Pete's Porter is the pride of Cornwall

l Members of the Cornwall branch of CAMRA congratulate winning festival brewer Peter Martin (centre, left). Picture: Fran Brennan

October 24, 2006: Sculptor Peter Martin could surely carve out a new career as a full-time brewer following his sensational win at Cornwall CAMRA's Falmouth beer festival.

Based at the back of Phil Preen's Seven Stars pub, in the village of Stithians, Cornwall, Peter describes his small and occasionally operational plant as not so much a microbrewery as a nano-brewery.

A few times a year - for instance, when the Seven Stars' own annual beer festival comes around, or to coincide with the huge Stithians Show in summer - Pete brews up a few gallons of two or three beers, which always gets a welcome reception from local drinkers.

But this time he has really surpassed himself, beating off West Country 'big boys' like St Austell, Sharp's and Skinner's to take top prize in Falmouth, following an exhaustive blind tasting of around 100 beers.

The winning brew was Pete's Porter (5.2%), a delicious dark beer, for which he won the Pat Skinner cup, donated by the managing director of last year's champion brewery, Steve Skinner, in honour of his mother, who also attended the prize-giving.

As usual the Falmouth festival was a huge success, selling out after two full days with an optimistic third day session of three hours lunchtime drinking again having to be called off.

"We didn't have sufficient variety of beer left to make it worthwhile," explained festival chairman Gerry Wills. "In view of the wet weather and the fact that Sunday is usually our quietest day, we were able to direct the disappointed few who did turn out to the Skinner's Brewery bar at the Oyster Festival - a suggestion which seemed to satisfy most of them."

Many of the festival-goers were young people, with local university students much in evidence, and some of these were groups celebrating birthdays or stag/hen nights which contributed to a relaxed party atmosphere.

"We like to see young people coming here and drinking real ale," added Gerry. "It shows they have some taste after all, and disproves the story that it is an 'old man's drink' as some would have us believe."

As usual, the beers came from all over the UK, but this year there was rivalry for the usual Cornwall-only bar in the form of one featuring just Devon brews. Manned by volunteers from the Exeter branch of CAMRA, the latter was the first bar to sell out. The bars followed the theme of the festival marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whose iconic bridge links the two counties and was the festival's emblem.

The festival was also a big hit in terms of cider and perry consumption - there were some 25 different varieties - totalling around 2,000 pints all told - made by small craft producers from around the south of England.

A successful festival means a big boost for its adopted charity, too - this year the Cornwall Blind association collected £900.