Champion brewers honoured in Plymouth

l Bill Barnes (centre), chairman of Plymouth CAMRA, presents awards to St Austell director of brewing Roger Ryman (left) and Princetown head brewer and managing director Simon Loveless

December 16, 2006: Two West Country brewers have joined forces to celebrate winning joint Champion Beer at the Plymouth Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Beer Festival earlier this year.

St Austell Brewery and Princetown Brewery shared the honours at the event, which has a reputation as one of the South West’s premier beer festivals. The joint champion beers of the festival were St Austell’s Proper Job IPA and Princetown Jail Ale.

WINNING BREWS

Proper Job, at 5.5% ABV, is an authentic IPA brewed with lashings of hops, Cornish spring water and 100% Cornish grown malt. It was originally launched to great acclaim as St Austell Brewery’s summer seasonal ale and is available in bottles. Jail Ale is brewed in the heart of Dartmoor and the brewery is famous as being the England’s highest brewery. The beer is 4.8% ABV, well rounded with a sweet ‘moreish’ aftertaste.

St Austell Brewery’s director of brewing Roger Ryman and Princetown head brewer and managing director Simon Loveless met up in Plymouth, where Bill Barnes, chairman of Plymouth CAMRA, presented them with their awards.

Roger, recently voted brewer of the year by the British Guild of Beer Writers, said: “The Plymouth Beer Festival is always a great event, with a very knowledgeable crowd, and we were delighted to win the award. It’s great to meet up with Simon from Princetown for the presentation."

Simon, from Princetown Brewery, which recently opened a new purpose built brew house in Princetown, added: “Winning the champion beer accolade is fantastic for us as a microbrewer based in Devon. Jail Ale is now more readily available throughout the county so hopefully more people will get the chance to enjoy it.”

Bill Barnes said: “Despite taking place at the height of the World Cup, the beer festival was as popular as ever. We had 148 beers available from all over the UK so we are particularly pleased that two local brewers shared our champion beer award.

“It is a real pleasure to get Roger and Simon together in Plymouth and present them with some early Christmas presents.”

The Plymouth Beer Festival took place during the summer over two days at the end of June and early July and the awards were presented at the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth’s Barbican.