Guest Blog: Padstow Brewing Company

Back in February, we had the pleasure of meeting Simon and George from the Padstow Brewing Co. at Brew:LDN beer festival in Shoreditch. They introduced us to their great Cornish beers and we were able to welcome Brewer George to the brewery for a tour just before the lockdown. We sell some of their beers already in our British Bottle and can range including Padstow Pride and The Smoke oatmeal stout and have added their Padstow IPA bottles to our Local Home Delivery service too.

We are delighted to have Simon give us an overview of their business and recent successes.

Fortunately, some things haven’t changed in the world, and living and working in Cornwall we are forever reminded of how lucky we are to be in such a beautiful part of the world.

We had a wonderfully exciting start to the year, with a planned expansion and a great trip up to London for BrwLdn and where we got to know the lovely guys from Hogs Back Brewery.

Back in early March (remember March?!) which feels like an awfully long time ago now, George (our brewer) and I took a trip up to Liverpool for SIBA’s BeerX. We had two objectives in mind for the trip – to scout out possible options for expansion at the brewery, and to enter some beers into the National SIBA keg competition. We had a fantastic time (although the planned expansion will have to wait), and were lucky enough to bring home two National Awards, one for Sundowner 2.0 in the National Imperial Keg category (it’s a big punchy 6.8% NEIPA) and the other for Padstow Pilot, which brought home the best dark cask beer (it’s a 4% cornish porter, and one of our favourite beers). It was hugely rewarding to win awards for a traditional cask beer and a modern NEIPA – both styles are close to our hearts.

We had a great night and enjoyed a few too many celebratory beers with Bob and the guys from Dog Falls Brewing up in Scotland. I felt somewhat delicate on the long journey back! George obviously felt a lot better than me, as he hightailed it up to Surrey the following day and managed to fit in a tour of Hogs Back’s great brewery.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and the expected lockdown was all too real. Sobering times for all us in the brewing industry and beyond. Our thoughts are constantly with all those who have been affected by recent events, both financially, and more tragically.

But we never saw a choice but to carry on and try to make the best of the situation. Caron and Des, the owners and founders of PBC stepped up to the plate, despatched us all into the weird world of the furlough, and set about manning our increasingly busy online shop – and only source of income.

We are hugely grateful to everyone who has bought beer from us, recommended us to their friends and continued to support us with emails and messages throughout this difficult time. George and I soon came back to work to help manage the orders and package up some new beers which had been patiently waiting for us.

Sundowner 3.0 – the NEIPA follow up to the sold out, champion beer Sundowner 2.0, and the freshest and best iteration of our 2.8% Shallow End series – packing hop flavour into the perfect session abv – are now available on our online store.

Fast forward to June, and while the future doesn’t look any more certain, we are continuing to adapt to the present. We are installing a new 1BBL pilot plant so look out for new, exciting, genuinely small batch beers in the coming weeks! But don’t worry – we will be doing out utmost to keep all your favourite Padstow beers in stock – we still love a well-conditioned pint!

Thank you to Hogs Back for the invite to their blog and to everyone who has bought our beers from them.

Simon, GM, Padstow Brewing Co.