: “I'm very happy that Sharp's have won the award. It's richly deserved, in my opinion. The beer they make for us, Chalky's Bite, is a remarkably subtle and complex beer”.

Joint editor of the guide, Fiona Stapley, remembers trying her first pint of Doom Bar at the Crown Inn, Lanlivery, in 1994, where she saw a delivery van dropping off a cask of an unknown beer.

She recalls: “We tried it and we liked it. It turned out to be from a Cornish brewery which had just started, called Sharp’s. Now Sharp’s beers are widely available right across the south of England.

"We have thousands of readers write to us every month, and in the South West and the South, Doom Bar is mentioned very regularly.”

Gerry Wills, deputy chairman of Cornwall's Campaign for Real Ale branch, CAMRA Kernow, said: “We’re pleased that Sharp’s has been recognised on a National level. It just goes to show that brewing in Cornwall is thriving”.

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